Hi, everyone! My birthday is coming up soon and I was thinking of purchasing a semi-versatile synth. I'm trying to find something close in quality to Omnisphere, more of the explanation below. Sorry if the title question sounds a bit absurd.

What I have demoed:

1. Serum. Decent synth, but very expensive, Vital does the same. And since Serum 2 is coming out this or next year, I don't want to pay full price for it. Also transfers aren't allowed, etc.

2. Diva. It is most definitely warm, but no matter what I do or what preset I select, it just is not what I want. I know that's very uninformative, but I can't quite say what it is.

3. Model 84. Have it, like it, use it. Great in every respect, but it is not very versatile (it is a Juno, so there's that).

4. Repro. I used to have it (for a short period of time) and liked it, made a lot of presets for it and wish I could have it again, but couldn't justify keeping because of the price. And it also is a very specific model of synth, not very versatile for all purposes.

5. Falcon. Very expensive, some time in the future...

And so we arrive at 6... Omnisphere.

I have been testing and it is consistently the absolute best of what I have ever heard. It sounds so great that I don't even need to tweak most presets. I can also create my own presets (compared to classic plugin romplers - omnisphere is truly powerful). I can make one track and use nothing, except Omnisphere...

Price...I don't have a lot of resources, the maximum I could possibly spend is $130, only if I sold a lot of (or pretty much all) other stuff. Well, Omnisphere sits at $500, which is an enormous amount of money, but I realise it's still a decent price for what it is. Around here it is sold for 280-300, which is still an incredibly big amount of money, so that's a no go, unfortunately.

And what my question basically becomes, is there anything which sounds close to Omnisphere, but closer to the price range I stated above? I have heard good things about Phase Plant and Pigments, maybe that's the way? I am just a bit worried about Arturia's frequent upgrades and I also missed the $49 deal, so there's that.

 

It depends what you want to use it for. You say workhorse, but a cinematic film scoring workhorse (which Omnisphere is perfect for) is different to a techno or trance producer's workhorse synth.

Serum is also available as a rent-to-buy on Splice I believe, making it more affordable. I also imagine is Serum 2 comes out during the year of paying for it, you'd probably get the upgrade too. But Vital is similar, and can achieve similar results in most cases. You can also get Arturia V Collection as a rent-to-own on Splice too, whilst mentioning that concept, which may give you more versatility?!

Diva is one of my absolute favourite synths, but I dabble mainly with techno and tech house kinda stuff. RePro is also very good.

I've personally not used Model 84, but I do use Softube's Modular a fair bit and love it. I imagine it's typical Softube, in that it is very good and what it's meant to be, which may mean it's not as versatile as you'd want it to be.

Falcon is good, but is expensive and also the addons add up quickly, both in terms of price and in terms of storage capacity for them.

Some notable mentions that are missing are Pigments, Zebra, PhasePlant, and the KORG bundles (KORG Collection also on Splice's rent-to-own offerings), that are worth considering too.

Worth a look to see if it makes anything more affordable for you to help with your decision: Plugins - Rent-to-Own (VST, AU) | Instruments | Splice

 

Pigments would be top, and also second and third, on my list for a great value, versatile synth but make sure you wait for a sale, which are very frequent.
2, 3 and 4 in your list are the very opposite of versatile. Good synths but not versatile.

I love Omnisphere too but I, cough cough, may not have actually paid for that one.

 

Reason rack plugin has a lot of options, you can subscribe and get all their first party plugins that add to one big plugin, there might be some versatile options inside. It’s probably more expensive but you get a whole digital workstation and you can own some cool instruments like Algoritm, Europa, Objekt, etc. find the way to pay how you want or wait for a sale to pick up the Reason ecosystem

Pigments is probably your best bet or VCV, it’s free standalone but has every synthesis type you could need and the Cardinal version is a free plugin with a best of the modules selection.

 

Zebra 2/HZ. The workhorse of workhorses.

 

if I had $130 to spend on plugins, I wouldn't be worrying about being 100% legit. Not when faced with your wishlist.

None of the synths you propose as replacements for Omnisphere are going to cut it. Omnisphere is similar sound quality level with Nexus4 or Avenger, but it is also very good at being an all-purpose synth. It better be (and is), for the price and the hard drive space commitment for it.

I like Arturia's effects plugins, but I have dumped all their synths except Acid V due to the resources consumption of them. You already know what Serum and Vital and every copy job wavetable versions can do. Falcon is expensive, but I really like it. And it still does not replace Omnisphere. Phaseplant is great, but it is about the last synth I would think about when trying to replace Omnisphere in a project. U-he Diva and Repro are great, but Diva is such a cpu ho. And they still will not replace Omnisphere.

I would download the dsp56300 virus emulator OsTIrus and a ton of soundsets for it. I would not try replacing Omnisphere, and I would try replacing the sounds in my tracks that it would normally be used for. Just accept the fact it is going to take multiple other synths for each type of part you would normally just use Omnisphere for. Maybe look at Synplant 2.

