You can place them with your usual sound library files if you wish. Please note - The Unfinished libraries contain 'Patches' presets and 'Multis' presets. Please ensure you place the PATCHES into this Patches folder and then go back to the 'Omnisphere' 'Settings Library' window to locate your 'Multis' folder. Omnisphere is among the elite virtual synthesizer programs for producers, composers, and sound designers; and if you think this monster power synth couldnt get any better, youve just been proven wrong. Introducing Omnisphere 2.0, the first v2.0.
In just the past several decades, music production has moved from exclusively analog (magnetic tapes and mechanical devices) to being almost fully reliant upon digital technology (computers). So much music is produced today with the aid of computers that a generation has grown up knowing nothing else. 8-tracks and cassette tapes have been replaced by Pro Tools and hard drives. With computer speed and capacity increasing and size decreasing, musicians are turning from traditional instruments to laptops for convenience, portability, and reproducible sound quality.
A brief history of my musical life
- Omnisphere is very diverse and we are working on a comprehensive page of Audio demos to post simultaneously. For now, you can hear some of the Omnisphere sounds in the video episodes and there are many user Omnisphere audio demos being posted around various forums. You can also check Omnisphere out in person at any authorized Spectrasonics dealer.
- I have omnisphere and yes you can install it on multiple computers, to my knowledge there's no limit on how many different computers you install it on either. I have mine installed on two different computers with no problem.
My family had a console piano that I learned to play on growing up. The “nice” keyboards and synthesizers were not new technology but were still expensive. I had a Yamaha PSR-6 keyboard that opened up an entirely new realm of musical possibilities to me. With onboard rhythms and an assortment of various sounds, I began to write basic 4-chord songs that I thought were pretty good at the time.
I started experimenting seriously with computer-based music production in 1995 when I bought a Sound Blaster AWE32, a sound card for my PC that had several megabytes of onboard samples rather than sounds synthesized by an FM chip. With Cakewalk Professional on Windows 95 I wrote many songs, from basic piano pieces to techno with the emulated TR808 drumkit. I would always be looking for new MIDI files to download from the internet to see how well they sounded on my new Sound Blaster card.
In 2002 I purchased a Korg Triton Studio, a 76-key music production synthesizer. It was by far the best sounding keyboard I had ever owned. The Triton is still a top-notch keyboard today. But I ended up selling it several years later because of the advantages I saw in using software over a hardware solution.
While working for a large tech company in 2004, I purchased my first Mac laptop. It wasn’t until moving to Kansas City in late 2004 that I began to experiment with live production on a laptop. After purchasing Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason in late 2004, I began to use it on stage for my sets for the versatility of its sound and portability of the entire rig (over a massive keyboard).
What do you use on stage for your sets today?
The hardware I am currently using is an Apple MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM and an upgraded 7200 RPM hard drive. I’ve found that the 7200 RPM drive is very helpful in providing faster loading time of samples, especially when I have a lot of sound already playing back. I use a MOTU Ultralite firewire audio interface to connect the Mac to the sound system. I also have a Akai APC40 MIDI controller to control Ableton Live in realtime so I don’t have to use the Mac’s trackpad or a mouse to control instrument parameters.
Software
Ableton Live
I currently use Ableton Live 8 as my main DAW on stage. In addition to being suited specifically for live performance in looping and mixing audio clips, Live can host virtual instruments and has a plethora of effects and presets.
Screenshot of audio tracks and loop setup
Each track is set up to use a specific instrument, and I load all of the instruments I commonly use in sets to be able to access them quickly. I’ll often add tracks or just replace an instrument on a track if I want something different that I haven’t already loaded. I’ll just use the track’s “arm” button to switch between instruments as I’m playing.
As you can see, I have many pre-recorded loops (that I make ahead of time) that I can recall at a moment’s notice depending upon where we go musically in our set. I’ve taken the “one large Live set” approach as opposed to “multiple small sets” simply because I can’t quit Live and load a new set in the middle of a spontaneous musical time.
Check out Ableton’s site for more information, tutorials, and tips for using Live.
Recommended Ableton Live training books and media:
Ableton Live 8 Power!: The Comprehensive Guide
Ableton Live 8 and Suite 8: Create, Produce, Perform
Ableton Essential Instruments Collection 2
An addon specifically bundled and constructed for Live, the EIC2 adds a great sounding, not-so-resource-intensive grand piano sample that I use extensively. I also use some of the EP and organ sounds from EIC2, but a majority of the sounds I use on sets come from the extremely powerful Spectrasonics Omnisphere.
