Slightly off the main topic, but i received my order yesterday, created my account at Spectrasonics, and installed an authorized.  Everything went smoothly, but I haven't received any emails from them.  I've double and triple-checked my registered address and it is correct. I've checked my SPAM filters, etc.  I thought when I authorized it mentioned that I would receive some confirmation email.  Any of you guys with their products remember if they send out any confirmations when you register with them, or when you authorize your software.  I'm wondering if there is an issue with communication between their domain and mine.
 
Back on topic... not so sure about this synth.  I bought it for the immense amount of content and it's reputation for having a wide variety.  In my first attempt to run through and check out patches, I only made it to about the third patch I tried before I got stuck playing for over an hour because it just sounded so damn good.  LOL 
 
So glad I finally joined the club.  Like the two posters above mention, it is a lot of money to shell out.  But... when I factor in all I've spent on lesser synths in the past that just don't have the depth this has, it's really not that bad.  I've got quite a few synths now (especially for a guitarist), but only a few are anywhere near the quality that Omnisphere is, and just from a quick look around at what it's in this thing I'm sure I'll find it very useful.

Just ordered at Time+Space for a grand total of 232.51 Euros, which is only $262.39. Free shipping. And free upgrade to v. 2.0 when it is released in April!
That's over 200 bucks less than the standard pricing on sites such as Audiodeluxe, and still $130.00 lower than Best Service.  Get it!

Fleer
Cheers, Genghis, and congrats. How would you relate Omnisphere to a synth like Synthmaster, soundwise?

Figures you'd ask me about one that I haven't tried. :)  (And being the GASoholic I am, now I probably need to try it.)
 
Honestly... I'm probably still gonna be in the honeymoon and discovery phase, but soundwise I'd rank it up there at least with the best sounding synths I own.  Watching a few videos I have a feeling it's gonna beat those hands down for depth and variety though, once I've had time to really explore. 
 
My favorites in my collection thus far?  DCAM SynthSquad, Blue II, Komplete (especially Kontakt and Absynth) and a handful of others I can't recall because I'm waiting for my coffee to finish brewing.  I think Omnisphere compares quite favorably depth-wise to the entire Komplete instruments collection combined, at least for the sounds I'm into.  (And that's after only a few hours of playing and barely getting started on their tutorial videos.)  I'm more into abstact type of sounds than emulating regular instruments.
 
I'm really looking forward to learning more about this one and getting to know it in depth, and I haven't really been so good lately about digging in and learning synths.  Back in the day I learned a lot about programming RGC Audio's synths and spent a lot of time building my own patches in Pentagon 1, z3ta+ and then later Rapture.  The only one I've picked up in the last couple of years that I've dug past minor tweaks in existing patches is Iris, which is a great sounding, unique synth, but a bit of a CPU hog.  Omnisphere seems to be a fairly CPU friendly beast for the sound it gets. 
 
The money I spent on Omnisphere really only makes me regret the money I wasted on "great deals" like Sampletank blowouts, etc.  Sampletank (even with the upgrade to 3) is pretty mediocre by comparison and I have a handful of other synths that I picked up at a discount because I thought they'd be cool, and I really don't use them.  Add up all of those "deals" and I could have picked up Omni years ago.  (But now I should be in line for a free upgrade, so who's complaining.)

Wow... I'll have to watch for Synthmaster on a deal.  I've looked at it before, but never tried it.  Not sure what it is that made me hold back on really giving it a try.
 
I'm pretty heavy on using presets too, but from time to time I like to tweak my own to see what I can come up with too.  I got through the Intro and general overview videos for Omnisphere late last night, and it piqued my interest enough that I really want to learn a bit on this one.  I played with the effects routing for awhile as well, and although it's extremely flexible and has ridiculous capability for effects, I found most of the patches I checked out sounding great and seemed to have no or very minimal effects.  A lot synths I've tried sound kinda week with minimal or no effects.
 
I too picked up SampleTank 3 for 100 bucks, which seemed acceptable at the time. I did it to get 64-bit basically, and I had picked up previously a 2 or 3 SampleTank add-on packs for "good deal prices".  Now I kind of consider SampleTank money wasted.  It's OK, but just OK.  I've tried to use it, but almost always find something I like better for a part. Good deals are fine if they are something you use.  I think I got DCAM for half off or something like that and I really like that one. Same for UltraAnalog with a cheap upgrade to UA2.
 

Yeah, I hear you.  And for me, really SampleTank is probably great for more traditional types of sounds, but I like more non-traditional approach.  I like to mix in different textures and sounds that normal instruments don't have. 
 
