# 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries and user patches



## Guy Rowland (Feb 15, 2013)

*Not updating the OP any more, too many libraries now (which is a good thing). I'll keep adding to the thread of course.*

*NB - reviews below amended March 4th 2013 to reflect my best understanding and advice on installing the libraries.*

*During the thread, issues arose that affect users who create and tag their own patches, so title amended. Originally the thread was called "3rd Party Omnisphere Libraries".*

*Update March 7 2013 - warning to readers of this thread! Over the course of the discussion, it came to light that 3rd party libraries use different methods of installing their products. Some of these were approved by Spectrasonics, and some weren't. My own view is that the restrictions that came with approval in one case were too harsh and significantly reduce the functionality, but that's a personal judgement call. I'll be annotating this thread to reflect any further understanding I now have since the original posts (which also affects the issue of user patches), and also as best as I understand it, what the official Spectrasonics position is. I'll make these annotations in dark blue.*

Another thread spin off, thought this discussion of 3rd party libraries should be in its own. Although Omni is a few years old now, quality third party libraries are a relatively recent phenomenon. Waking up to it, I bought 4 this week:

*Plughugger Bassphere* - 10 Euros - 395 patches
http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---bassphere-complete.html (http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics ... plete.html)

This expansion of bass sounds and arps is well worth the practically nothing it costs. For each patch, there are around 8 variations, so it's around 50 totally different patches...which you'd think would be a cheat, but the variety between each version is huge. Plenty of arps and some modweel variation too by default. Seems well tagged, although it's a bit of a shame they all come in 3 folders (bassphere 1, 2, and 3) which my default won't integrate correctly into the Omnisphere browser. To do so, put all three into a new subfolder of the library named "Synth Bass" - the patches will now appear alongside all your other libraries in the Synth Bass category in the browser. This library hasn't been vetted by Spectrasonics, that advice is purely my own based on my desire to see those patches show up in the main Synth Bass category. Eric Persing cautions that this library might disturb the core browsing experience.

*Plughugger JP8K Legends* - 10 Euros - 150 patches
http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---jp8k-legends.html (http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics ... gends.html)

Two thirds of this library is based round two soundsources of the JP-8000 oscillators, so sonically it's obviously more limited in range. However it's still a good expansion especially for the trance crowd, and the basses are actually quite wide-ranging. Unlike bassphere, the naming is very basic - PH ARP Bass JP8K Legends 05 for example, but the tagging looks good - except for the categories.

Like Bassphere by default the library does not integrate correctly into the Omnisphere categories. To do this, you need to create 4 subfolders within the Library folder - I put patches prefixed BAS into Synth Bass, ARP into ARP + Rhythms, LED into Synth Poly and PAD into Strings + Pads. Actually some of the BAS patches are ARPs, so I dragged those into the Arps + Rhythms subfolder. Note - it's important to get the folder names exactly the same as Spectrasonics own to have them integrate correctly into the browser. This library hasn't been vetted by Spectrasonics, that advice is purely my own based on my desire to see those patches show up in the main categories. Eric Persing cautions that this library might disturb the core browsing experience.


*Plugin Guru Omniverse* - 30 USD - 150 patches
http://pluginguru.com/guru-products/omniverse-patches

While the Plughugger libraries are specialised, this has a broad range like the core library. Quality is for the most part very good, though one or two sounded a bit too familiar to the core lib - designers I guess have to make sure they don't unintentionally overlap. Most of the patches are very good though, plenty of arps and pulses, and the library is well tagged and covers a broad range. Unlike Plughugger, all the patches come in the correct category folders so it's just a case of installing as per the instructions and everything works. Huzzah!

This library is unique in as far that it appears in the core browser categories and also whose tagging has been vetted by Spectrasonics in order to be compatible with the rest of the library. A coming update of Omnisphere, however, might disturb this.

*The Unfinished Omnisphere Horizon* - 19.99 GBP - 128 patches
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/omnisphere-horizon/

This is the one that VI-C'ers will REALLY want. With an emphasis on more cinematic uses, this library covers six of the Omnisphere categories. It's the arps, pads and textures that really excell, and these form the lion's share of the patches. There's loads of evolving, brooding menace, but a fair smattering of lighter cinematic tones too. Quality is very high, with the programming on a par with the core library. Only a handful of patches have no modwheel action by default, and a few of the patches seem unnaturally quiet compared to the others, but it's easy enough to fix this. Tagging is comprehensive, and the library even includes a good size jpg of the very fetching artwork, a bit like having album artwork - nice touch.

The library comes with all the patches sorted into correct folders. Like Pluginguru, all you gotta do is install as per the instructions.

This library has not been vetted by Spectrasonics, and Eric Persing says that installing it may upset the core browser experience. Personally I've found no issues with it that concern me.

All these are worth buying I'd say. If it was just one though - Horizon.

EDIT - extra library bundle review:

*Ilio Ignition and Fire bundle *- 25USD (on promotion) 238 patches
http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-downloads

As far as organisation is concerned, this was the worst of the lot - it's a horrible mess. By default, the library puts itself into the category of ILIO patches (as opposed to Pads + Strings etc) then a TYPE of ILIO - EDM Fire and EDM Ignition (as opposed to Dance Synths, Vox Humana etc. To me, this is hopeless. Personally I started from scratch, creating a new library called ILIO-EDM, subfolders named after Omnisphere's own categories and manually sorting from there based on the prefixes in the patch names.

I was slightly disappointed by this set which is focused on EDM - they seemed a little ordinary to me next to the dance-stuff in plugin guru's set for example. There were a handful of useful arps and a few screaming leads and basses so I hardly feel cheated, but it wouldn't be my first choice for an expansion. On the plus side, all patches have variation premapped to the modwheel, and tagging looks good (aside from creating its own Type).

This library has been vetted by Spectrasonics. However, unlike Plugin Guru's, to avoid any compatibility issues the decision was made to install it to its own category and Type, which I understand was not how the library was originally going to appear - which would have been more to my own preference. My own view is that the cure is worse than the disease, and I'm much happier with the product being installed in the normal categories. The worst side-effect when generally browsing seems to be an increase in the number of Types to choose from, which means you might need to look in more than one place - to me that is preferable to having everything sectioned away where they don't appear in their own categories at all.

Update 29/4/14 - ILIO has now retagged their libraries to fit in with the rest of the Spectrasonics releases. Existing users can get an updated version from ILIO.

ANOTHER EDIT - 2 more reviews

*Audiority Bundle (Dancesphere, Modern EDM and Collection vol 1*) - 30 Euros, 234 patches

3rd Party libraries are damned if they do and damned if they don't right now with regard to organisation, but out of the virtual box Audiority won't really keep anyone happy. While cateogries are arranged within library folders (imo a good thing, not in Eric Persing's), most of these cateogies to not follow the Spectrasonics naming convention - we have stuff like "drums", "leads", "Piano + Keys". While logical, they don't follow any current convention. The good news is that it's easy and quick to rename these to Spectrasonics names - so Bass becomes Synth Bass for example, then it works much better.

I have to say tagging is all over the place too, user star ratings are auto-filled (nooo!) and notes and consistent cc1 mapping might leave a little to be desired. BUT - the really good news is that this has some of the best EDM sounds I've heard from Omnisphere. It took a while to get it into a useable form, but the content makes it worthwhile.

*Plughugger Ultravirus* - 150 patches, 9.90 Euros
This set follows the same conventions as the rest of the Plughugger series, which again to me meant lots of sorting out. It didn't quite hit the mark sonicaly - it's largely quite an ordinary sounding set, imo the weakest of their bunch.


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## rayinstirling (Feb 15, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

You missed this

http://www.mulperi.net/


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## Ed (Feb 15, 2013)

Anyone know how to get these? Cant find anywhere to buy/download em?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heD8Dl5a2_M

Oh and Matt's really fills a market. Specific stuff for Omni dedicated to film.


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## mm (Feb 15, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Here are a few more...

Waveformless - Omnisphere Encompass
http://www.waveformless-soundware.com/downloads.aspx

Ilio - EDM Fire
http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-downloads/edmfire

Audority - http://www.audiority.com/product-category/omnisphere/
Modern EDM
Collection vol 1
Dancesphere


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## windshore (Feb 15, 2013)

Just picked up Fire this week... very good!


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## synthnut (Feb 15, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Ed, 

Go to soundsdivine.com .........The guys name is Simon .....I see him a lot on KVR ....Jim


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## spectrum (Feb 15, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Fri Feb 15 said:


> The library comes with all the patches sorted into correct folders. I like to put these into relevant subfolders within the user folder, which makes the patches all appear in the correct place - however, I've had no success in any of these expansions in getting the library itself visible in the drop down menu in the top LHS of the Omnisphere browser. Generally the installation of 3rd party patches isn't perhaps as silky-smooth as it could be - it's fair to say it probably wasn't top of the list on Spectrasonics design for the platform. It's pretty easy to get the patches going, but a uniform easy system to get them all to share the same categories and show up in the library drop down menu seems elusive (to me, anyway).


None of these third-party libraries use installers to properly place the files in the correct places...hence all the confusion.

Our support calls go WAY up when people start using these libraries that don't have proper installers like we do with the factory libraries. 

Another downside of using all these uncoordinated patches by third-parties is that all use different tagging and organization systems that will actually mess up your browsing experience in ALL mode...it won't be as clean as it was when you first installed Omnisphere and you'll end up with tagging/directories that doesn't produce the results you'd expect. This stuff actually creates a good bit of headache for us at HQ. 

Always nice to have the support of talented third-party patch designers though.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



spectrum @ Fri Feb 15 said:


> Guy Rowland @ Fri Feb 15 said:
> 
> 
> > The library comes with all the patches sorted into correct folders. I like to put these into relevant subfolders within the user folder, which makes the patches all appear in the correct place - however, I've had no success in any of these expansions in getting the library itself visible in the drop down menu in the top LHS of the Omnisphere browser. Generally the installation of 3rd party patches isn't perhaps as silky-smooth as it could be - it's fair to say it probably wasn't top of the list on Spectrasonics design for the platform. It's pretty easy to get the patches going, but a uniform easy system to get them all to share the same categories and show up in the library drop down menu seems elusive (to me, anyway).
> ...



Ah ha... thought it might be something like this.

Just a thought then - is it worth offering some broad install advice to the good 3rd party devs? Surely it would be win-win-win all round - you get less supoort calls, so do the other devs, and it's an easier ride for the customer


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## JPQ (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Sat 16 Feb said:


> Another thread spin off, thought this discussion of 3rd party libraries should be in its own. Although Omni is a few years old now, quality third party libraries are a relatively recent phenomenon. Waking up to it, I bought 4 this week:
> 
> *Plughugger Bassphere* - 10 Euros - 395 patches
> http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---bassphere-complete.html (http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics ... plete.html)
> ...



Last one sounds really nice.


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## TheUnfinished (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Only just stumbled across this thread. Thanks for the awesome review Guy. Much appreciated.


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## spectrum (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Sat Feb 16 said:


> Ah ha... thought it might be something like this.
> 
> Just a thought then - is it worth offering some broad install advice to the good 3rd party devs? Surely it would be win-win-win all round - you get less supoort calls, so do the other devs, and it's an easier ride for the customer


That would just move the headache to a different department (from support to software DEV) and then they would have to be updating and revising the installers for every company and every library. (we have to update our installer designs constantly to keep up with all the OS changes from Apple/Microsoft)

Most importantly, doing that would dramatically slow down our own progress on releasing new products....you don't want that now do you?


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## 667 (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Do you provide documentation for third-party patch devs so they can build and distribute the "correct" way?

A similar scenario occurs with Kontakt where some libraries (Soundiron) have all the UI assets built-in whereas some products require copying the UI elements into a Kontakt resources folder. I've also seen installers for UI files that do not work correctly (putting in Kontakt4 instead of Kontakt5 folder).

I don't think NI really helps devs get it "right" and that they just had to figure it out.


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## spectrum (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



667 @ Sat Feb 16 said:


> Do you provide documentation for third-party patch devs so they can build and distribute the "correct" way?


No...honestly, that would be a huge book to create and update and we just don't have time to do it and police everyone interested in releasing patches.

That's why we don't have an official third-party developer program. Our own system is also constantly changing and improving too....it's a moving target.


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## 667 (Feb 16, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Well, perhaps making third-party development easier is something to be slated in a future release then. 