Check out EIC2 here.
Spectrasonics Omnisphere
Although I use more in the studio, Omnisphere is the backbone of the sonic possibilities with my live rig. From traditional pads, strings, and synth instruments to more exotic samples like ethnic instruments and voices. I don’t want to give an entire tutorial of Omnisphere here, but suffice it to say that it’s totally worth the money!
Some of my favorite stock patches that I use live:
Plucking the Piano Harp
Brutal Megalomaniac
Adagio Transparent Strings
Big Green Strings (originally from Atmosphere, Omnisphere’s predecessor)
Glorious Guitars
I also have many many custom made patches that make up my sound collection that I use often. I’ll let you try to figure those out yourself.
Check out Omnisphere here.
Quantum Leap Ra
Quantum Leap Ra is a plugin that provides me with lots of ethnic instruments, from Middle Eastern strings to the Bongos, Bansuri, and Banjo. I’ll use these instruments sparingly so that when I do use them they really add a unique sound to the band.
Find more info on Quantum Leap Ra here.
Propellerhead Reason
I no longer use Reason as part of my live rig, but I figured it was worth mentioning. I used to run Reason rewired to Live, having a MIDI track for each instrument I wanted to play in the Reason rack, and one Audio track set to receive audio from Reason through rewire. The downside of this setup was that I had to map individual faders on my controller to Reason’s mixer, and I couldn’t control the volume of each instrument directly from Live without having a separate audio track for each corresponding MIDI track.
Demo video
Can You Have Omnisphere On 2 Computers Free
Here is a little video I made back in 2010 demonstrating the power of Ableton Live in a worship meeting with only a worship leader and myself.
If the video fails to display, you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2X2JA47dhc
Where can I buy the gear you have?
Laptop:
Apple MacBook Pro
Find the best laptop for you
Audio interface:
MOTU Ultralite
See other audio interfaces
Surface controller:
Akai APC40
See other MIDI controllers
DAW software:
Ableton Live 8
See other DAWs
Can You Have Omnisphere On 2 Computers And 1
Virtual instruments:
Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Quantum Leap RA
See other virtual instruments
More recommended gear
Interfaces
Laptops
Controllers
DAWs
Software
Questions?
I don’t have time to give you lessons on how to use all these programs over email, but I can try to answer any specific questions about my setup you may have. Just contact me.
If you've been blessed by Josh's music or by this page, consider donating to his ministry:
A flagship synthesizer gets updated with an improved arpeggiator and many more profiles for hardware integration.
by Rob Mitchell, May 2019
Omnisphere 2.6 features a new and improved arpeggiator and support for many more hardware synthesizers. Over 1,600 new patches have been added, it has over 500 DSP waveforms and it now includes over 14,000 sounds to choose from. Before I go into any depth on the new features in 2.6, I thought I’d briefly describe some basics of Omnisphere in case you are not familiar with it. Each patch (part) can have up to four layers, effects and a dedicated arp. For each layer, you can select between sample sources or waveforms for standard synthesis with optional unison or the Harmonia feature which multiplies each layer’s oscillator capabilities. The sample sources can also be manipulated with the synthesis features. You can easily copy and paste the settings between the layers. Several filter types are available with serial and parallel settings. There are 48 slots for setting up modulation in the mod matrix section, eight LFOs, twelve envelopes, waveshaping, ring modulation, FM and granular synthesis can further enhance your patches. A huge selection of effects are on board to give your patches just the right edginess or polish that they might need. A Multi is a higher level than the part that can use a combination of patches in different configurations with up to eight parts simultaneously. The re-sizable display makes it a joy to use on any size of monitor.
Omnisphere requires a 2.4 GHz or higher CPU and 8+ GB of RAM. For the PC it requires Windows 7 (or higher OS) 64-bit, and for the Mac you’ll need OS X 10.11 El Capitan (or higher). It works with AU, AAX, VST 2.4 compatible hosts and there is a standalone version.
This review will mainly lean towards what is new for version 2.6. Here is an earlier review we published for version 2.3 which covers some other details: https://soundbytesmag.net/omnisphere23review/
Arpeggiator
With the 2.6 update Spectrasonics has added eight additional pattern modes for the arpeggiator giving it a total of nineteen modes. Those modes include Chord, Up, Down, Up and Down, As Played, Stairs, Join, and many others. Here are three examples of some of the newer modes: The Join mode plays the low note, then the highest note, and continues alternating between notes until they reach each other (hence “join”) with the intervals between the notes closing in towards the middle. The Spread mode is similar to Join, but it works the other way around; alternating low and high, but this time gradually working their way outward (versus inward). The Stairs mode is a rising pattern which rises upward in a similar way to the shape of stairs: two notes upward and then one note down, and it continues that pattern repeatedly.