 

Synapse Audio DUNE 3. Not even on the list, WTF?! 8 layers, 3 oscillators each, 16-voice unison per oscillator, 16-note polyphony. Can load your own samples, has a wavetable editor, has two arpeggiators, two FX chains, a mod matrix, loads instantly and light as a feather on a CPU *and* storage, since it isn't reliant on hundreds of gigabytes of samples to produce a good sound.

Also having had experience mixing Omnisphere, it's a pain in the butt. Might sound lush on its own but the moment you put it into the mix you basically have to cut half of it away. And its performance is terrible.

 

You can get Falcon + all the UVI expansions and available libraries for $24/mo with SonicPass. It's a good deal if you're making some money with your music.

 

Interastling. I used Omnisphere, because it has both synthesis and samples and thought UVI Falcon was the next best thing, but it's not cheap and not cracked for Mac. Gotta need to check this Dune 3 thingy out.

 

Falcon is less expensive than Omnisphere and is much more versatile.

You also have Pigment which is even less expensive than Falcon but is still one of the best soft synth right now.

 

Sylenth1 is also available on a payment plan with immediate access
https://www.lennardigital.com/store/#paymentplan

 

Go to sister site and get E-Mu X3, then go online and find all the E-Mu sample packs and/or Akai ones you can and convert them, either I think it's Chicken Systems that converts Akai well, but it might be Extreme Sample Converter. Some Roland CDs convert reasonably well, but others have some kind of error.

Regardless, the reason to do this is that, prior to Omnisphere, the man who actually makes Omnisphere was employed by those companies to sample for E-Mu, Akai, Roland, etc . . . Some of the Omnisphere stuff is literally identical, the Chapman Stick samples, for instance, are exactly the same, it's a dead give away.

Thus, because it's the samples that matter the most, you may very well be fine using E-Mu X3, which is abandonware, and all the E-Mu CDs are free game since it's defunct. Akai has completely stopped supporting the CD format, so those are kind of free game, too.

X3 is a pretty in depth sampler, it's somewhat baffling that Creative just let it die after acquisition instead of just keeping it going.

"I have been testing and it is consistently the absolute best of what I have ever heard. It sounds so great that I don't even need to tweak most presets. I can also create my own presets (compared to classic plugin romplers - omnisphere is truly powerful). I can make one track and use nothing, except Omnisphere..."

The presets are basically the same in many cases, it's just the samples with some minor stuff added.

 

Falcon. At this point its almost all I use.

 

I used to use Omnisphere a few years back, excellent VST, but it's too bloated for my liking now. Different strokes for different folks though, and as @Bunford said, it kinda depends on what you're looking for. Most music I do now is Electronica of some sort. I'd rather not invest all that hard drive space for Omnisphere, but it is pretty versatile and hard to beat. I think if you're looking for a great all around synth you may just have to keep saving (or visit the sister site for it).

Personally, my most commonly used synth is Serum, then after that probably Diva.

I always forget about Zebra2 though. That's a great suggestion by @Bunford and @Will Kweks and I'd say that's one I'd consider. I'd suggest trying that out if you haven't yet.

 

No mention of SynthMaster with the 100.000 soundbanks? Or Rob Papens Blue3?

 

Absolutely Love the sound and performance of dune wich, to me, goes beyond Acces Virus and Clavia Nord Lead/Wave but I can't deal with the workflow/GUI, I wish someone like Lance Thackeray or Plugmon would redesign it.

Lance Thackeray
https://lancethackeray.com/gui

Plugmon
https://plugmon.jp/product-category/themes/

I honestly don't understand how people can get anything done on "proper" workhorse workstations like Nexus, Omnisphere or Falcon.

Like anyone here, I've tried them all, Korg, Roland, GForce, Sunrizer, Hive, Repro, Nexus, Reaktor, Omnisphere, The Legend, Obsession, Dune 3, Phaseplant... Mostly used Spire and Diva, avoiding Serum for a looooong time and now it's funny how I only use Serum and uninstalled everything else.

Good chance it will be updated to v.2. at the end of the year, hopefully it will be as influencial as v.1.

Not sure what you looking for, Zebra and Synthmaster have always been presented as "the" Workhorses do it all synths, for something "next gen" I hear about Falcon 2 all the time.

I personnality don't like bloated 200gb+ software.

 

What kind of music are you making? What did you like about omnisphere?

 

I don't really have one genre. What I liked about Omnisphere is the rich sound of it - from countless high quality sampled instruments to great analog synths - it covers pretty much everything I need.

 

Hey @OffshoreBanking, that might be my area of expertise ;)

I am currently working on a skin for ANA 2 (almost finished) and could in the future work on Dune 3 too!

My skins can be found here.