Spectrasonics

Music Production, Software

Now You’re Playing With Power: Omnisphere Power Synth v1.5 (Review)

July 16, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Now You’re Playing With Power: Omnisphere Power Synth v1.5 (Review) Share this

Kunal mentioned in his review of LA Scoring Strings a few weeks back that strings are particularly challenging to recreate in a synthesized environment. Well, if you’re like me and prefer to use synthesized sounds, you’ve probably heard of Omnisphere, Spectrasonics’ flagship soft synth (or ‘Power Synth,’ as they refer to it).

While Dale reviewed the original release of Omnisphere a couple years ago, Spectrastonics recently launched version 1.5, offering more sounds and capabilities, so I thought I’d take a stab at this beast, and have even written two tracks using the software for your listening pleasure.

Hit the jump for our full review of Omnisphere v1.5! (more…)
Gear

Win the One-of-a-Kind OMG-1 Synthesizer From Spectrasonics

March 26, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Win the One-of-a-Kind OMG-1 Synthesizer From Spectrasonics Share this

Remember our coverage of NAMM 2011? It’s okay if you don’t. One of the highlights of the event was the unveiling of the one-of-a-kind instrument from Spectrasonics, the OMG-1 (Omnimoog 1), a unique and incredibly beautiful instrument utilizing an Apple computer at its core, two iPads and 2 iPod touches, and a mini Moog with an extra octave as a controller. Well, Spectrasonics has finally announced how one lucky person can win this beast.

The contest is rather simple. Download the Bob Moog Tribute Library and create a song. Submit it to Spectrasonics by July 15, 2011. Enter as many times as you’d like, and the best track will be selected as the winner. Simple enough, right? The competition for this thing is going to be fierce, so if you’re interested, you better get started now! Hit the official Spectrasonics OMG-1 contest page for more details.

If if you’re not a musician, you have to admire the beauty of this instrument. Will you be attempting an entry?
Gear, Music Production

NAMM 2011: Weird and Amazing Things from the World of Musical Instruments

January 20, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 20 Comments Share this

Yes, while most of our team was away in Alexandria having a blast covering MAGFest 9, I was stuck in bright and sunny California, and decided to waste away at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Show 2011. Held in Anaheim, CA for as long as anyone can remember, the show brings together manufacturers of everything from pipe organs to MIDI cable connectors. It’s all here, and I explored miles upon miles of floor space to see if there was anything new and exciting on the horizon. And there was.

Touchpad guitars? Neon guitar strings? A miniature piano? It was all there, and you can see these and more after the jump! (more…)
Software

All The Bass You Can Eat: Trilian Total Bass Module (Review)

February 21, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 2 Comments Share this

Spectrasonics is back, but this time with a ridiculously huge library of bass sounds to keep you busy. Dale reviewed Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere last year, and was impressed with the massive library contained within it, but the Trilian Total Bass Module, released at the end of 2009, adds hundreds upon hundreds (1300, to be exact) of acoustic and electric bass patches to the mix. Don’t have Omnisphere? Don’t worry, Trilian Total Bass Module stands on its own as a VSTi/RTAS plug-in as well.

What can one do with 30 GB of bass samples? The answer is that the world may never know. I’ve spent hours playing around with the large number of patches here, and I still don’t think I’ve heard each and every sound. What I can tell you is that this is your end-all solution for realistic bass samples if you can’t get the real thing.

So what’s included, and how does it sound? Hit the jump to find out. (more…)
Software

Review: Spectrasonics STYLUS RMX 1.9

September 27, 2009 | Tim Sheehy | 1 Comment Share this Review: Spectrasonics STYLUS RMX 1.9

You may remember our review of Spectrasonics flagship synth, Omnisphere, last November. I was recently given the opportunity to review their real-time groove module, Stylus RMX–a software that not only changed the way I thought of groove modules, but could be described as ground-breaking.

In March, we saw the release of Stylus RMX v1.7. Being their first native 64-bit windows release, I was curious as to how well it would hold up, since we first got our hands on the software, Spectrasonics has released two subsequent major updates bringing it to 1.9, extending that native 64-bit support to Macs. Having never worked with RMX prior to this release, I naively believed the software to function just like any other groove module. Needless to say, I was wrong in so many ways. Instead, I found myself blown away by just how robust the software really was.

Hit the jump to read our review, and to learn more about the new features in Stylus RMX 1.9

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Game Music

The Future Of Sound: Interview With The Conduit Composer Diego Stocco

June 11, 2009 | Jayson Napolitano | 2 Comments Share this

We’ve been following The Conduit for quite some time, posting all the way back in September that composer Diego Stocco would be responsible for the score. While we didn’t dig too deeply into Stocco’s resume at the time, we were sure to do so when preparing for this interview, and we discovered some interesting tidbits about his career. It turns out that Stocco works for Spectraonics and is the man responsible for the burning piano that we were raving about when Omnisphere was released last year.

While the topic at hand is The Conduit and Stocco’s approach to the score, we do take some time to geek out and discuss some techy issues like his work at Spectrasonics, the use of presets, and the ever expanding universe of sound. Deep stuff, I know, but it makes for an interesting read.

Read our interview with Diego Stocco after the jump. (more…)
Music Production, Reviews, Software

Review: Spectrasonics Omnisphere

November 28, 2008 | Dale North | 2 Comments Share this Review: Spectrasonics Omnisphere

[click]
“Oooh!”

[click]
“Woah…”

[click]
“Wow, that’s weird!”

[click]
“Oh, I’m so going to use this later.”

[click]
…

Take this type of scene of auditioning patches, and then stretch it out over several days, and you’ll have some idea of what our review time with Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere was like. Of course, this began after I managed to cram all 42+ GB of sample data onto the test workstation. We won’t talk about how long that took.

This new virtual instrument is technically the follow-up and replacement to Atmosphere, Spectrasonics’ previous mega-sound bank, but as far as features and size goes, there is no comparison. Sure, their new flagship synth is massive, but it’s also packing crazy power for synthesis and effects processing.

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