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MillimeterSpectrasonics Omnisphere Review
Nov 11, 2009 12:00 PM, By Gary Eskow
Sound-design module offers power and relative ease of use.
Among its many virtues and singular strengths, Spectrasonics Omnisphere's crowning asset is its blend of power and ease of use.
Writing an audio review for millimeter presents an interesting challenge. You, the esteemed reader, are either a dedicated audio post professional or a video specialist who has good ears and knows that both your creative palette and billable services will expand if you learn to handle at least some audio chores on your own. Both groups share a love of sound and a sense of what makes a successful marriage between audio and the moving image. Knowledge of composition, sequencing, and keyboard technique, however, vary widely, and the trick for me is to review products that will appeal to all readers who share an interest in audio postproduction, regardless of their position in the industry.
The preceding paragraph is a preamble to a discussion of Omnisphere (MSRP $499), the latest software release from Spectrasonics now in version 1.1. Even the novice sound designer who applies himself to learning Omnisphere will be able to create sound effects and musical cues that perfectly match a wide range of visual images. Among its many virtues and singular strengths, Omnisphere's crowning asset is its blend of power and ease of use. If you've spent years working with hardware and software synthesizers and samplers, you will find yourself spending hours building new sounds from the samples and raw waveforms that ship with Omnisphere. If, on the other hand, you're faced with the challenge to create, say, 12 seconds of original music/sound design to personalize your company's logo and you're armed with nothing more than an intense curiosity and a willingness to roll up your sleeves and experiment, you'll emerge from the process creatively satisfied.
Several years ago, we took a look at Stylus, Trilogy, and Atmosphere, Spectrasonics' initial releases. For many composers, Stylus (Stylus RMX is the current iteration) remains the go-to drum machine module on the market. Trilogy is an outstanding collection of electric and acoustic bass instruments. Both are the brainchildren of Spectrasonics founder Eric Persing. He spent his early days at Roland, where he was heavily involved in the development of the D-50 and other classic synth/sample playback devices. (Atmosphere's roots can be clearly traced to the D-50.) From this through the release of Distorted Reality, a sound effects library that became the de facto exotica sound set in the mid '90s, Persing has shown an ability to tune nonharmonic elements in a way that grounds even the most jarring sounds in a profoundly satisfying manner. Now the Spectrasonics flagship product, Omnisphere builds on the work that went into these earlier designs and takes it into new realms.
A dual-platform software module, Omnisphere ships with 42GB of content, so make sure you've got sufficient acreage on your drive array. Although time-consuming (due to its size), the installation is simple. Check your computer's specs, though. Omnisphere places some heavy demands on a CPU, and Spectrasonics recommends that a Windows machine have at least a 2.4GHz processor (Intel Core2 Duo or higher if possible). My rapidly aging dual-AMD Athlon machine has a 2GHz processor, but I was pleased to discover that it was able to handle all of Omnisphere's functions. Like all of its counterparts, Steinberg Cubase has a Freeze function, and I'm sure that if I were using Omnisphere in conjunction with other plug-ins I'd use Freeze to free up CPU resources.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.