One of my best friends is a great piano player and when I've worked with him on things in the past it's been rough because I'm so geared toward finding the odd sounds I have to really go through and audition the options for regular strings, woodwinds, brass, and other types of instruments.  Those sounds work great in his context, but I don't use them in my stuff.  I like everything from evolving, morphing pads, to various twisted and distorted leads and basses, and rhythmic textures and arps.  Those sounds don't work at all for his music.  He's more of a traditional classical-style musician, and I'm more of a metal-head with leanings toward industrial (even after taking classical guitar for the last 2 1/2 years I still haven't grown up.)  That said, Omni is perfect for me, but would probably be overkill for his needs, and something like SampleTank or Kontakt would be everything he needs and then some.
 
And yes, I highly recommend both DCAM and UltraAnalog.  I had tried an early demo of DCAM and it was a bit buggy in some areas, so I was a big hesitant to even pick it up on sale, but I'm so glad I did.  Really a favorite for me.  Especially nice is the Fusion module which you can use to combine all three of the synths that it comes with into one insane sounding synth.  That's where the real power of this one comes alive.  I was trying to learn more about programming it, but I'm more of a preset man with DCAM.  There are a lot of good ones too.

Thanks Fleer.  I never really looked into either of those because I thought they sounded more like traditional sounding synths. May have to check them out someday.
 
For now, I can see that Omni is going to keep me busy for quite some time.  I've been watching more videos over my Saturday morning coffee and this thing is a lot deeper than I imagined when you get into using the whole synth with multis and Live mode or Stack mode.  This one's gonna be a lot of fun.  Almost makes me wish I was a real keyboard player instead of a hack, so I could really get the most out of it.

thepianist53
Just ordered at Time+Space for a grand total of 232.51 Euros, which is only $262.39. Free shipping. And free upgrade to v. 2.0 when it is released in April!
That's over 200 bucks less than the standard pricing on sites such as Audiodeluxe, and still $130.00 lower than Best Service.  Get it!

 
 I find that hard to believe.  I went there and that doesn't happen. If you paid in Euros you will automatically be charged VAT.
 
 I would like someone else to go there and buy it and see if I'm wrong.
 
 

Hey you are right.  With shipping = 351.76 US Dollar.
 
It will be interesting if these orders to the states get cancelled.
 
I'll pass even at this price.  I can get a killer Intel processor at that price.

Cool, thanks for all the great tips.  You left one out that I need to adhere to now.
6. Get up from from the computer and move around. You can lose days playing with this thing.
 
You know, now that I've seen a few of the vids and actually played with it in a couple of projects I don't think I'll be using Live mode for what I do.  Pretty impressive if you are hooking it up to a laptop and playing live, but in the studio I think it's easier for me to put together a multi that is triggered from different MIDI tracks.  For the kind of music I do, I probably won't be using more than a two or three sounds in Omnisynth in any given song, so that works pretty well for me.  I can see layering 2 or 3 instruments for different things now and then, but I'll just have to experiment with that.
 
I'll definitely have to look into how to use the Groove locking thing, tomorrow for a bit.  (I just have to remember to pull away from it and go watch the Super Bowl.)
 
There is so much to explore I'm really having a hard time getting motivated to do #6 above.  If I hadn't committed to going out with some friends tonight I don't think I could.

Time+Space. Euro 298. US 335. Go!

OK, so no show, as Best Service and Time+Space seem to cancel US orders. You do get a nice $50 voucher at Best Service for your trouble, though.

Having watched a longer NAMM demo I'm a bit more enthused about it than I was, but according to the email I got today the upgrade version will be d/load only and is 14GB which has put me off again as big downloads usually fail a few times for me and usually right near the end, never at the beginning.

I didn't receive anything from Spectrasonics either. I am definitely interested in the upgrade. I have been searching for the DL size but unsuccessful. Thanks for posting that.

Question, will Ominsphere 2 have the same library of Omnisphere 1 plus the new features? Ominsphere 1 has 42 gb of library. If you are buying Omnisphere 2, that is a very large library to down load. The upgrade of 14 gb makes sense if it only includes the new features. I have recently purchased Omnisphere 1, but I have not received from Spectrasonics any info on the upgrade.
 

Sent4th
Question, will Ominsphere 2 have the same library of Omnisphere 1 plus the new features? Ominsphere 1 has 42 gb of library. If you are buying Omnisphere 2, that is a very large library to down load. The upgrade of 14 gb makes sense if it only includes the new features. I have recently purchased Omnisphere 1, but I have not received from Spectrasonics any info on the upgrade.

Yes, Omnisphere 2 will include all the Omnisphere 1 content.
 
If you were to buy the Omnisphere 2 full package, not an update, you will have the option of ordering boxed media. Because you already have Omnisphere, you'll only need to get the 14GB update, not the entire Omnisphere 2 product.
 
The question that hasn't been answered yet is whether there will be an option to order hard media for the update only.