paulo

Jonbouy

For me Omnisphere is the daddy of all synths - the possibiities are just mind blowing . No demo version because it's huuuuuuuge, but check out http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/omnisphere-videos.php If you like what you see, you won't be disappointed if you buy it.

 
I might be alone in this but Omnisphere is everything I hate about software instruments.
 
Not because it isn't capable, in fact probably the opposite as it would be hard to think of something that couldn't be done with it.  Therein lies its biggest drawback.
 
The problem is that it is huge, a waste of space, expensive and time consuming.  You are more like to end up in a state of hypnosis for the next 10 years auditioning and tweaking amazing sounds that you'll never use in a production anywhere.  The sounds you do end up using it will be likely that you could have put together in a couple of minutes with something you were more familiar with.
 
If you want your mind blown then I'd agree it's impressive, if you want to get down to making some music it is the most effective flow killer on the market.
 
The upside is that you can usually find someone that has had it for awhile and wants to out it at a decent price because it never gets used.
 
Anyway I thought the thread was about synths not multi-gig sample libraries...

I actually agree with the flow killer comment to some extent as I do tend to spend a lot of time just messin with it without actually "getting anything done", but that's ok, I'm not under contract to a label to produce an album by the end of the month, I just enjoy the process of just seeing where it takes me. For me there is more to the whole music thing than just being able to say here's a song and I did the whole thing in 10 minutes. I spent an hour today with it - didn't record anything, but it was the best hour of my day. Yes, there is a large sample library, but it has some very in-depth synthesis stuff too if that's your bag. It's the best of both worlds which is why I thought it had a place in the thread. 
 
As for price, I got it on offer for just over £200, so not very much more than Alchemy, for example and way cheaper than the Tone 2 stuff by the time you've bought the full package. Anyway, it's all subjective, but the OP said he wanted something that went beyond bog-standard synth sounds too, so it covers the bases IMHO. YMMV of course ;) 

I totally agree it's all subjective, I get why many would like to have Omnisphere around and I also get the idea of things just being fun to play with.
 
Mostly though speaking for myself I'm a total cheapskate and there's nothing I like better than getting the biggest sounds I can out of the smallest investment.
 
It's kind of the same principle as you mention of just playing around but from a different angle.
 
The beauty of it all of course there is a whole wealth of choice out there to cater for everyones peculiarities...

Thanks Jonbouy,

I was on a smart phone yesterday and could not add any links.

This is Arturia's demo page http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/downloads/demos.html

For some reason this link http://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS-3.html is not playing for me today but if you want drones this is the toy.  (Here a link to Sweetwater which will give you an idea of what this synth is like http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XILS3/)

As to CPU load, with the Arturia synths since they optimised for multi core CPU's and 64 bit it is really dependent on how busy you make your patches.

Arturia's CS 80 is just wonderful for rich pads, the Moog Modular and Mini are very versatile, the Prophet gives you the three different incarnations of the Prophet 5 and a hybrid.  The ARP 2600 sounds just like the ARP I played with when I was but just a small rug.

PS The Xils-labs synths are designed by an ex-Arturia employee I believe.

Jonbouy

The problem is that it is huge, a waste of space, expensive and time consuming.  You are more like to end up in a state of hypnosis for the next 10 years auditioning and tweaking amazing sounds that you'll never use in a production anywhere.  The sounds you do end up using it will be likely that you could have put together in a couple of minutes with something you were more familiar with.  

I'm just reading through the many posts in this topic but had to stop here and add my plus one to this. Someone recommended I have a look at this, but when I saw the size of the product I immediately made my mind up to give it a miss, for exactly the same reasons stated here.


Right, I'll get on and read the rest of the posts now...

I don't know whether this one was mentioned yet, but, Synth1 comes with a number of presets as well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Jqze04dVA

Okay, I've finished reading through everything now. Some good stuff, as expected, and I can't really add much to what has been said.

All I will say, and I've mentioned this before in the Software forum, I've been quite taken by some of the physical modelling synths created by A|A|S. My faves are Chromophone and Ultra Analog. They just provide an extra texture to my current sounds that the likes of Absynth provide.

Oh, and bitflipper recommended Fabfilter Twin to me last year, and that is one of my fave synths at the moment.

And one more thing. I've been into synth music for forty plus years now and I even managed to get hold of a Multimoog many years ago, although I blew the bugger up. Then when the likes of Roland and Korg starter making their VA synths I treated myself to a JP8000, OB-12 and a Nova. So, I know enough about what I expected from a hardware point of view. But since I have started using soft synths, my hardware is gathering dust... just no way back for them I'm afraid, and I should do the right thing and sell them.

Wookiee


...The ARP 2600 sounds just like the ARP I played with when I was but just a small rug. 

LOL!

So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds. 

sharke


Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds. 

I hear that's because you don't own an Alembic.

sharke


So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds. 

We don't need no steenking Trilian, we can have the REAL Bapu, he'll do anything for the price of a shameless plug in the songs forum.

Jonbouy

sharke


So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds. 

We don't need no steenking Trilian, we can have the REAL phenomenal Bapu, he'll do anything for the price of a shameless plug in the songs forum.

Wookiee'd