Spectrasonics Announces Omnisphere Power Synth

Well, we were dying to know what the brilliant, but quirky, Eric Persing was up to when he teased us about an exciting new product he’s been developing for the past couple of years, and now we know…ladies and gentleman the Spectrasonics Omnisphere Power Synth

Persing claims the Omnisphere breaks completely new sonic ground by combining a wide variety of hybrid realtime synthesis techniques, an epic library of remarkable Psychoacoustic sounds, and many innovative features that have never been seen before in any hardware or software synthesizer. The new instrument is the first to be based on Spectrasonics STEAM Engine, the company’s newly developed core technology.

Although the new synth is extremely powerful, Omnisphere is designed with a unique user interface containing progressive layers of ‘zooming’ to accommodate the complete range of users – from musicians who just want to be inspired by the sounds and customize them in an easy way, to expert synthesists and the most advanced sound designers. Users can go deeper and deeper into the software and progress in their synthesis knowledge by simply exploring additional levels of sound manipulation options. To make sure that all users get the most out of the new capabilities, Omnisphere will ship with an extensive set of video tutorials and synthesis lessons taught by the Spectrasonics sound design team.

Omnisphere offers a host of hybrid synthesis and new control capabilities including Variable Waveshaping DSP synthesis, Granular synthesis, Timbre Shifting, FM, polyphonic Ring Modulation, high-resolution streaming Sample Playback, Harmonia, Dual Multimode Filter structure, Chaos Envelopes, an advanced Unison mode, and the innovative Flex-Mod modulation routing system – to name a few.

The huge core library of Omnisphere is filled with years of creative sampling experiments and thousands of inspiring patches. Spectrasonics has pioneered several brand-new types of sampling for the core library of this instrument, including unique Psychoacoustic sounds and soundsources created with a new Composite Morphing Technique (CMT) – which morphs the harmonic characteristics of one instrument to another. As a bonus, a section of the core library is also devoted to representing the best of Spectrasonics’ sample libraries.

Among the many unique features this new multitimbral synth offers are its flexible arpeggiators with the innovative Groove Lock integration with Stylus RMX – allowing the arpeggiator’s pattern to instantly groove with the feel of the RMX drum loop (very, very cool! —Ed.); Live Mode for transitionless patch switching and layering, Stack Mode for powerful performance mapping; and integrated modulatable FX Racks.

Interestingly enough, Omnisphere is also the successor to Atmosphere, and contains enhanced versions of all the classic Atmosphere sounds. It will replace Atmosphere when it becomes available this Fall. However, the brand new core library in Omnisphere is 10-times the size of Atmosphere and features thousands of completely new and different sounds. Omnisphere is cross-platform compatible with Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 and higher as a native Universal Binary and also with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista. Audio Units, VST, and RTAS plug-in formats are supported for compatibility with all major host software.

Spectrasonic’s Omnisphere is set to be released on September 15, 2008, and will cost $499 / €399. More information on Spectrasonics Omnisphere.

Author: FutureMusic

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