Hi All
Anyone using Omnisphere 2. I read quite a few positive reviews on it and was thinking of maybe buying it. I gather it's used quite a lot in Cinematic/Games compositions.
Cheers, Colin
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HI Colin, I have Omnisphere 2. It is complex, powerful and expensive. It is well rated and widely used. You can use it in almost any musical application. If you have experience with synthesizers and extra time and money it is a good choice, otherwise I would recommend shopping around since there are cheaper (free even) options out there.
What did you want to use it for?
Hi
I'm just looking for some sonic options for setting traditional Gaelic songs in my Oran nan Selkie composition. The digital content I've been using to date is a bit uninspiring. It's averaging £340 GBP which is ok. I also quite like the idea of mixing synth sounds with orchestral.
Thanks, Colin
Ingo Lee said:
I have never heard of it. I use notion 6, which for me replaced Sibelius 7 student. I had used sibelius since a student and it was time for something more fresh, and new!.
Notion 6 costs £110, so its well worth considering, and the sounds are pretty good. Though that price does not include any additional exotic instruments you wish to buy, or if you wish to buy a superior sound set.
Synthesizers can be programmed to sound like almost anything. Since you are talking about writing a traditional style that uses acoustic instruments my first thought would be to look at some of the many audio libraries that feature 'ethnic' instruments. If you want to venture beyond the many varieties of existing acoustic instruments, then synthesis is a great place to look.
Omnisphere comes with a large library of preset sounds which is what most people use it for. We spend a lot of time shuffling through various bleeps and squeaks to find something we can use. The library has a lot of variety but most of the patches sound 'electronic' in some way.
If you want to explore the actual mechanics of synthesis (it's not that difficult) in order to get exactly the sound you want, I think an application that emphasizes programming, something smaller and simpler than Omnisphere, might be more usable. But Omnisphere is a great piece of software and I do enjoy using it.
Here is a short piece I did for the 'Animals' contest here a while back. The instruments are all Omnisphere and the piece did NOT do well in the contest, but I really can't blame Omnisphere for that!
FlamingoParade.mp3
Nice one, Lee Ingo! As the forum Luddite, I can't get myself into too much of this technology but combining acoustic sounds with the electronic has always fascinated me. But it pays to keep in touch all the same. Always more to learn!
Apologies, Ingo. I addressed your name(s) the wrong way around. By the time I got back from an interruption my 15 minutes edit time was up. Sorry about that.
Incidentally I have an analogue synthesiser that can be patched any way possible. Each module has its control inputs including the envelope triggers. It gets quite a mess with cables stretched across it this way and that. Hence it's a right pain keeping track of what one has done.
Several of my recording enthusiast friends use it. I looked at buying it. For my use I couldn't justify it. If you've ever sat at a synthesizer for hours just going through sounds, this is that multiplied x100. There are some very strange sounds recorded like someone playing a piano while it's on fire. There are also many nice bread and butter sounds. In short....you might spend the rest of this year just going through the libraries. It really is that extensive.
If you don't need to hear all of the sounds and only have certain things in mind you could probably simply pull what you need out of it without getting that involved. I see the huge libraries as a hindrance to productivity because I would probably spend the rest of my life playing with it :) I already have enough of that for eons as it is.
Although maybe unrelated. I second Notion 6 as competition to any other notation program out there. The really special thing about it is it can mesh right into The daw Studio One.
Lots of people own Omnishpere to have access to pretty much any sound imaginable in one program..and they have time to burn. Halion is a nice synth program too. Have you looked at it?
Best service has some really nice libraries for medieval and possibly Gaelic...I can get the exact names of the library I have but I don't have it in front of me.
Thanks Dane, and no problems here with names, I've been in a hurry and done much worse!
Analog modular synths are a great way to understand the basic synth functions and they have become quite popular again lately. If nothing else your analog synth should hold its value well. But there are so many things already pulling us away from actually composing, you just have to draw the line somewhere.
Dane Aubrun said:
I have it and it is pretty huge. There are a lot of sounds and you will probably use only a fraction of it but the way I see it is, the sounds are there if you ever need them.
I don't use a lot of it but I am glad I have it.
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