Hi . . . just looking for opinions about Omnisphere as a soft synth.
 
I've read many good things, heard the demos online.
I've been looking to upgrade from my 1990's hardware synths for a while now, and Omnisphere seems to be what I'm looking for, but if anyone here uses it, can you please comment about it ? My musical needs for a soft synth are mainly as a producer, and composer. I'm just looking for some ready to go sounds I can call up to complete arrangements, very little sound + synth tweaking desired.
 
Also, while we're at it, suggestions for any other favoured "meat and potatoes" soft synths welcomed.

Well I'll just give you the feelings I have on the three I own:
 
Komplete 9: $500, same basic price as Omnisphere. Over all, if I could only keep one thing, this'd probably be it. Not a single synth, but a bunch. Kontakt (sampler), Reaktor (synth designer), Massive (wavetable), FM8 (FM additive), Guitar Rig (amp simulator) and a host of samples. Real good quality, and quite good coverage. I are a NI fanboy now :). Only real negatives I could give is the coverage isn't as wide as some other packs in the same price. It is more quality over quantity. Also things are all housed under one roof, you have a number of different programs to launch. Totally expandable in every way. You can buy or find new samples for Kontakt, synths for Reaktor, presets for FM8, etc, etc. Has some nice plugins too, which work outside of the synths.
 
Halion Sonic 2: $250 + $30ish for eLicenser (DRM dongle). This is a real nice "ROMpler" style synth, so if you are looking for something like hardware synths, maybe the way to go. Really wide coverage, including the entire general MIDI capital tone set, and variations on every instrument. Also has some nice simple knob controls for parameters of instruments, and is multi-timbaral. Nice if you want "one interface to rule them all." You load everything in the same setup, regardless of what synthesis it is using underneath and the browser is pretty good. Not the best samples in the world, but good, and not too large (I measure about 10GB on disk). Also lots of built-in FX and so on (internal to the program only). Sound is reminiscent of a Yamaha Motif since Yamaha had the Motif team work on the samples (Yamaha owns Steinberg). You can also upgrade to the full version of Halion for the cost difference ($100) if you want. Halion Sonic has no expansion, no editing at all, just a ROMpler, Halion is like Kontakt and is fully expandable, though there's not a lot of content for it (I have only Sonic).
 
EastWest Play: $variable. Also requires an iLok (another DRM dongle). EastWest makes quite possibly the best sounding samples I've ever heard. Orchestral/movie focused, but plenty of new age EDM stuff, and world instruments. Prices are fairly high, generally $300-600 for most sets, prices also can vary a lot as they do various sales all the time. Sets vary in content. Goliath is a general purpose 40GB set covering the GM tones and then some, Pianos is just three grand pianos spanning 260GB recorded at 3 mic positions each. Amazing stuff, hampered by Play. I find it to be a fiddly, problematic, program, that I've been fighting with for years. I would caution you only to buy their stuff if you have other things you like, and if you are willing to potentially put up with a lot of crap. Play is also unexpandable and offers little in the way of customization. They do sound amazing though.

What 90's hardware synths do you own? What type of music are you mainly into. That determines the choice of synth to a certain extent. Also Camel Audio Alchemy is a killer instrument too. It has a very beautiful sound. You can tailor the expansion packs to suit your needs very well.

Sycraft . . . excellent, thanks for your in depth reviews of some alternate options.
I have looked at  Komplete 9 from NI, since I have a limited edition version of it called "Komplete Elements" which I use frequently. NI Kontakt seems to be an industry standard that many on the forum here use, and recommend.
The others you suggest, I will have to investigate . . . thanks again for your input.
 
 
 

Jeff Evans
What 90's hardware synths do you own? What type of music are you mainly into. That determines the choice of synth to a certain extent. Also Camel Audio Alchemy is a killer instrument too. It has a very beautiful sound. You can tailor the expansion packs to suit your needs very well.

Hi Jeff . . . I would categorize what I do to be generally pop music, 3 minute songs, with vocals, lyrics, 5 piece band arrangements. How about Roland JV80 and Alesis Quadra Synth S-4, remember those ? Kinda' long in the tooth now, looking to convert to newer soft synths. I've heard of Camel Alchemy, but don't really know much about it  . . . thanks, more research to do.
 
 

I have oooodles.... agree, K9 gives you lots for the price.  Synthmaster is an amazing synth for way fewer dollars (it's always got a good discount going).  You should google it....stupid name but really amazing for the $100 and you can download it and try it for FREE. I love alchemy, which also has a FREE version but sound packages can add up.  Checkout the uber blowout deal at musician's friend (79 vs 400 retail) for Sample Logic packages...see this forum
 
I have omnisphere.  don't go to it a lot for some reason... and it's more of a hybrid rompler than a "synth" like synthmaster is....
 
Also love Zebra and Diva, again both with FREE demo tryouts but the latter will squish your computer...
 
Try before you buy is a NO  BRAINER... take an evening and try Synthmaster, alchemy, zebra and diva... before you invest in something huge like Omnisphere, which you can't try!!! 