The three included Trigger modes will determine how and when the arp is restarted. The modes are Legato (the arp pattern continues as long as notes are played legato), Song Position (depends on the host settings) and Note (restarts pattern with each new note played). You can set up to a four octave range, change the speed of the arp, and adjust the length of the events you’ve configured in the arp. Other features include a swing amount control and a velocity slider. The velocity slider controls the balance between the step velocity settings in the pattern and the actual velocity of the keys that are played. To set the time value for the steps, you use the Clock setting. From there you may choose the timing value you’d like, such as 1/1, which would mean each step equals a quarter note, 1/2 equals a half note, and 1/4 is a quarter note, etc. Triplet and dotted settings are also included.
Each pattern can have up to 32 steps. To set the number of the steps, you just drag the small blue bar (below the sequence of numbers) until you have the desired amount. The button above of each step number will turn it on or off, or you can click above the button to set the velocity amount (drag up and down to set) and that will also enable the step. To transpose each step, you just click on the 0 (if you started with a blank arp setting) that’s above whichever step you want change.
When you click right above each step it will bring up a menu where you may select from a number of settings. These can be added per-step, and include Transpose, Slide, Chord voicings (with inversions!) and Hi or Lo. Hi ignores the arp and plays the highest note played for that step, and Lo does the same thing for the lowest note played. The Step Dividers will divide each step into various multiples of themselves (i.e. doubles, triples, etc.) and the velocity amount of each division can be set to rise or fall over time.
The new Capture function will grab the notes that you played along with any arp settings you are using at the same time. You can drag the file it generates to another track in your DAW for use with other synth/sampler plugins you may have. The length of the recording can be set to 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 bars and it automatically starts with the first note you play. It worked perfectly for me when I tried it myself. This is how it looks after I dragged the recorded arp sequence over into my DAW:
Hardware Integration
One of the most exciting features added in version 2.5 was the hardware integration. It allows you to use your hardware synthesizer as a controller to interface with Omnisphere. It isn’t just a MIDI-learn type of setting, as it goes much deeper than that. Each profile is primed and ready to work specifically with that particular synthesizer. You can take the original synth’s sound (or at least a very close likeness of it) to new heights of creativity using the many modulation capabilities and effects available in Omnisphere. I mention a “close likeness” because the way this works depends on how the Spectrasonics programming wizards configured it for each synth. They went into great detail for each of them, and added some new features to make Omnisphere work in much the same way as the hardware.
One such feature that was added in 2.6 is the Bias control. With this addition, it can match the same bias settings that the Roland D-50 synthesizer has. There are eight bias controls per part and you can set them to a certain key (the Bias Point) which affects the other keys above or below it in a linear fashion. It is similar to key tracking, but is more customizable and can be assigned to any of Omnisphere’s available modulation targets. A Left/Right setting lets you pick which side of the keyboard is affected on either side of the Bias point. The range of modulation can also be multiplied by 4 using the 4X button.
Most patches included use more than one layer per patch. Some will use a combination of samples in one layer along with Omnisphere’s powerful synthesis features in another layer. In this latest update, Omnisphere now includes support for over 60 hardware synthesizers and hundreds of new patches.
Here is the synth hardware support list at the time of my review (there may be others in the works).
Even if you don’t have one of those hardware synths, you can still load the patches that were made to integrate with it and access the modeled waveforms and/or samples. For this part of the review I thought I’d cover my experiences while using the Moog Sub Phatty.
It’s very easy to get started. Up at the top of the GUI is a small button labeled HW. Clicking that will give you a menu with a long list of hardware profiles. For my setup, I chose Moog Sub Phatty from that list and it was smooth sailing after that. There are several patches to choose from in Omnisphere (under the category name of SPHAT) that you can tweak or you might want to start from scratch with just basic settings. The controls on the hardware work well with the software and I didn’t run into any issues. Say you want to switch the waveform for the LFO. No problem there. When you change it on the Sub Phatty it switches over to the same waveform in Omnisphere. The same goes for selecting the waveform type for the oscillator, and many others. If you change filter cutoff or the ADSR envelope settings, it automatically bounces you over to the correct display in Omnisphere and changes the corresponding setting.
