Spectrasonics Omnisphere Review
Spectrasonics Omnisphere Review
Whether you are a hip-hop/RnB producer, or if you produce music for television/films, then Spectrasonics Omnisphere is defiantly a virtual synthesizer you want to look in to. It has been described by people as the “ultimate synth” and the only synth you will need. With its library that is around 50GB in size, it is defiantly a contender for the best synth ever.
Spectrasonics Omnisphere runs on Spectrasonics STEAM engine (like Trilian). This engine has been built from the ground up specifically for Omnisphere and Trilian. The browser in STEAM, which allows you to browse all of your patches and instruments, is the best that I have seen on any virtual instrument. Omnisphere has 14 different categories, which each have a sub category inside of them. On top of that, it also displays all of the authors so you can browse by author, as well as letting you browse by genre (such as film, or ambient). This is all possible because of the STEAM engine that is used. Another feature that is in STEAM is that it gives you a lot of information about the synth you are using and tells you what that sound is good for.
Like I mentioned, Omnisphere comes with a 50GB library. This is the biggest virtual instrument that I know of. And not only that, the sound quality is top quality. Everything from pads and arpeggiators, to the piano sounds are clear, full and well mixed. There is literally every synth sound that you could want from a synth VST. As well as the synths you would expect from this, it also comes with a load of sound effects. I can guarantee that if you get Omnisphere, it will be your most used virtual synth, if not your only used virtual synth.
On board Spectrasonics Omnisphere, is all of the main knobs and buttons you would expect from a synthesizer such as Oscillators, filters, modulation, LFO’s and envelopes. You can play around with all of these to create the sound that you need. Like Trilian, you can add preset effects that have already been created to add things like delay to the synth, or some distortion. There are all sorts of preset effects that can be added to change the synth sound significantly.
Although the price may but you off buying it, Spectrasonics Omnisphere is worth it as it will be the only synth VST you’ll need to buy for a long time. It has amazing sound quality and amazing effects that can fine tune to get the sound you need. It can be used for use in film, or used to create radio music. It literally is the ultimate synth VST.
Overall Score: 10/10
Categories: Spectrasonics Tags: Omnisphere, Spectrasonics, Synth VST
Rob Papen Predator Review
Rob Papen Predator Review
When it comes to choosing synth virtual instruments, there are literally hundreds to choose from. Some synths are dedicated to a certain genre of music, and other synths have a more all in one approach. This can be said for Rob Papen’s Predator VST, which covers almost all genre’s of music such as dance, hip-hop and bases.
Rob Papen Predator comes with hundreds of presets each assigned to a different style of music. Then each of these presets is separated out into groups such as leads, bass, pads, chords and sequences. The style’s of music in which Predator covers includes dance synths, dirtysouth synths, RnB synths, trance synths and a lot of different bass synths. On top of this, Rob Papen Predator also includes different drum and percussion samples. Like a lot of synths, the sound can get quite repetitive. However, with Rob Papen’s Predator, the variety in sounds is very good and there aren’t many VST synths that can match it.
The sound quality in predator is very good for a virtual instrument. With many virtual instruments the sound quality can’t match up to a hardware synths sound quality. However, Predator matches up to hardware synths sound quality pretty good. In my opinion the leads are the best part of predator. I think that you can get better bass from different synths that are dedicated to bass, but Predator’s bass is still usable. Other parts of Predator such as the pads are also good sound quality. What stands out most, is that the synths all sound very full and clear, which is important.
Rob Papen predator contains three oscillators. this means that you can shape and model your sound however you like. There are also loads of different effects such as a filter, decay attack, sustain and release. There are many other effects you can play around with so you can get and fine tune the sound that you need. As you expect with most synths, nearly every sound is possible and this is also the case with Rob Papen’s Predator.
Overall, if you are looking for new sounds, in particular leads, then this is the synth for you. As an all round synth Predator can compete with the best out there, although the bass isn’t anything mind-blowing. The amount of different knobs and buttons gives you the ability to fine tune it to get the perfect sound you need. Rob Papen’s Predator is highly recommended to expand your VST plugin library.
Overall Score: 7/10