Vastman . . thanks for the input, particularly interesting is that I've also noticed Omnisphere has no demo ! I guess you just have to be a believer ?
Tricky, to spend over $500 dollars for a quality soft synth, without a test drive. I will certainly take your advice and check out Synthmaster.

noynekker
Sycraft . . . excellent, thanks for your in depth reviews of some alternate options.
I have looked at  Komplete 9 from NI, since I have a limited edition version of it called "Komplete Elements" which I use frequently. NI Kontakt seems to be an industry standard that many on the forum here use, and recommend.
The others you suggest, I will have to investigate . . . thanks again for your input.

 
NI has been at it a long time and seems to have their software down real well. They also have favourable licensing terms. As such, pretty much any company that doesn't make their own software uses NI. Some release stuff in other formats too, but NI is real popular. Particularly since they'll let companies do "player" releases where the company pays NI licensing, and their samples work in Kontakt Player so that people don't need to buy anything. It also supports some DRM, which companies like. Also some companies will release stuff that requires the full Kontakt, because then there is no licensing fee.
 
EastWest actually used to release their stuff for Kontakt, and I wish they still did. However they decided they had to have the iLok DRM, so they wrote their own problematic sampler.
 
If you go for the NI stuff, Komplete is pretty much the only way to go on account of their pricing structure. Kontakt or Reaktor alone are $400 each, and Massive, FM8, and Absynth are all $200 each. Komplete Ultimate, which is $1000, isn't a huge upgrade and you can always buy the upgrade for the cost difference later, if you want.

OK Quadra synth and JV80 are a bit dated now for sure. If you had said Kurzweil then that would be a different story!
 
For pop music you need a decent array of bread and butter core sounds to start with. Drums, (percussion, electronic kits loops etc) basses, guitars, pianos (acoustic and electric) , organs, strings and assortment of keyboard sounds etc. I would be looking for the best instrument that is going to give you these at least straight up and you can add to later.
 
Native Komplete Ultimate while very impressive might be too much. Kontakt on the other hand might be perfect. Alchemy is a bit of a weird animal. Capable of doing a lot but it might not be a good pop machine though.
 
Some instruments like Omnisphere have millions of amazing pads and atmospheres but are they going to really help you in a pop situation. Sometimes these types of synths sound so good (on their own) that you cant use them! Does it cover the real core basics well. (I don't own it so Omni people should elaborate)
 
If you were doing complex ambient music or cinematic trailers then some of the more interesting machines are going to cut it.
 
Sounds like it needs to sample based at least so you can get the core sounds down. Kontakt sounds ideal but it is $400 which is a lot. Or Komplete 9 at $500 rather than ultimate. For the same money as Omnisphere it seems like a better deal. You still get a ton of instruments. Or you could just start with Kontakt (which is huge) and upgrade to Komplete later. (for $99)
 
Is Zebra going to give you the core sounds you need? Maybe not. Fabulous instrument but you have to be careful as to what some say about it. They might already have all the core basics down with other VST's and Zebra would then be a wonderful addition.
 
Do you already own any VST's that are giving you great core pop sounds. If you do then you need something to add to that but if not you really need to think about establishing the meat and potatoes stuff first. The Emulator X2 is another good option as well. I started with a hardware Emulator and still have a high powered rack with over 70G of sound library and there is still nothing it cannot do!
 
Another option is to buy a series of smaller VST's to cover all the bases you need eg a great piano VST, organ VST, drum VST etc but in the end that might end up costing you more. Komplete starts looking pretty good then.
 
Are you opposed to buying another hardware synth. The Kurzweil PC3K6 is a killer instrument and with the Kore 64 expansion installed has thousands of patches and the thing is it would eat the pop music thing for breakfast. But it can do all the Omni stuff too. But I do agree hardware is expensive and soft synths are much cheaper and still sound amazing.
 
Anyway just some ideas to throw around.
 
 
 

I think the reason Omnisphere has no demo is that because of the sheer size of it a demo couldn't really do it justice. FWIW if you watched the demo videos on their website, there is no smoke and mirrors going on - it does exactly what it says on the tin and more and although I haven't needed to have much to do with the customer service side, when I did they were first class. I have no regrets at all about buying it and it usually sneaks in somewhere in just about everything I do. Because of the way you can layer / split things , you do need a decent sized controller keyboard to get the best out of that. Also be aware that there is no standalone version, it only works as a plug-in through a host DAW, such as Sonar. Not a problem for me, but something to consider if planning to use it in a live scenario.
 
What it isn't is the type of synth you would use purely to mimic a particular instrument, say if you wanted to play a realistic sax solo or some such thing, I don't have kontakt/komplete, but that would probably be the way to go for "real" instruments if that is what you want. I do have EastWest Colossus (now called Goliath I think) for that sort of thing, but in truth I hardly ever use it now.
 
As others have said, it really depends what you want. The tone2 synths are quite nice too, and have demos, but for me a little more pricey than what they would be worth to me. Off the beaten track...a couple of steinberg (yeah, I know) synths are good value in my opinion - Padshop Pro and Retrologue. Steinberg customer service sucks imho and they have a habit of not developing stuff any further, but these are cheap enough for that to not be too much of an issue. 30 day demos avaiable of these on their site.