I noticed that within the Default Sub Phatty patch (first patch when you load the profile) there is a Moog Modular Raw Triangle sample which is used in place of the sub-oscillator in the Sub Phatty. Turning up the sub-oscillator control on the Sub Phatty increases the level for the sample in the layer. The only issue I had with that is the Sub Phatty uses a square waveform for the sub-oscillator, but it still sounds good anyway. Another thing I noticed is that none of the patches in the SPHAT category use the modeled Sub Phatty waveforms in Omnisphere, but around 90% of the patches are using the modeled Moog Modular 4X Shapes wavetable instead. It seems they designed them that way because the regular Sub Phatty modeled waveforms only blend between two different shapes. The Modular 4X type can blend between the same (or at least very similar) waveform shapes that are available on the Sub Phatty, so in that way it is much closer to feel of the original. I know it is supposed to be in the likeness of the hardware and not an emulation of sorts, but I was a little surprised when I found a patch called “Yearning Chips” in the SPHAT category which uses none of the Moog labeled waveforms at all.
When I tried using the preset buttons located over the left side of Sub Phatty, I thought that maybe it would switch to similar sounding patches in Omnisphere, but it didn’t. Then I remembered that there is a part in the setup instructions that mentions for the preset buttons to work you have to assign them with the MIDI Program Change Learn function.
One other thing I wanted to test was using the hidden functions that the Sub Phatty has. The first one I tried was the filter slope setting. The results were a little strange, as I selected (in order) 6dB/octave, 12dB/octave, 18dB/octave and finally the classic Moog 4-pole 24dB/octave setting on the Sub Phatty. This is done by going into what they call Shift mode, and then you press the Bank 2 and Patch 1 buttons at the same time. Then you just press one of the four lowest keys (C, C#, D, D#) to change to one of the different slope settings I mentioned earlier. So what result did I get? When I pressed the low C key it changed to the HPF Power 24dB, C# gave me the Bandpass Power 24dB, the D key switched it to the LPF Power 12dB, and the D# changed it to the LPF Power 24dB. Anyway, C should have been 6dB/octave, C# normally changes it to 12dB/octave, D is for 18dB/octave slope, and D# is for the 4-pole 24dB/octave setting. Long story short, I ended up writing to Spectrasonics support. They promptly wrote me back that same day and told me the hidden functions of the Sub Phatty are not mapped out. I’m glad I reached out to them since it saved me lots of time and frustration. However, the fact that they are not mapped should be documented somewhere.
As for the other sounds that are available, the Roland D-50 patches hold a special place in my heart as I used the actual synth hardware while attending college. They had a D-50 in the music studio along with (among other items) some samplers, drum machines, many microphones and cords, a mixing console, patch bay and an Atari 1040ST. When I first heard the D-50 I was amazed by its sound and wanted to use it for nearly everything. The patches in the Omnisphere 2.6 update are very close to the original sounds you may remember from way back when, that is, if you’ve ever heard the real deal. Even if you didn’t use the D-50 yourself, it has been used in many movie and TV soundtracks, and major artists have featured it on their albums. It was definitely one popular synth, that’s for sure! Don’t get me wrong, there are many great patches from other synths included as well. I found myself returning to the Alesis Andromeda, Sequential OB-6, and Nord Wave patches more often than some of the others. I can’t imagine how much work Spectrasonics put in to create all the sampled sounds, modeled waveforms/wavetables and patches, as well as the hardware configuration settings. It must have been an enormous task, but I am sure it was a labor of love along the way. Hopefully they will have more releases for the hardware integration (along with additional patches, of course) down the road.
Conclusion
I was very impressed by Omnisphere’s easy to use interface. Once I knew where everything was located (there is a small learning curve) it was easy to navigate to the various sections of the synth. It is very intuitive and a joy to work with. It is easily one of simplest to use (yet most powerful!) synths I have ever encountered. With that said, for such a small update (0.1 increment) it represents a huge undertaking in man-hours for the craftsmanship of preset design and hardware integration. The only improvements I can think of are the ability to use the arpeggiator as a mod source and maybe a few more options for the granular synthesis. Though I have never seen Omnisphere on any type of sale (unless I didn’t get the memo?), the updates are such a huge value that it easily makes the full price asked for well worth the cost. Well done Spectrasonics!
Omnisphere 2.6 retails for $499 USD you can get more info on Omnisphere here: