Omnisphere 3, the behemoth of softsynths, is back with a new number 3. But is it magic?
It’s been a whole 10 years since we reviewed the 2nd version of this synth. It was totally groundbreaking back then. The 2.5 update was pretty big, as was the integration with Keyscape, another of Spectrasonics HUGE instruments. It has a reputation as the do-everything synth, the gold industry standard, especially amongst the film and television composer community, with its massive library of presets, extremely deep sound design capabilities, and reliability and stability for those crunch time moments, when you don’t want your system to go down! I love it because it can be both a source of inspiration from picking and tweaking from the immense preset library with excellent filter system but also is intuitive to build from the ground up, and use the macro modulations to create wonderful movement and evolution pretty much instantly. I’ve often considered it the Bentley of softsynths. It’s been around a long long time, it’s smooth, functions perfectly, does pretty much everything, sounds incredible, and costs a lot of money. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this release to see what the boffins at Spectrasonics will come up with.
If you’re not familiar with Omnisphere, where on earth have you been for the last decade? Catch yourself up quick with the Omnisphere review we did a long time back. This will give you an idea of the structure of Spectrasonics. This review will mostly dwell on the new features and updates in version 3.
OMG The Sounds
It is actually just unbelievable how many actual sounds there are now. Firstly, the original libraries got updated sonically – every single one! That’s already a sizable selection of presets. But now, there are an additional 18 brand new libraries! 18! If you can’t find a usable sound out of 18 libraries worth, or 41,405 presets, then I would suggest you need to find a different gig. Just wow.
I really like how the organisation tool, or finder menu has been updated. You can select either by library, or by a global filtration cribbed from Native Instruments, of several different category columns, from user keywords, instrument, type, genre, atmosphere, and so on, that quickly narrows down the 40,000+ presets to a list of sounds you’re looking for. The new libraries cover a vast swathe of genre, useful for both performance and studio duty. I particularly liked the libraries aimed at soundtracking – blends of experimental, organic and electronic sounds that perked my ears up over and over with the innovative and fresh sounds coming out of my speakers. I literally lost a day listening to, and playing with the various presets. Beautiful.
Almost unbelievably, the GB real estate of Omnisphere 3 is no bigger than 2 because of tech updates to their lossless audio algorithm. Incredible.
Global Controls, Macros and Hardware
Global controls is a new addition for version 3. These are smart controls that adjust to the patch, so you can quickly alter the most relevant sonic parameters of each patch. They shape the Tone, Ambience, Filter, Envelope, Vibrato & Unison of each patch, and while the parameters themselves don’t change, they are smart controls in that they adjust and adapt to the patch, so the adjustments make the most sense for that particular preset. So some controls may be unipolar for one patch, and then bi-polar for the next, for example.
This becomes so much more powerful through Spectrasonics exhaustive consideration of hardware controllers, and mapping Omnisphere automatically to almost every available hardware controller on the market today. My absolute first and biggest gripe about software synthesizers isn’t the sound, it’s the playability. Having to use a mouse to adjust the parameters of a preset is a total and utter flow killer, and I’ve dedicated a fair amount of time to trying to automate hardware mapping of synths and effects, to speed up the production process.
What Spectrasonics have done for a while now is map hardware controllers to their software to enable the user to use their hard instruments with Omnisphere out of the box. It is truly seamless, and to indulge in a totally overused phrase – it is a game changer. It makes the production process that much more enjoyable, and keeps me in the flow. Combine the hardware and the global controls, and you can instantly manipulate the sound of every patch in a musical and subtle or dramatic way. Just Brilliant.
Mutations
A definite nod to Brian Clevinger here – I think the renowned Absynth had this feature first. I’ve always loved it, and it’s good to see it in use here. The mutations are saved just like Absynth. The algorithm is different though, fitting Omnisphere’s structure very well indeed. I don’t know how they know what parameters to gauge the mutations on, but they were largely sweetspots.
There are two versions of mutation – default and extreme. Default kept the mutations to a much narrower evolution in terms of instrumentation and timbre. Extreme? All bets are off. The sounds quickly got bonkers. But still very much usable stuff. And it’s cool thinking that your mutations are only yours – no-one else has them! I did find myself wishing for a bit more control over the mutation parameters though – I love the idea of locking the parts of a sound that you like, and just mutating the unlocked parts. Maybe they can include that in an update. Still, a fantastic addition to Omnisphere’s quiver, for sure.
Synthesis
This was the area I always felt that Omnisphere was weakest. If I wanted to create a patch from the ground up, I would approach other synths first every time. I just couldn’t vibe with the way Omnisphere was set up, and felt like it didn’t have as much going for it in that department. With this update, that has been erased. The amount of options in the ‘building from the ground up’ synthesis platform is just brilliant.
Building a sound starts with the ‘Layering’ page. Every sound is a layer of 4. You can choose how many of those layers you want to use, but that’s the basic patch foundation. From there, you can choose from either sample source sounds, or wavetable oscillators. The sample sources can be either sampled raw waveforms, through to multisampled instruments, and on the other side there are over 500 wavetable oscillators to choose from.
The Analog Drift Knob and More Cool Things
I particularly liked the analog drift knob for the analog waveforms, that could add a tiny detune movement to the waveform, creating that rich rich analog sound. From each side, you can zoom in to the source, and add a variety of synthesis techniques to alter the sound further, from FM, Granularization, Unison, freq shift, waveshaping, and Harmonia, amongst others. Harmonia was a new one for me – apparently this is additional oscillators added to the original sound that you can pitch shift, creating huge detuned waves, or, surprise surprise, harmonies.
Raw, Why Not?
Just at this level, Omnisphere feels more competitive with other market leading softsynths, both in terms of amount of choice, and quality of sound. I always felt that other synths just sounded better in their raw osc form. Now, I think Omnisphere stands equal.
There are 12 envelopes, and 8 LFO’s per layer. You can choose from a big list for both, and you have further control over every parameter.
From this foundation, you can modulate to your hearts content. Most of the controls on Omnisphere are potential targets, so you have a matrix of literally thousands of points, from 50+ sources. That’s impressive. And now you can be extremely picky with how you filter the sound you’ve created, with a crazy number of filter types at your disposal (70, with 35 new ones). Again, I feel the quality of the filters has improved, and they are extremely satisfying to listen to, and use.
For me, the biggest improvement made in Omnisphere with this update, is the patch creation sound quality – creating a preset using a more traditional, ‘subtractive’ style synth foundation, just creates really nice sounding patches, in their raw form. I’ve loved U-he’s Diva for this very reason – just creating a sound gives you the gooey ‘warmth’ that vintage analog can. And now, I think Omnisphere delivers in this aspect, also. Except, in Omnisphere’s case, you can add the sound of a literal burning piano, if you want.
Quadzone and MPE
I think this might be my favorite new element of Omnisphere. It’s a very direct way of being able to assign a bunch of layer control to a single macro, like a mod wheel for example. As with everything else in Omnisphere, it starts with the layers – You can assign each layer of your patch to different variables by zoning in the Quadzone control page. You can assign layers by CC (modwheel), by velocity level, by keyboard note assignment. You can cross fade, or fade layers in and out – the keyboard zoning can be super intricate, so you can have a layer pop up on a load of different notes all over the keyboard. You can fade between layers with an LFO, or from a bunch of different sources.
The patch performance flexibility of this page is just phenomenal, enabling some deep sound design. MPE has been included with this update. I don’t (unfortunately) have an MPE controller, but MPE is one of the sources of the quadzone. Being able to utilize that depth of performance from a controller and map it directly to whatever you want in a synth this powerful is pretty exciting. I’ve never wanted an Osmose more in my life!
Effects
35 new effects join the already substantial stable. I was never a big fan of the effects in previous versions, probably mainly because of the UI’s – I always thought they were a bit cheesy looking. And I was never that impressed with the sonics. But there’s a definite improvement, and with this edition, you can now load the FX up as a separate plugin to use on other material than the Omnisphere synth. That’s a good argument for the price point, as you’re getting alot of bang for your buck if you can use this large effects unit anywhere on your project. Also, the effects look a LOT nicer this time around.
Conclusion
The only thing I used to actively dislike about Omnisphere was what I perceived as the cheesiness of the UI. I never liked the look of the rack FX, or the images that accompany the different libraries. Of course that is a highly personal thing, and it does absolutely nothing to diminish the sound quality or flexibility of the machine. But hey, I’m a fickle human, and I found myself reaching for other instruments purely because I preferred looking at them. But now I don’t even have that excuse. It just looks better. Especially the FX rack. But hey.
What matters is the sound that comes out of the machine. And wow Omnisphere truly does somehow take a massive leap forward. It was already good, but it’s exceptional sonically. I know that is very much what’s come to be expected of Spectrasonics – pristine, powerful, flexible, stable, all the superlatives. Omnisphere 3 very much lives up to its name. It does everything very very well, with surprisingly low CPU load. Highly recommended for pretty much anyone producing music involving synths.
Pricing and Availability
Omnisphere 3 costs $499, or $249 as an upgrade from previous versions. More info here.