Which reminds me I still haven't bought the Moog Tribute library! I'll have to grab that asap.


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## Dick the Flick (Feb 20, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Many thanks Guy

This is fabulous .... much appreciated!

Bon chance


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## Midihead (Feb 25, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Anyone check out the EDM Bundle from ILIO? 

Right now until March 22nd you can get both EDM - Fire and the new EDM - Ignition for only $24.99! Steal of a deal! 

http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-downloads

Must have Omnisphere 1.5 or higher. 

Best,


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## Brian Ralston (Feb 26, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Midihead @ Mon Feb 25 said:


> Anyone check out the EDM - Bundle from ILIO?
> 
> Right now until March 22nd you can get both EDM - Fire and the new EDM - Ignition for only $29! Steal of a deal!
> 
> ...



Great work on these Michael. Looking forward to exploring them. o-[][]-o


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## woodsdenis (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Midihead @ Tue Feb 26 said:


> Anyone check out the EDM Bundle from ILIO?
> 
> Right now until March 22nd you can get both EDM - Fire and the new EDM - Ignition for only $24.99! Steal of a deal!
> 
> ...



This is actually a steal, EDM in leaning but great for Hybrid stuff. First class programming chops, kudos. You kinda wonder on a lot of patches,how did he do that ?


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## spectrum (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

One thing I really like about ILIO's new EDM libraries is that they feature a lot of what Omnisphere can do without using any samples at all.

Stylistically, they compliment what we do at Spectrasonics really well too.

Great stuff Mike B!  8)


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## spectrum (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



667 @ Sat Feb 16 said:


> Which reminds me I still haven't bought the Moog Tribute library! I'll have to grab that asap.


It's a must have and absolutely huge now with over 800 patches!

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/t ... -audio.php


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks for the ilio tip off, another to add to the bulging collection.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

+1000 For the Robert Moog Tribute set - it's outstanding!


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## woodsdenis (Mar 1, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Fri Mar 01 said:


> Thanks for the ilio tip off, another to add to the bulging collection.



Great new sounds for Omni, I use Omni on nearly everything but have fallen into using my favorites too much. These new libraries have really spurned me on to investigate different sounds.

The Moog library is the a must have also. Maybe should be added to the OP


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## cadalac (Mar 1, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Can anyone make and sell patches for different libraries or does that break the license agreement?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2013)

Added another mini review to the OP for the ILIO bundle.


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## drumman (Mar 3, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

spectrum,
I have purchased Omnisphere Horizon. I don't have any other 3rd party add-ons in Omnisphere right now. I'm hesitant to install it and mess things up. (You scared me, man!) Given that folks are going to install plugs into Omnisphere, do you have any advice on how to install them or where to place them to keep as much as possible organized?
Thanks.


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## woodsdenis (Mar 3, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



drumman @ Sun Mar 03 said:


> spectrum,
> I have purchased Omnisphere Horizon. I don't have any other 3rd party add-ons in Omnisphere right now. I'm hesitant to install it and mess things up. (You scared me, man!) Given that folks are going to install plugs into Omnisphere, do you have any advice on how to install them or where to place them to keep as much as possible organized?
> Thanks.



It is precisely explained in the PDF that comes with the download. Short answer it goes in Steam/Omnisphere/Settings Library/Patches/ on a Mac

Edited to correct path !!!


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## drumman (Mar 3, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



woodsdenis @ Sun Mar 03 said:


> drumman @ Sun Mar 03 said:
> 
> 
> > spectrum,
> ...



Right, I'm aware of those instructions (which make me a little less scared :lol: ). Thanks. I was wondering about 3rd party add-ons in general, also. If there is some "least of all evils" way of installing them. Like putting them in a separate folder altogether or something. I don't have any other 3rd party add-ons for Omni, so before I do anything, I am just checking for an organized method, not knowing much about this for Omni or if any such method exists (before I naturally disintegrate into my own brand of disorganization anyway).


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2013)

*The perils of installing 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

*Update March 7 - Reader, read on after this post! For my own purposes, I label the two broad install methods "GOOD" and "BAD". Spectrasonics view is that I have this backwards, but it remains true from my own perspective. And if you're thinking that this whole area is a minefield, you're probably right!*

I posted something here half an hour ago based on my best understanding of installing 3rd party stuff, and then subsequently a voice in the back of my head said "Guy... just check something, will you?" Being an obedient sort of chap I did so and found out I had a crucial bit of info missing. Based on that, here's my ammended guide to how to install a 3rd party library, and all pinches of salt are to be taken.

All of Spectrasonics' libraries are packed not as individual patches, but as db database files. The rest of us use individual patches in the old school way. If you create your own, they are in a User subfolder of the patches folder, and you place your patches into the correct category subfolder - arps / synth lead etc where they dutifully appear neatly in the Omnisphere browser.

Third Party libraries (I've just discovered) come in two flavours. The first is a library such as The Unfinished's Omnisphere Horizon, which has patches neatly organised into their own category folders. These are now to be known by me as GOOD libraries. If you place your library as per the install instructions into X (where X is the name of your drive where Omnisphere is installed)/Spectrasonics/STEAM/Omnisphere/Stettings Library/Patches) , then the library will appear in the library selector top LHS of Omnisphere, and - crucially - all the categories appear in the correct folders too. Essentially, how it seems to work is that Omnisphere scans your patches folder, and if it sees subfolders within library folders there it sorts it all out for you. Everyone's happy.

However, there is another category of library, know to be known by me as BAD libraries, where all the patches are not in their own category subfolders. In this case, Omnisphere scans your patches folder, sees no subfolders and doesn't know what else to do but to invent its own new category within the browser with the name of your new library (say, Library Z). Inside that are all the patches, but no matter how they are named and tagged, an ARP won't appear in the ARP category in the browser, it will appear under Library Z.

These libraries tend to have old school names prefixed with BASS, PAD and so on, so you have an idea of where they are meant to go, but they don't integrate well into Omnisphere. What you can do in this situation is to create subfolders yourself within the library, carefully naming them by the Spectrasonics convention, and put all the BASS named patches into the Synth Bass subfolder. That way, Omnisphere knows what to do with them, and puts them in the Synth Bass category in the browser.

My own advice to Drumman wouldn't be to put everything in one big 3rd party folder, as I think that would further confuse Omnisphere. It's neatest to keep libraries in their own folders, and check they have correctly named subfolders with Omnisphere category names.

Eric's slight reluctance to fully endorse all the 3rd party stuff I think is partly for reasons like this. Also I've noticed that Spectrasonics are careful to use a certain kind of tag for a certain type of sound. For example in the ARPs and Rhythm category, dance arps are broadly categories as "Synth Patterns", whereas Plughugger have tagged them as "Dance Synths", which is a perfectly reasonable alternate description. But it means that if you just want to drill down to one tag, you're a bit stuck, you might now have to search in a couple of relevant places. It's the same with your own patches - if I make my own dance arp, chances are I'll tag it "wrong", as per the way the Core library is carefully presented, and the list of types for any one category starts growing. 

EDIT - Armed with the elixir of Omnisphere Knowledge, I've amended all the reviews in the OP with regard which of them integrate correctly by default into Omnisphere, and what you need to do if not. The good news, btw, is you can freely move patches and subfolders about within your Patches folder within file explorer if you want to change them, then do a refresh of the entire lot within Omnisphere and it works. To summarise - The Unfinished's Horizon and Plugin Guru's Omniverse are both perfect, none of the others integrate correctly.

Where I was going wrong is that since all my initial experiences were with "bad" libraries, I didn't realise that as long as the subfolder structure is intact within each library, Omnisphere sorts into correct categories - I was unnecessarily putting them all into my nicely organised User folder which I presumed was anointed and special. Turns out all folders there are special if they are properly organised.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

It's encouraging to know that Horizon is a GOOD library, Guy. Thanks.

I've had a handful of emails from customers who have had problems installing the sounds, mainly from people who did not realise that the instructions were included in the Read Me file. 99% of these have been fixed by following those instructions.

I was also careful not to invent any new categories, as I have seen with some other libraries, because they are confusing and make the end user's life more difficult.

Anyway, I'll sign off with a reminder to existing customers that they should have received an email with a bunch of new multis - might be in your spam folder if you've not seen it yet.

Ta ta.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



TheUnfinished @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> It's encouraging to know that Horizon is a GOOD library, Guy. Thanks.



 

I haven't yet met a library that invents any new potentially useful categories, it seems either they are followed completely (like Horizon) or ignored completely. It's the latter case that is such a nightmare, cos then nothing appears in the right place at all in the browser, and you start getting new categories appearing with library names and you can't find anything any more and everything's just awful.

I think BAD libraries need to clean up their act...

EDIT - just to clarify, I don't want any new categories at all (unless Spectrasonics do it), just making the point that so far no-one has consciously tried.


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## zvenx (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



woodsdenis @ Sun Mar 03 said:


> drumman @ Sun Mar 03 said:
> 
> 
> > spectrum,
> ...



I don't think that's the right location.

this is:
Steam/Omnisphere/Settings Library/Patches/
and I am pretty sure that is what is said in the readme that comes with Omnisphere Horizon.

rsp


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## woodsdenis (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



zvenx @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> woodsdenis @ Sun Mar 03 said:
> 
> 
> > drumman @ Sun Mar 03 said:
> ...




After you've unzipped the download file, locate your STEAM folder, on whichever drive you installed it to. Then put the 'The Unfinished Omnisphere Horizon' folder into the Omnisphere/Settings Library/Patches folder. You should see your User folder in there, and any other 3rd party Omnisphere libraries you may have purchased.
Nice and painless.

from the pdf. mmmm I read it too quickly, I put them in the User folder and it works, on re reading yes it seems like you should put them in the patches folder. The Plughugger ones it says specifically the Users folder. Sorry for confusion, Guy's explanation of Omni folder structure a couple of posts up explains why it ideal to stick "good" libraries in the PATCHES folder not the user one.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



woodsdenis @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> from the pdf. mmmm I read it too quickly, I put them in the User folder and it works, on re reading yes it seems like you can or should put them in the patches folder. The Plughugger ones it says specifically the Users folder. Sorry for confusion, Guy is there any difference apart from the folder structure in Omni ? Both work



The long post of mine a few up explains what the difference is. Briefly - if you put a new library in the Patches folder, it will have it's own library within the Omnisphere library box (top LHS of the browser). For the patches to appear in categories in Omni, there need to be category subfolders in the library folder.

The OP now has descriptions of the differences between libraries with regards to installing - basically The Unfinished and Plugin Guru get it right, the others all get it wrong imo and require work on the part of the user to integrate them smoothly with the other libraries.


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## woodsdenis (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> woodsdenis @ Mon Mar 04 said:
> 
> 
> > from the pdf. mmmm I read it too quickly, I put them in the User folder and it works, on re reading yes it seems like you can or should put them in the patches folder. The Plughugger ones it says specifically the Users folder. Sorry for confusion, Guy is there any difference apart from the folder structure in Omni ? Both work
> ...



Thanks Guy just edited my post to direct to your original explanation , thanks for all your info and help.


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2013)

I had no problems installing Matt's library. Just pop it in the folder it says to and tada it works.


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## Midihead (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

It's important for me to note that the ILIO EDM patch libraries were structured in a way that would not interfere with Omnisphere's Core Patch Library, Moog Tribute Library, as well as any other Libraries that Spectrasonics release in the future. We decided not to create sub-folders within our patch directories based on specifications we got from up top. So really, to understand the "good" and "bad" patch libraries you have to fully understand the structure of Omnisphere. While you can poke around and try to make sense of it yourself, you'll not fully understand it without actually doing a patch library in conjunction with Spectrasonics. There are a lot of things to consider, especially with the tagging system and folder structure. These can't be fully understood without having a nice sit-down with Eric (who was gracious enough to do that with me). 

The ILIO EDM Patches don't have directory structures for each type for the aforementioned reason. Again, whether that is "good" or "bad" should really be up to the guy who designed Omnisphere and the user experience that goes along with it, IMHO. 

We have users who really like the tags that prefix the patch names, as it makes it easy to see at a glance what those patches are. It also helps to distinguish between the Spectrasonics and third-party patches without messing up the user experience.

Best,


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Midihead @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> It's important for me to note that the ILIO EDM patch libraries were structured in a way that would not interfere with Omnisphere's Core Patch Library, Moog Tribute Library, as well as any other Libraries that Spectrasonics release in the future. We decided not to create sub-folders within our patch directories based on specifications we got from up top. So really, to understand the "good" and "bad" patch libraries you have to fully understand the structure of Omnisphere. While you can poke around and try to make sense of it yourself, you'll not fully understand it without actually doing a patch library in conjunction with Spectrasonics. There are a lot of things to consider, especially with the tagging system and folder structure. These can't be fully understood without having a nice sit-down with Eric (who was gracious enough to do that with me).
> 
> The ILIO EDM Patches don't have directory structures for each type for the aforementioned reason. Again, whether that is "good" or "bad" should really be up to the guy who designed Omnisphere and the user experience that goes along with it, IMHO.
> 
> ...



Fair dos, and I did say this was my own classification. IMO it's very much the wrong alley to drive down, even though that might put me on a collision course with Eric!

I'm only interested in a third party expansion if it can be properly integrated. Regardless of the reasons for doing it differently in the first place, it's not functionally useful (to me anyway) to not use either the categories or the types in the same way the regular libraries are. If I'm looking for a synth bass, call me old fashioned but I'll start by looking in the synth bass folder. Anything not in that ain't gonna get found or used.

Both Plugin Guru and The Unfinished are exemplorary, imo, in terms of integration. The library appears correctly, all the patches appear in the correct categories. and the types are logical.

So sorry to (apparently) disagree with Eric on this. but now I finally understand why 3rd party libraries have been causing me grief over the years, that's something I'll be looking for in a new library from now on.


----------



## zvenx (Mar 4, 2013)

hope it isn't inappropriate, but just got a tweet from pluginguru that they are having a sale on patches... and I imagine it must include the above mentioned omniverse
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... d694e17dab

rsp


----------



## spectrum (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> Fair dos, and I did say this was my own classification. IMO it's very much the wrong alley to drive down, even though that might put me on a collision course with Eric!
> 
> I'm only interested in a third party expansion if it can be properly integrated.


Unfortunately this is not possible without a massive third-party training and accreditation program by Spectrasonics to teach third-party developers how to officially categorize and tag patches that would severely delay the new products we are working on.



> Regardless of the reasons for doing it differently in the first place, it's not functionally useful (to me anyway) to not use either the categories or the types in the same way the regular libraries are. If I'm looking for a synth bass, call me old fashioned but I'll start by looking in the synth bass folder. Anything not in that ain't gonna get found or used.
> 
> Both Plugin Guru and The Unfinished are exemplorary, imo, in terms of integration.


After much time spent communicating with PlugInGuru, I had to actually tag and categorize that library myself as a favor to John so that it corresponded correctly with the Factory Library.

Matt's Library is categorized pretty well, but actually does not correspond correctly with the Factory Library and therefore adds numerous tags in incorrect places....which messes up the browsing experience in ALL mode.

I realized pretty fast that there was no way for me to offer this service to every third-party developer, so I advised ILIO to do it the other way so as not to mess up the tagging system for end users. (like most of these other libraries do)



> The library appears correctly, all the patches appear in the correct categories. and the types are logical.


But also incorrect in the case of Matt's. It will mess up the experience of browsing in ALL mode. You will select something expecting one result and get a completely different result.

This is because Matt tagged his library in a completely different way than Spectrasonics did. After you install his library, you might select "Aggressive Synths" in Arp & Rhythm and you'd find only a small selection of patches coming up (not all the Aggressive Synths that are available in the Arp & Rhythm section). Hence...confusing/disappointing result for the end user.

The tagging system we designed was really for in-house development or for end-users. Third-party patch developers distributing tagged libraries cause huge complications that I can't fully go into here....but it gets very messy, very fast.



> So sorry to (apparently) disagree with Eric on this. but now I finally understand why 3rd party libraries have been causing me grief over the years, that's something I'll be looking for in a new library from now on.


We're working on trying to solve this problem on the software side now (probably by de-emphasizing ALL mode of the browser), but basically the bottom line is that if you start getting third party patch libraries, your browsing experience in ALL mode (which is the default) will produce less than an optimal experience.


----------



## spectrum (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: The perils of installing 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Sun Mar 03 said:


> I posted something here half an hour ago based on my best understanding of installing 3rd party stuff, and then subsequently a voice in the back of my head said "Guy... just check something, will you?" Being an obedient sort of chap I did so and found out I had a crucial bit of info missing. Based on that, here's my ammended guide to how to install a 3rd party library, and all pinches of salt are to be taken.
> 
> All of Spectrasonics' libraries are packed not as individual patches, but as db database files. The rest of us use individual patches in the old school way. If you create your own, they are in a User subfolder of the patches folder, and you place your patches into the correct category subfolder - arps / synth lead etc where they dutifully appear neatly in the Omnisphere browser.
> 
> Third Party libraries (I've just discovered) come in two flavours. The first is a library such as The Unfinished's Omnisphere Horizon, which has patches neatly organised into their own category folders. These are now to be known by me as GOOD libraries.


Absolutely WRONG.

There are multiple GOOD ways to deliver. Each method has Pros and Cons:

• Horizon is GOOD in that it categorizes patches like Spectrasonics, however it is BAD because it tags them differently than Spectrasonics...thus messing up the experience of browsing in ALL mode.

• EDM Fire/Ignite are GOOD in that they don't mess up the tagging system and browsing experience when browsing in ALL mode. They categorize the sounds more by naming convention (which BTW has been widely praised by many end-users). You could say it's BAD in that it doesn't have the traditional categories and tags...but it's quite easy to find the type of sound simply by scrolling the list of sounds and this is a fine approach for smaller libraries.



> If you place your library as per the install instructions into X (where X is the name of your drive where Omnisphere is installed)/Spectrasonics/STEAM/Omnisphere/Stettings Library/Patches) , then the library will appear in the library selector top LHS of Omnisphere, and - crucially - all the categories appear in the correct folders too. Essentially, how it seems to work is that Omnisphere scans your patches folder, and if it sees subfolders within library folders there it sorts it all out for you. Everyone's happy.


Except Spectrasonics and any user that wants to keep the browsing experience in ALL mode the same as the factory designed experience. 



> However, there is another category of library, know to be known by me as BAD libraries, where all the patches are not in their own category subfolders.


Not bad....just different. Actually preferable if you don't want to mess up your browsing experience in ALL mode.



> These libraries tend to have old school names prefixed with BASS, PAD and so on, so you have an idea of where they are meant to go, but they don't integrate well into Omnisphere.


They won't anyway if they are tagged incorrectly.



> Eric's slight reluctance to fully endorse all the 3rd party stuff I think is partly for reasons like this.


It is EXACTLY for reasons like this!

It's incredibly messy and screws up our carefully designed system.



> Also I've noticed that Spectrasonics are careful to use a certain kind of tag for a certain type of sound. For example in the ARPs and Rhythm category, dance arps are broadly categories as "Synth Patterns", whereas Plughugger have tagged them as "Dance Synths", which is a perfectly reasonable alternate description. But it means that if you just want to drill down to one tag, you're a bit stuck, you might now have to search in a couple of relevant places. It's the same with your own patches - if I make my own dance arp, chances are I'll tag it "wrong", as per the way the Core library is carefully presented, and the list of types for any one category starts growing.


Yep...and it gets worse because unless you tag every library the same way, the results will get totally confusing.

It will also GREATLY mess up the experiences we are designing right now for the future of Omnisphere.

So the whole thing is pretty complicated.



> To summarise - The Unfinished's Horizon and Plugin Guru's Omniverse are both perfect, none of the others integrate correctly.


Not correct.

Only Plugin Guru's Omniverse was done correctly in every way.

Horizon introduces problems into the ALL browsing mode.

ILIO's libraries were specifically organized to NOT cause problems when browsing in ALL mode. They are also very easy to navigate due to the naming.


----------



## zvenx (Mar 4, 2013)

Ironically I just got omniverse.... Eric I know you are under probably self imposed deadlines etc.
but maybe instead of teaching every third party person. maybe a tutorial and pdf with the correct way may go a long long way.
rsp


----------



## spectrum (Mar 4, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



TheUnfinished @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> I was also careful not to invent any new categories, as I have seen with some other libraries, because they are confusing and make the end user's life more difficult.


Much appreciated. Unfortunately, you didn't follow the "blue tags-only" rules in the Edit Tags pane when you tagged, and therefore added a lot of tags to categories that are quite different than how the factory libraries are organized.

Also, since your software wasn't up to date when you tagged, you re-added a bunch of old tags we removed a long time ago from the factory library.

Like I said....it's complicated. 

Great library though. 8)


----------



## spectrum (Mar 4, 2013)

zvenx @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> Ironically I just got omniverse.... Eric I know you are under probably self imposed deadlines etc.
> but maybe instead of teaching every third party person. maybe a tutorial and pdf with the correct way may go a long long way.
> rsp


I don't think you really want that. 

This would easily take me about 6 months to a year to prepare, since every term we use and it's subjective use has to be discussed with many examples, etc. Tagging is a massive topic. 

I think you might prefer having some new products from Spectrasonics instead. 

Our tagging system is an incredibly involved system that is constantly changing and being improved.

For example, all of these libraries tagging will be out of date in the near future, with no real centralized system in place to update them.

That's why it's actually BETTER for third-parties NOT to tag their libraries.

So we are pursuing different options to solve this problem of ever expanding tagging issues caused by all these new third-party libraries.


----------



## zvenx (Mar 4, 2013)

tagging smagging 
you are sure right.

Bring on the new stuff 


rsp




spectrum @ Mon Mar 04 said:


> zvenx @ Mon Mar 04 said:
> 
> 
> > Ironically I just got omniverse.... Eric I know you are under probably self imposed deadlines etc.
> ...


----------



## zvenx (Mar 4, 2013)

Eric's blue tag only comment got me curious and I once again looked at this tutorial.

I am sure all may have seen it,
I am hoping it may help third party developers conform:

http://vimeo.com/17379841
 
rsp


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

*Update March 7 - ok, I screwed up in my testing in this post, but have left my idiocy for all to see. A subsequent test revealed that I hadn't messed up the rest of the library with my own tagging, which I thought I had. So that's good news. As ever, read on for the full story.*

Whoa there... WHOOOOOAAAA there!!!!!!

Eric, I think we have a problem. And it's a problem that's actually nothing necessarily to do with 3rd Party libraries at all, although it's exposed it.

I just ran a test. I started my moving all the third party libraries outside of my patch folder. Then (important bit, this) I moved all of my own user patches out of their respective subfolders, taking great care to keep them in their correctly named categories. So I ended up with a user folder back to its virgin state - a full complement of categories but no contents in any of them. I was now in a pure Spectrasonics state.

I opened a new instance of Omnisphere, and refreshed the broswer for ALL. I instantly noticed a new Type appeared - Analogue Bells - with several patches in. I picked the first as a test case - Hidden Beauty Belltones - which was categorised as Bells and Chimes. I then removed the instance of Omnisphere, and put back all my user patches. Next, I re-inserted Omnsiphere, and sure enough...

Analogue Bells had disappeared from ALL.

The patches were still there in Bells and Chimes ok, but just as you say happens with 3rd Party libraries happens with my own patches. I presume that my "mistake" was to not use the blue tags as shown in the tutorial, but I don't think there was any way for me to know that I must use blue tags, or else risk mucking up the browser in other areas (there was no hint of this in the advanced browser tutorial, just mentioning we could see what other patches in the category were using).

So forgive, but it seems to me that the issue here is that ALL isn't working correctly, because as an end user I'm able to muck up the core browser in this way - and at this point I've not gone near a 3rd party library. So I'm really glad to hear that you guys are working on a fix to the ALL problem. The only other solution would be to prohibit users from using anything other than blue tags when tagging, but after 5 years I think the cat is well and truly out of that bag!

Now, I know there are other issues related to tagging and blue tags. I think I used the example earlier that you will use the tag Synth Patterns in the ARPs + Rhythms category for contemporary dancey type synths (and then additionally the dance genre). There is another tag called Dance Synths which would seem logical, but it is unused in the Spectrasonics core library's ARPs. Plughugger used Dance Synths to tag, which is perfectly logical, but didn't use Synth Patterns. So I can see from a final user perspective, it is better to use what you guys do, as you're only looking in one place - I now know after using it for a while that I'm jumping to Synth Patterns for that kind of sound, and by doing so I'll miss Plughuggers. In ideal world, I guess Plughugger should have used both Dance Type and Synth Patterns.

But - and it's a big but - its far more preferable to me to at least start in ARPs + Rhythms and then see what types are available. Browsing ARPs with my 3rd Party libs installed, I can see a type for Dance Synths now, along with a host of others from the other libraries - some of Matt's appear in Edgy Underground. These are perfectly sensible tags, but not used by you guys. But it's relatively easy to scroll down and have a look at the "new" types that have appeared, knowing that the lion's share will always be in Synth Patterns.

So I can see what goes for ARPs and dance synths, will go for a hundred or more other scenarios. The short and safe answer is to stick to blue tags then everything appears in the same place, but because end users won't have been doing that for years I'm not sure it's the ultimate solution here.

Given the relatively recent mini-explosion in 3rd party libraries, and an according rise in this problem all of a sudden, do you think there might be a fix for the ALL problem ahead of whatever excitements are further down the line from your excellent selves? 

In the meantime, it seems to me that the best way forward for third parties is to follow the Plugin Guru way. This integrates your categories, and keeps your types in line with the rest of the library (which also dodges the ALL problem).

As a coda, now I've put back all my libraries, I did a before and after check on the Aggressive Synths tag in ALL. With all my spectrasonics libraies installed, that was 37 pages of tagging - around 850 patches (wow, btw!). Now with 5 3rd party libraries added in it's 41 pages, which looks pretty reasonable. So it's good to know that that ALL issue appears to be not the end of the world


----------



## TheUnfinished (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

I shall check out that video, thanks. I tried to tag as sensibly as I could, based on patches that I felt were similar in the existing library.

I'm not surprised my having an older version caused a problem!

I think you're going to always have issues with 3rd party 'development' with tagging in synths. One man's aggressive synth is another man's Casio VL Tone. But this is a great thread for me, learning plenty. Keep it up!


----------



## zvenx (Mar 5, 2013)

Matt, I am not sure how much help the video actually is, but it may be a start.
rsp


----------



## woodsdenis (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Question for Guy or Eric. as far as tagging or not in 3rd part libs, is it preferable to put un tagged ones in the the user folder? Or does it make any difference? 

Should all 3rd party libs be in the patches folder? keeping the User strictly for that, user generated content.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



woodsdenis @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> Question for Guy or Eric. as far as tagging or not in 3rd part libs, is it preferable to put un tagged ones in the the user folder? Or does it make any difference?
> 
> Should all 3rd party libs be in the patches folder? keeping the User strictly for that, user generated content.



I think you'll get two very different answers from the two of us! The obvious comment is that Eric clearly knows what he is talking about whereas I don't, so with that important disclaimer:

If you have patches that are completely untagged, I'm not sure how much use they are really. Why not tag them? The best thing to do I think would be just to put them in relevent subfolders of the user folder.

AFAIK all 3rd party libraries are tagged, much of this thread discusses the merits of otherwise of their different methods. I think it's best for each library to be in its own subfolder within the Patches folder, then to have category subfolders as used in the core and user libraries.


----------



## Midihead (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

To answer the last question:

Omnisphere does not force you to tag if you create a new folder inside the "User" directory. I've decided NOT to tag my patches when distributing my "working" patches so I don't muck up the system, and I've saved them in the "User" directory but under a new folder called "MIDIhead" so they're easy to find. If you decide to save into the sub-folders inside the "User" directory, you must at least use the blue tags and the fields identified by the "red box". This "User" directory is definitely NOT the "right" way to distribute patches en mass. Again, I use the "new folder" method in the "User" folder ONLY for a few select people so they can provide feedback to me. 

If you pick up the EDM Bundle from ILIO, you can see how everything is structured. 

http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-downloads

I would personally suggest if you are going to be distributing your patches en mass, you do it this way. Tagging, as Eric pointed out is a very complex process. This includes saving into the designated folders, since that too is subjective. Deviating from the process that Spectrasonics has taken years to solidify only hurts the end user experience. So, until there is an actual 3rd-party solution, the way the EDM Bundle is laid out is the least intrusive and most balanced way to redistribute patches. Guy will likely not agree with me on this, but I felt it important to respond due to the fact that he's driving the entire narrative. 

I hope this helps!

Best,

MIDIhead
www.midihead.com


----------



## spectrum (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> Whoa there... WHOOOOOAAAA there!!!!!!
> 
> Eric, I think we have a problem. And it's a problem that's actually nothing necessarily to do with 3rd Party libraries at all, although it's exposed it.


Ok...let's step through it and see if there's a problem.



> I just ran a test. I started my moving all the third party libraries outside of my patch folder. Then (important bit, this) I moved all of my own user patches out of their respective subfolders, taking great care to keep them in their correctly named categories. So I ended up with a user folder back to its virgin state - a full complement of categories but no contents in any of them. I was now in a pure Spectrasonics state.


Cool.



> I opened a new instance of Omnisphere, and refreshed the broswer for ALL. I instantly noticed a new Type appeared - Analogue Bells - with several patches in. I picked the first as a test case - Hidden Beauty Belltones - which was categorised as Bells and Chimes.


That's in the Moog Tribute Library. You should have seen that Type before you got rid of your 3rd party and User patches.

Works correctly here.



> I then removed the instance of Omnisphere, and put back all my user patches. Next, I re-inserted Omnsiphere, and sure enough...
> 
> Analogue Bells had disappeared from ALL.


When I do that test, I still see it.



> The patches were still there in Bells and Chimes ok, but just as you say happens with 3rd Party libraries happens with my own patches. I presume that my "mistake" was to not use the blue tags as shown in the tutorial, but I don't think there was any way for me to know that I must use blue tags, or else risk mucking up the browser in other areas (there was no hint of this in the advanced browser tutorial, just mentioning we could see what other patches in the category were using).


You are getting super confused.

Those tags came from Moog Tribute Library, not your own library.



> So forgive, but it seems to me that the issue here is that ALL isn't working correctly, because as an end user I'm able to muck up the core browser in this way - and at this point I've not gone near a 3rd party library. So I'm really glad to hear that you guys are working on a fix to the ALL problem.


ALL mode browsing does not have any technical problems that we are aware of....it should be working fine. I use it and test it every day, so I don't think that there's any bugs or anything. The system is working as it was designed.

I tried your test and had different results. So I think you are just confused now.



> Now, I know there are other issues related to tagging and blue tags. I think I used the example earlier that you will use the tag Synth Patterns in the ARPs + Rhythms category for contemporary dancey type synths (and then additionally the dance genre). There is another tag called Dance Synths which would seem logical, but it is unused in the Spectrasonics core library's ARPs. Plughugger used Dance Synths to tag, which is perfectly logical, but didn't use Synth Patterns. So I can see from a final user perspective, it is better to use what you guys do, as you're only looking in one place - I now know after using it for a while that I'm jumping to Synth Patterns for that kind of sound, and by doing so I'll miss Plughuggers. In ideal world, I guess Plughugger should have used both Dance Type and Synth Patterns.


Correct. Plughugger polluted the system to provide very incomplete results when browsing in the default ALL mode.

And worse, if you select Dance Synths, now you won't get any Spectrasonics patches at all by selecting that....which you would expect to if you are just browsing Omnisphere when it boots up. You have no way of knowing who tagged what, which things are legitmate or not....it gets extremely confusing very fast. Since most of the total library is created by Spectrasonics, the worst thing is that you are now missing most of the experience of using Omnisphere....which is not a good thing of course! 

This is one of the reasons why we are not recommending installing these third-party libraries yet, except the ones that don't break the tagging system. (Plug-in Guru and ILIOs are both ok to install)



> But - and it's a big but - its far more preferable to me to at least start in ARPs + Rhythms and then see what types are available. Browsing ARPs with my 3rd Party libs installed, I can see a type for Dance Synths now, along with a host of others from the other libraries - some of Matt's appear in Edgy Underground. These are perfectly sensible tags, but not used by you guys.


Right...so now the browsing experience is utterly messed up.

If you select Edgy Underground...you ONLY hear Matt's patches and nothing from any other library. You are missing out on thousands of patches that would fit that description, because Matt broke the "blue tags" rules.



> But it's relatively easy to scroll down and have a look at the "new" types that have appeared, knowing that the lion's share will always be in Synth Patterns.


Nope...doesn't work that way. Tags are presented alphabetically only, so bogus and legitimate tags are now intermingled....further confusing the user.



> So I can see what goes for ARPs and dance synths, will go for a hundred or more other scenarios.


Make that millions. 



> The short and safe answer is to stick to blue tags then everything appears in the same place, but because end users won't have been doing that for years I'm not sure it's the ultimate solution here.


It's not. Third party libraries are pretty much doomed to be out of sync with Spectrasonics, so we are working on solutions for limiting third party libraries from polluting the system as much as possible.



> Given the relatively recent mini-explosion in 3rd party libraries, and an according rise in this problem all of a sudden, do you think there might be a fix for the ALL problem ahead of whatever excitements are further down the line from your excellent selves?


We are working on solutions for this problem in the next software release.



> In the meantime, it seems to me that the best way forward for third parties is to follow the Plugin Guru way. This integrates your categories, and keeps your types in line with the rest of the library (which also dodges the ALL problem).


Not really....the only reason that one works is because I personally did it. 

Can't do that for everyone, much less keep them all in sync.


----------



## spectrum (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



TheUnfinished @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> I think you're going to always have issues with 3rd party 'development' with tagging in synths. One man's aggressive synth is another man's Casio VL Tone.


yup! :D


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Hi Eric - I must have described my steps EXTREMELY badly! Let me see if I can do better.

First of all, to describe my Spectrasonics virgin state - this is Omni, Trilian and the Moog expansion.

Putting my system back to a virgin state restored that particular type (Analogue Bells) to be visible in ALL. It was not visible before in ALL, but was in Bells and Chimes. So something in my setup was messing that up.

The first set of extra patches I put back in was my own user patches I've made over the years. Not loads - about 50 I guess. It was putting those back that made Analogue Bells disappear from ALL. Obviously that isn't a step you can reproduce because they are my own custom patches! My conclusion is - my own tagging broke the rules and has caused a problem with OTHER stuff being visible in ALL. Note - I'm not saying that Hidden Beauty Belltones is my own or I changed the tagging in that.

So - not confused, I don't think!

And this is my whole point. I messed up Omni all on my own *[er, no, actually I didn't - Guy, March 7]*, with no help from any 3rd parties - when creating my own patches I was not sticking to rules because I (and I'd venture pretty much every other Omni user) was completely unaware of them. 3rd Party libraries work just the same as user ones, right? If you allow free tagging for user libs, unfortunately that means that there has to be a way to integrate all that wild tagging into the Omnsiphere experience without messing anything else up. We're encouraged to tag at will, and place them in the correct category folder, we're not encouraged to only use your own existing category types and put them in their own single category, so the advice to 3rd parties seems odd to me.

And I emphasise again - there must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of user patches out there, only a fraction of which will have followed the blue tag guidelines. I know it's a little more messy that the pristine state, but that's the price of five years of free tagging!

In the meantime, for 3rd party libs, actually the guidelines don't seem too bad really - if people stick to the method Pluginguru used, your pristine browser experience is maintained, and yet the library is also properly integrated into the browser. So I don't really see the problem? Why is this not the encouraged method for 3rd party devs?


----------



## Sopranos (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*

Guy, I think you are still missing the point that Plugin Guru does NOT have a method as Eric tagged that library for them.


----------



## Midihead (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Sopranos @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> Guy, I think you are still missing the point that Plugin Guru does NOT have a method as Eric tagged that library for them.



Yes, I am wondering if Guy even read my post since I essentially spelled it out. Eric tagged and organized all of Skippy's patches, adding them to the proper folders and THAT is why it works properly.  This is not a feat that others can do because of how complicated and subjective the process is, thus why the EDM Bundle was done the way it was. 

Guy, just let it go.  Please!


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Midihead @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> Sopranos @ Tue Mar 05 said:
> 
> 
> > Guy, I think you are still missing the point that Plugin Guru does NOT have a method as Eric tagged that library for them.
> ...



Whoops - read you got advice, I will confess I hadn't clocked that Eric tagged Plugin Guru's library directly rather than just advising to use the Blue tag method. There's a helluva a lot of new information in this thread! So... are we saying now that using entirely Blue Tags isn't enough for users to tag their own patches safely either? Are we to abandon tagging altogether? Or submit all our user patches to Eric? :wink: 

See, it's not really very helpful just to write "let it go". From everything mentioned here so far, this issue potentially affects all users of Omni who create their own patches. I apparently screwed up my browser just by tagging my own sounds. Then of course it also affects third party developers too. So seeking forward movement here is definitely the way to go.

I don't think a perfect solution is out there, but - imo - the idea of just sectioning off all third party libraries is poor. Partly cos it doesn't address user tagging, and partly because it is isn't good for users of the 3rd party libraries.


----------



## Midihead (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> Midihead @ Tue Mar 05 said:
> 
> 
> > Sopranos @ Tue Mar 05 said:
> ...



In all fairness Guy, the thread is titled "3rd Party Omnisphere Libraries" and there has been a lot of conversation here about that topic and how it should be done... that's where my "let it go" comment stems from. Tagging your own patches is an entirely different topic IMHO because it really only affects the individual user, and that's a lot easier to deal with than when you send out hundreds of your patches to others who inadvertently get "infected" by your poor tagging (I can speak from personal experience here!) so maybe starting a different thread with such a topic would be warranted? I think we've beat this "3rd Party Patches" horse to death now.

I hope I'm not coming across as rude. I understand you have an opinion and want to voice it and address what you perceive as a problem. Truth be told, I've never seen a complaint about it until now. Different people use Omnisphere differently. After all, it's not a one-trick pony! What works for you may not work for someone else. 

Best,


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 5, 2013)

*Re: 3rd Party Omnisphere libraries*



Midihead @ Tue Mar 05 said:


> In all fairness Guy, the thread is titled "3rd Party Omnisphere Libraries" and there has been a lot of conversation here about that topic and how it should be done... that's where my "let it go" comment stems from. Tagging your own patches is an entirely different topic IMHO because it really only affects the individual user, and that's a lot easier to deal with than when you send out hundreds of your patches to others who inadvertently get "infected" by your poor tagging (I can speak from personal experience here!) so maybe starting a different thread with such a topic would be warranted? I think we've beat this "3rd Party Patches" horse to death now.



While a user tagging thread might be a good idea, I think right now it overlaps in every single area with what is being discusssed, so imo it would be redundant - I will however amend the subject title to reflect the broadening of the thread.

Also, the third party horse has hardly been beaten "to death". Over just two pages, there has been a deluge of completely new information to me, and I suspect many VI-C members. Horizon was a very popular release here - imo rightly so - and yet this is a live issue concerning it. Eric linked the other libraries I reviewed in a previous thread, with no warning that they would "infect" users machines, to borrow your loaded term!

So for my money - we're not remotely done with this topic.

But to hopefully steer the subject into clearer waters amid all the complexities, here's a few questions for Eric:

1. Do you advise users to tag their own patches using ONLY blue tags and place them in appropriate category folders? Should they retag their existing ones?

2. Do you advise third party developers to do the same?

3. If these two answers are different, then why?

4. What might be the negative consequences for a user whose own patches or a 3rd party's are tagged only using blue tags?

5. Is your hope for a future update of Omnisphere to resolve many of these issues for users?

I'm not trying to be difficult, really I'm not. As I mentioned, Eric actually linked some of these libraries in an earlier thread, I'm kinda shocked to see so much negativity now. I hope this thread can be part of a dialogue that will ultimately help all users and developers.

And as a final comment - I composed the music for tonight's BAFTA Game Awards here in the UK. The titles start with retro graphics and move into 3D epicness. For the music and sound design, I used a few sfx, drums and Kontakt libraries, but only one synth - Omnisphere. 3 fully loaded instances. I didn't need to look anywhere else, it delivered on every single task I asked of it. I ADORE Omni, hence my passion for the subject!


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## dpasdernick (Mar 5, 2013)

This is what happens when people want the 8001 patch...


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## Sopranos (Mar 5, 2013)

I dont want to sidetrack the issue at hand but I just purchased the the ILIO EDM bundle and I must say it is a great patch library - and at a phenomenal price right now!

Carry on...


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## spectrum (Mar 6, 2013)

Epic reply ahead: 



> Hi Eric - I must have described my steps EXTREMELY badly! Let me see if I can do better.


No need. I understood you perfectly. 

What you described happening is to my knowledge not possible. So I believe you made an error and have drawn some incorrect conclusions as a result and further confused the issues.

I'll try to elaborate more below:



> The first set of extra patches I put back in was my own user patches I've made over the years. Not loads - about 50 I guess. It was putting those back that made Analogue Bells disappear from ALL.


That's not really possible with the way our system works. You only add tags to the system when you add patches, you can't remove existing tags when patches are added.

Pretty sure if you add back your User Patches and rescan the "Analog Bells" tag will still be there. 

If it's not, contact tech support and we can find out what's happening with your system...but I'd be willing to wager that there's no problem, just a bit of confusion.



> Obviously that isn't a step you can reproduce because they are my own custom patches!


Shouldn't make any difference though. I do this kind of thing every day and adding new patches has never removed any tags from the system in the 8 years I've been working with Omnisphere. 



> My conclusion is - my own tagging broke the rules and has caused a problem with OTHER stuff being visible in ALL.


That's what I'm saying I believe is a faulty conclusion on your part, hence your confusion.



> So - not confused, I don't think!


Put that to a test by putting your User Patches back in your library and see if Analog Bells goes away. 



> And this is my whole point. I messed up Omni all on my own, with no help from any 3rd parties


No. I'm not convinced that you have a problem at all. 

Let's see if you do, but wait a bit on jumping to any broad conclusions. 



> 3rd Party libraries work just the same as user ones, right?


Yes.



> If you allow free tagging for user libs, unfortunately that means that there has to be a way to integrate all that wild tagging into the Omnsiphere experience without messing anything else up.



That's what we are currently working to enable in the next update.



> We're encouraged to tag at will, and place them in the correct category folder, we're not encouraged to only use your own existing category types and put them in their own single category, so the advice to 3rd parties seems odd to me.


The difference between users and third party developers is distribution.

The system is currently designed for Spectrasonics and for end-users...not for distribution.

Adding tags for yourself? No problem.
Adding tags for other users? Might create problems.



> And I emphasise again - there must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of user patches out there, only a fraction of which will have followed the blue tag guidelines.


And this is no problem, because each of those users tagged and categorized them on their own...so the tagging makes sense to them.

For example:

If midihead adds a tag to Genre for "Hip-Hop" in three of his own user patches, it's fine because he tagged it and knows that he did.

However, if he distributes those patches in a third party library, then things get complicated for users really fast.

End users now see "Hip-Hop" as a listed Genre when browsing Omnisphere, but when they select it, only three patches show up! (When there are of course thousands of useful sounds for Hip-Hop production in Omnisphere)

User thinks....jeez, it's too bad Omnisphere has only 3 Hip-Hop patches! :lol: 

That's the problem in a nutshell.



> In the meantime, for 3rd party libs, actually the guidelines don't seem too bad really


There are no guidelines available for 3rd party developers, because it would require a massive training effort, accreditation, etc. (or doing the work ourselves, which is also not feasible)

We are now working on a better solution to the entire issue in software coding of how the browser works, so that this kind of "third-party tagging pollution" problem is no longer an issue.



> So... are we saying now that using entirely Blue Tags isn't enough for users to tag their own patches safely either?


Not at all. Users are free to tag however they like. That does not cause any problems.

Distributing those patches to other users does cause problems currently though.

We are working on a solution so that patches can be more freely shared without corrupting the pristine Factory Browsing experience we've designed.



> Are we to abandon tagging altogether? Or submit all our user patches to Eric? :wink:


Neither. 



> From everything mentioned here so far, this issue potentially affects all users of Omni who create their own patches.


Not at all. We would never design a system that would encourage users to tag and then have that cause problems for them.

Omnisphere is not designed for third party developers though....that's important to keep in mind. Omnisphere's browser is more advanced than any other synth/sampler, so it's possible for third parties that don't fully understand it (which is currently not even really possible for them to do) to unwittingly create problems for end users. That's what I've been pointing out in this thread.



> I apparently screwed up my browser just by tagging my own sounds.


Nope. Unless shown otherwise, I think you don't have a problem so that's jumping to a false conclusion.



> the idea of just sectioning off all third party libraries is poor.


Letting people know that they aren't officially sanctioned yet because they can create some confusion with the factory libraries makes sense.



> partly because it is isn't good for users of the 3rd party libraries.


At the moment, the official position would be this mild warning: 

"Other than ILIO and Plug-In Guru collections, using third-party patch libraries may likely create confusion in the Factory browsing experience after they are installed."



> While a user tagging thread might be a good idea, I think right now it overlaps in every single area with what is being discusssed, so imo it would be redundant


That's incorrect. There's no User Tagging issues that I'm aware of.

I thought this was a thread about Third Party Patch Libraries after all. 



> 1. Do you advise users to tag their own patches using ONLY blue tags and place them in appropriate category folders?


That's always best if possible, but it's not a big problem if you don't. (unless you start distributing patches to other users)



> Should they retag their existing ones?


No need unless desired by the user.



> 2. Do you advise third party developers to do the same?


Yes, but it's much more complex than that. Currently, if any library exists in a DEVs STEAM folder that is tagged incorrectly in any way, it will show up to them as "BLUE" even though it's not approved.

We are working on a software solution to this issue as well. The system doesn't currently have a notion of "Official Spectrasonics tags" yet....which is why it's complicated for third-party developers.



> 3. If these two answers are different, then why?


Explained above. No User Tagging issues that I've seen evidence of.



> 4. What might be the negative consequences for a user whose own patches or a 3rd party's are tagged only using blue tags?


If you tagged the patches, nothing. Those tags are meaningful to you and likely you know what patches you tagged and why you did it that way.

3rd party is much more complicated for the reasons I've outlined here.



> 5. Is your hope for a future update of Omnisphere to resolve many of these issues for users?


Yes, we are working on finding a software solution now. 

It's coming together well and will be a much better approach to this whole topic and handled in a smart way that gives third parties the freedom they clearly need to have without interfering with the pristine Spectrasonics experience we are constantly revising.

....especially since I'm dramatically altering/improving the tagging system again in the next update...which will make even Plug-In Guru's tagging out of sync! (which I did myself!) Why keep changing it? Simple: To make the Omnisphere browsing experience better and better. I realized quite a while ago that it'll always be a kind of "work-in-progress" that gets better as it gets more refined over time. One thing for sure is that it's impossible to try to keep everyone in sync with what we are doing.


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## spectrum (Mar 6, 2013)

> As I mentioned, Eric actually linked some of these libraries in an earlier thread, I'm kinda shocked to see so much negativity now.


Only needed to correct some misinformation when you started slamming libraries in your reviews for different organizational approaches that are not only valid, but were recommended by Spectrasonics. The harsh review of ILIO's libraries organization into GOOD and BAD categories was not necessary or accurate. Organization of libraries is obviously a complex topic and the browser can be used in a lot of different ways...each of which has valid points.

It's also hardly fair to ILIO, since they initially submitted the libraries to us in the way you wanted and then we stripped them of all their tags so they wouldn't cause these kinds of browsing problems with the Factory library.

midihead did a great job of due diligence trying to find the right way with us for the last 6 months, so it was a shame to see his excellent libraries getting slammed over following Spectrasonics recommended way of distributing these patches. At the moment, there is no perfect way to do it.



> I hope this thread can be part of a dialogue that will ultimately help all users and developers.


Absolutely!



> And as a final comment...I didn't need to look anywhere else, it delivered on every single task I asked of it. I ADORE Omni, hence my passion for the subject!


Awesome...You passion is always appreciated! 8) 

Seriously, having so much interest in people working with Omnisphere that problems are being created as a result? 

I'd say these are quite nice problems to have in Life. :D :lol:


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## spectrum (Mar 6, 2013)

BTW....it would be good if you could amend the thread title and warnings to be a little less dire.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 6, 2013)

First of all, another huge thanks Eric for your detailed and patient replies. I appreicate these take time - and it's one of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic about Omnisphere! Forgive if I reply to the broad points to keep the length down, rather than quoting.

So first of all, I did some more tests on my user patches. And.... ahem... yes. Quite right, the user tagging hasn't gone wrong. Things got shifted around a bit in their order as extra tags come and go when installing libraries, but that's normal. So definitely my error there, and I'll put a note on those posts. Which is great news - I genuinely thought my own tagging had someohow stuffed up the wider broswer, and great that users can't do that.

Which means I've reached a slightly strange point here. I get that you're working on an update to make all these issues better, which is great news. But I also get that these issues are now so complex I can't even see them any more! To me, I'm far happier with my third party libraries patches appearing in their correct categories. If those libraries are then tagged as per the blue tag rules, I'll accept that something, somehwere might be upset by it but it's too complex for me to know or predict. But in essence - everything SEEMS to work fine for me.

You took an example a few posts back that potentialy not all Agressive Synth patches would show up in ALL using this unofficial method. In my case, my Aggressive Synth count jumps from 37 pages to 41 pages with the third party libraries installed. So if I'm missing any, surely its a very small number? I just find it hard to see the downside.

If those 3rd party patches are not tagged according to the blue tag rules, its much easier to see the downside, but personally I'd far rather have that than just have every library buried away. Other people might work differently, but much more often than not I start within a category. It's easy to try a few different types while there - indeed you clever folks enabled control click to do this all at once. I can definitely appreciate how you'd prefer a uniformity of experience, but I know that if I only see three patches tagged "hip hop" that is not going to be all I have, that I might try searching for Urban etc. Out of interest, a common method I use is to start in a category then do a word search for "warm", "dance" or whatever - this might return some false positives but I think gathers pretty much all the likely candidates in any given category.

OK, so what I'm gonna do next is go back once more (!) and annotate my comments on this thread. I'm a great believer in when I make mistakes - which good lord I certainly do - I own up to them rather than try to bluff it out, and I was definitely wrong (happily so) in thinking I'd messed up my browser with the user patches. I'll also clarify your official position on installing the libraries, and - forgive - why I disagree with it as an end user. I think the thread title is correct (and I've already changed it once to reflect how the scope expanded) - it's not loaded in any way and purely factual.

At which point, I guess we wait for the next update! Is the intent to make this in the near-term, aside from any of the bigger updates in the works? I really do hope that when that arrives, third party libraries will be able to integrate better in a way that keeps all of us happy. Folks like Matt Bowdler are doing a terrific programming job I'm sure you'll agree, and a thriving third party scene with programmers of his calibre is a huge plus I'd say. However much Apple likes its walled garden, they still have the Apple store!

Once again Eric, thanks for your time, patience and most of all genius with making the best VIs out there.


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## spectrum (Mar 7, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Wed Mar 06 said:


> First of all, another huge thanks Eric for your detailed and patient replies. I appreicate these take time - and it's one of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic about Omnisphere!


My pleasure. 



> So first of all, I did some more tests on my user patches. And.... ahem... yes. Quite right, the user tagging hasn't gone wrong....definitely my error there, and I'll put a note on those posts. Which is great news


Good! Glad to hear that the system is not broken.



> If those libraries are then tagged as per the blue tag rules, I'll accept that something, somehwere might be upset by it but it's too complex for me to know or predict. But in essence - everything SEEMS to work fine for me.


It's only that way because you haven't run into the problem yet, but you will soon.



> You took an example a few posts back that potentialy not all Agressive Synth patches would show up in ALL using this unofficial method. In my case, my Aggressive Synth count jumps from 37 pages to 41 pages with the third party libraries installed. So if I'm missing any, surely its a very small number? I just find it hard to see the downside.


That's not the problem and it isn't as complicated to understand as it seems. 

Instead of hypotheticals, I can illustrate the basic problem with an actual step-by-step real world example use case using Matt's wonderful sounding Horizon Library:

1. Bought Horizon last week and now its installed properly as per Matt's instructions...loving it!

2. Today we are doing some intense chase music, and the director has specified they want a really high-energy, pulsing electronic approach. Omnisphere's great at that!....cool let's open it up and check out what it has to offer.

3. Under "Directory", select "All" (which is what Omnisphere defaults to)

4. Under "Category", select "Arp + Rhythm". 

5. Under "Type", I now see "Aggressive Synths"....aha, perfect! I hear Omnisphere's got lots of great stuff like this! Whoo-hoo! 

6. When I select it, I only see two patches. :-( :-(

(Heart sinks...dreams of working quickly with Omnisphere for electronic scoring dashed....conclusion: Omnisphere sucks and is only good for pads and burning pianos. I better turn to something else for this kind of stuff I need) 

Obviously in Omnisphere and all the Factory libraries there are hundreds and hundreds of great Aggressive Synths in the Arp + Rhythm category....but since Matt's the only one who tagged his Arp + Rhythm patches with the "Aggressive Synths" tag, that means the results are really tiny, skewed and messed up. I could give hundreds of other examples of these kinds of problems that have already been created by these third party libraries, but you get the idea if you just multiply my example exponentially.

The more libraries that have wrong tagging and categorization, then the Omnisphere browsing experience in ALL mode very quickly becomes no longer meaningful. This is a major bummer, because browsing in ALL mode per category is one of our system's biggest strengths.



> If those 3rd party patches are not tagged according to the blue tag rules, its much easier to see the downside, but personally I'd far rather have that than just have every library buried away.


Maybe from my example, now you can see why incorrect tagging is a bigger problem and why we recommended what we did to ILIO.



> Other people might work differently, but much more often than not I start within a category. It's easy to try a few different types while there


Exactly. You just described the workflow in my example. If the results you get are not meaningful or grossly incomplete, you are not getting the experience you paid for when you bought Omnisphere. You are now getting a far inferior browsing experience that's more time consuming and producing less and less meaningful results as you browse.



> At which point, I guess we wait for the next update! Is the intent to make this in the near-term, aside from any of the bigger updates in the works?


It'll be in the next update for Omnisphere, but I can't give any time estimate when that will be available. It won't be years though. 



> I really do hope that when that arrives, third party libraries will be able to integrate better in a way that keeps all of us happy.


It will. 



> This library is unique in as far that it appears in the core browser categories and also whose tagging has been vetted by Spectrasonics in order to be compatible with the rest of the library. A coming update of Omnisphere, however, might disturb this.


It won't. The new approach we are working on will not require any vetting of third party libraries at all by Spectrasonics. Third parties would be able to categorize/tag however they like and it won't affect the key browsing experiences we've designed at Spectrasonics.



> Once again Eric, thanks for your time, patience and most of all genius with making the best VIs out there.


You are most welcome and kind.

Cheers,

E


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 7, 2013)

Apologies for wanting to over-simplify, but... is the main problem I created from using more than one of the 'top-level' tags?

I'm just trying to work out how easy it'll be for me to do a re-tagging and send out an update to customers to help their use of Horizon/Omnisphere.

Cheers,
Matt

P.S. I fear it may be "a bit more complicated than that..."


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## zvenx (Mar 7, 2013)

Hi, how about this:

here is my suggestion.
reverse engineer Omnisphere..

look at:






























I think you can get the idea.

choose ominsphere library as your directory and if you click on each
Category it tells you what types spectrasonics used in that category. and what genres they used in that category, type.....

if you do that for each category I think you have a great idea of what they used?

just a thought.
Of course watch Eric tear it to shreds 

rsp


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## spectrum (Mar 7, 2013)

TheUnfinished @ Thu Mar 07 said:


> Apologies for wanting to over-simplify, but... is the main problem I created from using more than one of the 'top-level' tags?


Yes. 



> I'm just trying to work out how easy it'll be for me to do a re-tagging and send out an update to customers to help their use of Horizon/Omnisphere.
> 
> Cheers,
> Matt
> ...


You guessed correctly! 

Currently, it's very difficult to "back-out" of a tagging problem like this and requires a lot of knowledge and training in our system.

The software update we are working on would make it much easier for you to fix the problem, so I would wait until the next software update for Omnisphere before attempting this.

Cheers,

E


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## spectrum (Mar 7, 2013)

zvenx @ Thu Mar 07 said:


> Hi, how about this:
> 
> here is my suggestion.
> reverse engineer Omnisphere..
> ...


Ha! 

It could work if you do it carefully, but I'd recommend waiting on the next software/library version...since the categories/tags are changing anyway and using the new system to revise Horizon would be more intuitive and less prone to mistakes.


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## zvenx (Mar 7, 2013)

remind me when you said that was coming again? 
you can always email me if you don't want to tell 'them'.
lol
rsp


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 8, 2013)

It's like I can see light at the end of the tunnel!

Eric, I get your example, but here's my difference in those steps:

1. Bought Horizon last week and now its installed properly as per Matt's instructions...loving it!

2. Today we are doing some intense chase music, and the director has specified they want a really high-energy, pulsing electronic approach. Omnisphere's great at that!....cool let's open it up and check out what it has to offer.

3. Under "Directory", select "All" (which is what Omnisphere defaults to)

4. Under "Category", select "Arp + Rhythm". 

5. Under "Type", I now see "Aggressive Synths"....aha, perfect! I hear Omnisphere's got lots of great stuff like this! Whoo-hoo! 

6. When I select it, I only see two patches. :-( :-(

7. Think, ah, Spectrasonics must have tagged it differently in this category, let's try another Type. Scroll... modern, perhaps? 

Actually you chose an interesting example. If I uninstall all my third party libraries, here are my choices in Type for ARP & Rhythm:

Modern Patterns
Organic Patterns
Retro Patterns
Synth Patterns

Which is very neat. But "Huh" - I think - "I was hoping to see some aggressive stuff there. Maybe I'll try Modern instead? So I end up in exactly the same place, though of course I can see the vanilla option there is neater. But read on....

Here's an interesting thing - I have 6 user patches in ARP + Rhythm (I know... I'm a helluva programmer, huh). With just those 6 patches, I've increased my number of confusing Types in the ARPs and Rhtyhm category from 4 to 12! My tagging must be awful. See, when it comes to tagging, until last week I've no real idea what I'm doing there, I just pick a bunch of words that sound right to me as I save. I don't choose those words because I'll remember what to search for later - I've forgotten what they are 3 seconds after I've done them.

So this was part of my whole point when I say I can mess up my own browsing experience. Great that I've not taken anything away as I originally feared, but I've effortlessly generated a right dogs breakfast of Types all over the shop, which I know is what you find so frustrating. I didn't mean to do it! I don't want to do it! We're not all as logical as you, Eric!

Hopefully you can see why I (at least) prefer to then treat 3rd party libraries in the same way that I tag my own. I've already stuffed up the tagging, but I can always find stuff with an extra click or two. If I have everything partitioned off, that's worse for me - every time I search, I then have to manually search my 5 3rd party libraries and my user ones too, which really will take me all over the place. Urgh.

I can totally see where you're coming from - I'd much prefer everything to be neater with all my own tags, let alone anyone else's. And by everything you've said, our salvation lies right round the corner with this update coming in less than years :D . I'm not sure how it will work, but if you're happy I'm sure we will be too. Cos I presume this will better integrate my own terrible tagging with the core library too.

And just a final general point - the browser is probably the single biggest reason why I say I never want to use any synth other than Omni (well, combined with the great diverse sound of course). I've got FM, Absynth and Massive, all with tag browsers and their tagging is just nowhere near as useful as yours, even with me mucking it all up. I think its the combination of usefully named tags, detailed descriptions and the search box that enables Omni to function so well. If I type "warm" into Massive, it returns a heady 6 patches - all with the word "warm" in the patch title. If I do the same thing into ALL of Omnisphere, I get 650, and of course I can then start drilling down. That, right there is the difference. I can use obvious musically meaningful terms and find a solution in Omni in usually the first attempt, if not one or two after. And that's with my own terribly tagged patches!  If I want to find a warm pad, there is a type called "soft and warm" that gives me 8 pages. If I chose "Pads and Strings" then type "warm" I get 10 - so that might include other useful warm patches that aren't tagged strictly correctly. I guess that's how I work...


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 8, 2013)

spectrum @ Fri Mar 08 said:


> Currently, it's very difficult to "back-out" of a tagging problem like this and requires a lot of knowledge and training in our system.
> 
> The software update we are working on would make it much easier for you to fix the problem, so I would wait until the next software update for Omnisphere before attempting this.


Then that is what I shall do.


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## spectrum (Mar 8, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Fri Mar 08 said:


> It's like I can see light at the end of the tunnel!


Nice!



> 7. Think, ah, Spectrasonics must have tagged it differently in this category, let's try another Type. Scroll... modern, perhaps?


Yeah, but a lot of users give up quicker than that. 



> Here's an interesting thing - I have 6 user patches in ARP + Rhythm (I know... I'm a helluva programmer, huh). With just those 6 patches, I've increased my number of confusing Types in the ARPs and Rhtyhm category from 4 to 12! My tagging must be awful. See, when it comes to tagging, until last week I've no real idea what I'm doing there, I just pick a bunch of words that sound right to me as I save. I don't choose those words because I'll remember what to search for later - I've forgotten what they are 3 seconds after I've done them.


But at least you did the polluting. 

Most users don't tag at all, so they generally don't have that experience of messy browsing. The adventurous ones like you do, so a third party library that makes it more messy is ok for you, but more problematic for other kinds of users.



> Hopefully you can see why I (at least) prefer to then treat 3rd party libraries in the same way that I tag my own. I've already stuffed up the tagging, but I can always find stuff with an extra click or two. If I have everything partitioned off, that's worse for me - every time I search, I then have to manually search my 5 3rd party libraries and my user ones too, which really will take me all over the place. Urgh.


Gotcha. This new system should solve both issues and it'll be safe and easier for third parties to distribute libraries that have closer tagging to what we do at Spectrasonics.



> I can totally see where you're coming from - I'd much prefer everything to be neater with all my own tags, let alone anyone else's. And by everything you've said, our salvation lies right round the corner with this update coming in less than years :D . I'm not sure how it will work, but if you're happy I'm sure we will be too. Cos I presume this will better integrate my own terrible tagging with the core library too.


It'll help a lot.



> And just a final general point - the browser is probably the single biggest reason why I say I never want to use any synth other than Omni (well, combined with the great diverse sound of course). I've got FM, Absynth and Massive, all with tag browsers and their tagging is just nowhere near as useful as yours, even with me mucking it all up. I think its the combination of usefully named tags, detailed descriptions and the search box that enables Omni to function so well.


That's great feedback to hear. As you can tell, we work really hard at this organization stuff and it's quite a tricky business to categorize sounds that are often abstract hybrid sounds by nature. So we keep working on it.

Looking forward to your feedback on the work we are doing now with the improved tagging and categorization of the Factory libraries too. (in the upcoming release) It's going to be a big improvement even compared to where it is now. The Browser is a really powerful tool, but so much of its usefulness depends on how everything is tagged.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 8, 2013)

Great stuff, Eric. Thanks again for all your input here, it's really appreciated. Looking forward to the update...


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 8, 2013)

Maybe I'm totally misunderstanding, but it seems like the problem is third party libraries creating new combinations of category and type? If a third party library sticks with only types that fall under a given category, does it avoid the problem?

If that is the issue, with an Omni software update, could it even be locked in by having the tag editor only show existing category/type combinations (or have a preference to enable that and recommend that third party libraries tag with it on)?

Users can create the same problem on their own by editing tags, so it seems like it would be good to create some sort of solution instead of just hoping that people don't mess things up.


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## spectrum (Mar 8, 2013)

Mike Connelly @ Fri Mar 08 said:


> Maybe I'm totally misunderstanding, but it seems like the problem is third party libraries creating new combinations of category and type? If a third party library sticks with only types that fall under a given category, does it avoid the problem?


No...it's more complicated. Matt's library didn't add anything new, but it still created the problems I described above.



> If that is the issue, with an Omni software update, could it even be locked in by having the tag editor only show existing category/type combinations (or have a preference to enable that and recommend that third party libraries tag with it on)?


That's along the lines of what we are looking into now...plus some other things.



> Users can create the same problem on their own by editing tags, so it seems like it would be good to create some sort of solution instead of just hoping that people don't mess things up.


Indeed. That's why we are looking to solve it on the software side.


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## woodsdenis (Mar 22, 2013)

http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---ultravirus.html (http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics ... virus.html)

Another one for the list, sounds good and very well priced.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 22, 2013)

woodsdenis @ Fri Mar 22 said:


> http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---ultravirus.html
> 
> Another one for the list, sounds good and very well priced.



Good catch, thanks!


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## Polarity (Mar 23, 2013)

woodsdenis @ Fri 22 Mar said:


> http://www.plughugger.com/spectrasonics-omnisphere---ultravirus.html
> 
> Another one for the list, sounds good and very well priced.



+1
VERY interesting this one.
I think I'll buy it.
I have a real Virus B (since less than a year), but this libraries has nice "features"
(changed the original waveforms with Omnishpere's engine ones).


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## musicjon (Mar 27, 2013)

A quick run-through of Horizon here:
http://octotonic.com/blog/2013/3/27/omnisphere-horizon-by-the-unfinished-review (http://octotonic.com/blog/2013/3/27/omn ... hed-review)


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## Giant_Shadow (Mar 27, 2013)

I really like Matt's (The Unfinished) work. I have heard there is another bank coming down the pipe.

I am one of those confused by the patch hierarchy also (not only for Omnisphere) and sorry for driving you crazy all week Les with questions.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 27, 2013)

Thanks for the review Jon, only just noticed it now. Glad you are digging the soundset.

I can confirm what Giant Shadow says. Horizon II is on its way...


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 28, 2013)

Added a couple more micro-reviews to the OP.


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## Luca Capozzi (Mar 28, 2013)

Thank you for reviewing 

Cheers,
Luca


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## spectrum (Dec 9, 2013)

Hey folks, some good news! 

Just posted a new v1.5.7d version of Omnisphere that addresses the whole problem of third party tagging outlined in this thread:

http://auth.spectrasonics.net/useracct/

This update adds a new default "All Spectrasonics" directory and segregates all third-party/user libraries so that people/developers can tag/organize them however they like without interfering with the curated experience from Spectrasonics.

Enjoy!


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## zvenx (Dec 9, 2013)

cool
thanks
rsp


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## Guy Rowland (Dec 9, 2013)

Sounds good, Eric! What's the default behaviour now? Is it pretty much as before with a new "all spectasonics" option in the drop down library menu?


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## woodsdenis (Dec 10, 2013)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjQzASPMapQ

Great tutorial from Skippy and.......... EP does an interview o=<


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## CarlLofgren (Apr 24, 2014)

Hey guys, Carl from Plughugger here - a bit late to the discussion o=< and this is a subject I've been scratching my head with for years. The best solution so far is that I've come up with is actually to null all the factory tags. No meaning to bash any company here, but for example, the tags with Native Instruments products are - in the way I see and hear music - isn't useful for me. I don't think of sounds the way they do. 

Each developer is a separate island of descriptive tags - Spectrasonics tags their sounds in a certain way, Native Instruments in their, me in mine and producers in their own. I'm absolutely not saying that one should start retagging the factory libraries by hand, that's just my personal way of doing it. But it really raises the question of tagging and what to do about it, and as we're in the Spectrasonics thread it might be a good idea to focus on Omnisphere.

Eric sees so many issues with 3rd party tagging that he uses the word polluting and don't have time to educate developers in the Spectrasonics mindset of tagging - I think I read an estimate of six months somewhere in the thread. No one would like to spend half a year on a job like that, but we don't have to aim for perfection.

There's a quite good quote from the movie Wag the Dog with Dustin Hoffmann and Robert de Niro, where de Niro says "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow."

*Question to Eric* - would it be too hard for you to make a quick draft of how you guys are thinking when tagging sounds? Again - I am not aiming for perfection, but I believe that some advice could help developers outside Spectrasonics get into the right mindset. A comment for each tag would be enough.

_Examples
High energy - sounds/sequences with tension and energy. Think excitement.
Ballad - would Michael Bolton play this sound?
Film - any sound could be in a film, but think about the opening of Star Wars here.
_

*Question to all others* - I've just finished Omnisphere Lounge Electro, so it's to late to do anything about that soundset, but I'm working on a few others that won't be released for a couple of months and for that I have all the time in the world to improve the tags in upcoming soundsets. *What kind of tagging do you guys prefer?* Tags already in the preset name (such as BAS Ragamuffin and LEAD Hypersaw etc) or only tagged with the browser? Sounds already sorted into folders?

/Carl


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 24, 2014)

CarlLofgren @ Thu Apr 24 said:


> *What kind of tagging do you guys prefer?* Tags already in the preset name (such as BAS Ragamuffin and LEAD Hypersaw etc) or only tagged with the browser? Sounds already sorted into folders?
> 
> /Carl



Hey Carl - I'm a tagging bore in terms of going ON and ON about them, I find Omn's use of them completely revolutionary. I agree with you regarding NI - their system isn't anywhere close to being as musically useful (but it's still better than nothing!)

I dislike tags in patch names in Omni. Its both ugly and pointless imo, especially if they don't follow even the basic Spectrasonics convention - they won't come up in normal omnisphere searching. At a bare minumum speparating into basic categories is still useful.

Although I use the browser a lot to filter down (especially those main categories - Synth Poly, Textures etc), often I'll just string search for the rest - so as long as you're using musically useful terms in the tags or the notes (riser, swell etc), there's a fair chance it will be found.

In general, the latest version of Omni has tidied things up well in terms of separating Spectrasonics stuff from third party. From my readings of Eric's posts here, if I were a 3rd party developer I'd use three broad rules:

1 - never put shortcodes / tags in patch names

2 - separate the patches physically into different category folders, and

3 - Follow the Blue Links (see Eric's post here).

That combination will give you a pretty good approximation of Spectasonics own I'd say (even if not 100%), and will increase the chances of the patches being found in normal searches. And now all 3rd party patches are separate from in-house, the above won't impact on the pure Spectrasonics experience. Win Win!

On a side note, personally I'm much more interested in patches that would follow this convention - I've done the most basic sorting myself on patches that aren't tagged properly, and it's fairly tedious. These days I tend not to buy any patches that aren't reasonably well tagged.


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## dinerdog (Apr 24, 2014)

Carl from Plughugger - Some GREAT Omni sound sets you have there.


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## clarkus (Apr 24, 2014)

I'm glad to see all the specific advice about how to integrate these libraries within Omnisphere. I'm a user & have considered expanding what I have within Omni.

To talk about the actual sounds again for a moment, is anyone making new sounds to add to the basic Omnisphere library that veer away from the big, lush, heavily-reverbed pads? I feel that for my use I have PLENTY of those. I'd be interested in more percussive sounds and subtle, transparent keyboards. For example.


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## blougui (Apr 25, 2014)

clarkus @ Thu Apr 24 said:


> I'm glad to see all the specific advice about how to integrate these libraries within Omnisphere. I'm a user & have considered expanding what I have within Omni.
> 
> To talk about the actual sounds again for a moment, is anyone making new sounds to add to the basic Omnisphere library that veer away from the big, lush, heavily-reverbed pads? I feel that for my use I have PLENTY of those. I'd be interested in more percussive sounds and subtle, transparent keyboards. For example.



You should have a look here 
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/

- Erik


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## clarkus (Apr 25, 2014)

Thanks. I can't completely tell if it's the samples or what is being done with them in the Vangelis-like demos, but the demos indicate lush, heavily reverbed, thickly layered sounds. I am seeking out the opposite right now. I like the Zebra demos a bit more (i.e. the sound sets created for Zebra), especially the percussive sounds used there.

My impression is that the thick & lush HZ scores like Batman have pushed software developers to load up their libraries with those sounds. The user (or potential buyer) is supposed to be impressed that the patch sounds like something from one of these epic movies. But I'm thinking "What can I do with this?" I can't get rid of the reverb. With Omnisphere's editing capabilities, I can go in & separate out what was sampled from what was not, but who's going to do that, really? It's like taking apart an appliance to see if there's something you can use inside.

I get it that when working quickly composers want to drop in something close to the finished product, but I also know from working with a music house I have a relationship with that these sounds date almost overnight. People have an extraordinary capacity to recognize sounds & relate them to an experience & a time-period. Producers are attuned to this, too.

So I think what we as composers mostly need are components, not attempts at finished scores. That's my rant for the morning.

I do appreciate the lead, though! Still looking to expand Omnisphere, as I find it a well engineered library. Very searchable. I do think they are going to have to gut some its core offerings at some point and do a major revision to the library for the reasons mentioned. When they do I hope they can stop piling reverb & delay on everything. I spend half my time in Omnsiphere turning it off & the other half finding out I can't.


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## blougui (Apr 25, 2014)

About the Unfinished, may be you should try watching the walkthrough - or listening to them as they are on the "soundcloud wurlitzer never ending fountain o'muzak". sound are played quite isolated , like not in context nore heavily layered. The very last soundset "Lost and found" is less lushier - but I understand what you mean.Omni is a very useful tool for a producer on a tight deadline.If you wand sounds that stand the test of aeons, may be you should wait a while or just use what was fashionable 2 decades ago, then out of fashion then back on the hype again
8) 

- Erik


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## Giant_Shadow (Apr 25, 2014)

One of the best if not the best set out there IMO:
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/shop/omn ... ost-found/

If you want components, maybe start a Reaktor thread or buy a modular.
Square pegs, round holes school.

I think Eric must get a good laugh every time he reads Omni is dated 8) 


quote="blougui @ Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:37 am"]


clarkus @ Thu Apr 24 said:


> I'm glad to see all the specific advice about how to integrate these libraries within Omnisphere. I'm a user & have considered expanding what I have within Omni.
> 
> To talk about the actual sounds again for a moment, is anyone making new sounds to add to the basic Omnisphere library that veer away from the big, lush, heavily-reverbed pads? I feel that for my use I have PLENTY of those. I'd be interested in more percussive sounds and subtle, transparent keyboards. For example.



You should have a look here 
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/

- Erik[/quote]


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## clarkus (Apr 25, 2014)

Just a note re: "If you wand sounds that stand the test of aeons ..." as I think I may have been misunderstood. It's a very interesting topic & probably too cumbersome for this forum, but I'm not talking about my predilection for novel, new sounds but rather the way sound is perceived & the related issue of what music houses & their clients are looking for.

We all know that certain synth sounds are instantly recognizable as an "80's" sound, for example, and certain guitar timbres as a "60's" sound. This facet of music & music production is something we deal with all the time when we need to make something that sounds as if it came from a certain period. 

On the other hand, I've had cues kicked back to me by a music house in NYC as the sounds registered to them as dated. Same phenomenon, worse result.

So I've come to be very careful about my sound pallet. Some colors (strings, for example) have been used so universally, in so many genres & for so long that they are not picked up by most listeners as specific to an era. Other sounds, like the lush, reverbed pads we're talking about here, are more problematic. 

The name of the game for a composer like T.Bone Burnett in scoring for True Detective or Steven Price for Gravity (to take two examples) is to be similarly careful about what they are grabbing off the shelf. 

I'm likely not saying anything we don't all know. A lot of the people posting here routinely tweak sounds to get something unique from a given library. It's part of what gives our music personality. My complaint is that the Omnisphere sounds lean toward thicker, heavily reverbed patches that are almost compositions in themselves. They are hard to work with in that way. It's harder to take away then to add. 

On the other hand of you go to a pure synth like Diva, we're going to spend a pile of time getting what we need. What I'm criticizing with Omnisphere is the DEGREE to which its library & the libraries made for it seem to be adding to the big slush-pile of thick, lush pads that are almost instantly dated for the reasons I've described.

I would love it if the additional libraries offered would make Omnisphere more useful for me - and for us - as I love the interface, the searchability, the quality of the samples. The editing interface is also excellent, as far as I'm concerned.

I hope this makes sense, as I don't want to come off as a troll. Just trying to find tools that work for me, like everyone here.


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## woodsdenis (Apr 25, 2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM2_46-YlfQ

A new one, some lovely sounds in this.


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## blougui (Apr 25, 2014)

clarkus @ Fri Apr 25 said:


> J as I think I may have been misunderstood...


I surely understand your point Clarkus and I didn't want to sound harsh.
Have you listened to Lost & Found soundset ? It seems, at least to my hears, less paddy-pile of lush-ness than most of the rest.
A point about rejections : be aware that sometimes rejections justifications are pointless or irrelevant or unsincere. I've experienced it more than a couple of times in different medias (novel writing and scoring for TV). When "they" want to say no, they jump on whatever wagon that seems right/logical/easy, though they could reject your work for a whole different reason, the kind of reason that would be a bore to explain in details. May be I'm all wrong in your case, but it happenned to me and some friends more than often.

Anyway, i wish you the best in your search - and rest assured I'm not considering you might be the slightest bit of a troll.
Erik

edit: typo


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## clarkus (Apr 26, 2014)

Will check out Lost & Found. Thanks, Erik. No harshness registered. Glad for the tip!


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## Echoes in the Attic (Apr 26, 2014)

Wow, just read this thread for the first time. I didn't even realize Omni had an update in December with a browser modification.

I can't believe it's been a year since all the browser update talk in this thread already. I wonder how far along they are with that.


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## CarlLofgren (Apr 28, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Apr 24 said:


> if I were a 3rd party developer I'd use three broad rules:
> 
> 1 - never put shortcodes / tags in patch names
> 
> ...



Thanks! Three very good advice that I see no reason not to follow.

/C

woodsdenis & dinerdog: thanks for your kind words! It's truly a joy making sounds for Omnisphere. If Eric and his coders would open up for importing your own samples - I would probably disappear from the face of the earth ~o)


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## Midihead (Apr 29, 2014)

There are previous posts that addressed how ILIO patch libraries were organized, prior to Omnisphere's 1.5.8 update. As of March 2014, all ILIO EDM patch libraries have been re-categorized so that they now fall into the logical structure of Omnisphere. You can now access each patch library from the Main Menu and drill down via categories. 

Check out the collections here: http://www.ilio.com/edm

Updates are free for anyone who has purchased: https://www.ilio.com/redownload_patches.html

For those of you who are concerned about sounding "current" with Omnisphere (for whatever reason, I keep seeing that issue crop up), maybe check out this track I programed that contains only the sounds for my up and coming patch library 'EDM Eclipse: Solar'. In it, I use 2 instances of Omnisphere, fully loaded with no other processing (other than track compression/limiting). The side-chain compression effect is programmed into the modulation wheel. 

Speeder Freak: https://soundcloud.com/midihead/speeder-freak

Best,


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## Midihead (Apr 29, 2014)

Just stumbled again upon this thread and wanted to make sure everyone knew that all the ILIO patch libraries had been updated to better integrate into Omnisphere's organizational system. As of version 1.5.8 you can now access the ILIO patch libraries from the Main Patch Menu and drill down through categories. 

If you purchased any of ILIO's Omnisphere patch libraries prior to March 17, 2014 you can get a free update: www.ilio.com/redownload_patches.html

For all current titles, go here: www.ilio.com/edm

Thanks!


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 29, 2014)

Midihead @ Tue Apr 29 said:


> Just stumbled again upon this thread and wanted to make sure everyone knew that all the ILIO patch libraries had been updated to better integrate into Omnisphere's organizational system. As of version 1.5.8 you can now access the ILIO patch libraries from the Main Patch Menu and drill down through categories.
> 
> If you purchased any of ILIO's Omnisphere patch libraries prior to March 17, 2014 you can get a free update: www.ilio.com/redownload_patches.html
> 
> ...



Thanks Midihead - updated the OP.


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## Midihead (May 1, 2014)

CarlLofgren @ Mon Apr 28 said:


> Guy Rowland @ Thu Apr 24 said:
> 
> 
> > if I were a 3rd party developer I'd use three broad rules:
> ...



Now, while Guy has expressed that he does not like "shortcodes" in the patch names, his is only one person's opinion. Thankfully several people have stated that they felt our naming convention ("shortcodes") was helpful to them. Skippy (Plug-in Guru) and I collaborated on a naming scheme that we thought would work well and then implemented it. 

The concept is to give people a very quick reference in the event they are browsing all patches without a category filter. Or, if someone does a search for a specific sound type they can see all the various results and be able to quickly identify what type of sound it is. Now in Omnisphere 1.5.8 we can organize these sounds into their respective folders for even better organization. Different people do things differently, so we like this method for our patch naming as we feel that it covers most of the diverse workflows people have.

For example, using my latest patch library (EDM Eclipse: Lunar):


In the 'ARP + Rhythm' folder I have patches that are prefixed with 'BPM BASS', 'BPM LEAD', and 'BPM SYNTH'
In the 'Keyboards' folder I have 'KEY'
In the 'Pads + Strings' folder I have 'PAD'
In the 'SFX and Noise' folder I have 'FX - RISE' (this is a riser, so if it were static I'd just leave 'FX')
In the 'Synth Bass' folder I have 'BASS'
In the 'Synth Mono' folder I have 'LEAD'
In the 'Synth Poly' folder I have 'SYNTH'

One example of how I name patches would be: 'FX - RISE - Name of Sound'

I'm not suggesting anyone follow this format. This is just for clarification so people understand WHY we did it this way, and for providing another side of the argument. 

Best,


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## woodsdenis (May 1, 2014)

For the record, I do like the short codes. Ascension 2 please MIDIhead =o


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## Midihead (May 1, 2014)

woodsdenis @ Thu May 01 said:


> For the record, I do like the short codes. Ascension 2 please MIDIhead =o



Great! Thank you! Yes, they work particularly well in that patch library. I am working on more of those types of sounds but I need to release 'EDM Eclipse: Solar' first!


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## Vin (Jun 22, 2014)

Seems like an excellent soundset.


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## GP_Hawk (Jun 22, 2014)

Coffee's on , looking forward to checking this one out. 8)


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## woodsdenis (Jul 15, 2014)

2 new libraries to check out 

http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-downl ... lipsesolar

http://pluginguru.com/guru-products/toxic-omnisphere

both firmly in the EDM genre but great sounds and in reality can be used anywhere.


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## dinerdog (Jul 15, 2014)

I was dissecting some Omni patches today and am having a new appreciation for the brilliance of some of them. I'm not even sure Eric needs to open it up to external samples as much as some new expansions. The few string patches are great, but if he did even a basic meat and potatoes Orchestral Expansion, it would be insane. To be able to use the arpeggiator and effects on a good marcato string patch would just blow away things like Action Strings (imho).

I know a lot of the sound sources are in there, I just can't build them myself. Just sayin. 

Love Omni!


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 15, 2014)

woodsdenis @ Tue Jul 15 said:


> http://pluginguru.com/guru-products/toxic-omnisphere



Some great sounds in this one - I was a little nonplussed by their last - and there's so much scope for EDM genre sounds in Omni that it should sell very well. I haven't heard this stuff done as well in Omni before... the core library sure could use a lot of this stuff.

It's just a shame that PluginGuru insist on prefixing everything with BASS / LEAD etc. It's just a nonsense. Omni isn't built in that archaic way, it's totally redundant - wish third party libs would embrace Spectrasonics' conventions (speaking of which, in Aurora they still seemed to believe that there is an Ethnic category in Omni - there isn't). Will also need to check the tagging which I don't think they even mentioned in the 1hr 8min walkthrough (though, it has to be said, I skipped a lot looking in vain for some reference to it).


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## dathyr1 (Jul 15, 2014)

i really enjoy Plugin Gurus Omnisphere libraries also. I have all of them except for the latest Toxic library.

Still debating to get this Toxic library cause of the main target this is geared for. It is a great library, but dont know how many of the patches I would use in my music. May get it anyway. 

Aurora from Plugin Guru I find only one thing that I have run into far as using these sounds(not all)but some of them. Seems they use allot of system usage on my Windows 7 system and some of the sounds I need to knock them down to playing only 6-8 notes max to play clean. I told John about this and he told me Omnisphere can use allot of resources at times depending on how many effects are used in the patch. What happens on some patches if I play more than 8 notes max, the sound cuts out or crackles. So it is the nature of the beast and the power of my computer. Other libraries dont do this or I havent noticed it yet.

I have all of "The Unfinished" libraries and also all of Audiority for Omnisphere. Most are great ambient type libraries. Great sounds here also.

DT


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 17, 2014)

Picked up Toxic yesterday, looks like all the important tags are there, plus some useful additional ones (no objection to useful new tags outside the category field).

Who knows what Eric & Co are cooking up, but imo if they had 1,000 or so patches of Toxic's quality and geared to genre EDM (AND PROPERLY NAMED!!!!!) most of their detractors would shut up. I bought Nexus 2 last year, mostly cos of the real lack of goto genre EDM, most of the attempts that had been done were a poor relation of other synths, but these are spot on - I can feel my need to occasionally use Nexus 2 diminishing and being that bit closer to being gloriously all-Omnisphere. There's scope for dozens more expansions in this mould if they are this good (and the currently available ones aren't this good) - while Toxic focuses on Dubstep, Trap and really aggressive stuff, I'd buy a similar trance expansion in a heartbeat.


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## suprano (Jul 17, 2014)

Can I offer my personal soundbank here, Donate based?

https://soundcloud.com/supranotrance/se ... -soundbank


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 17, 2014)

suprano @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> Can I offer my personal soundbank here, Donate based?
> 
> https://soundcloud.com/supranotrance/se ... -soundbank



Could you give us some details? Number of patches / is it tagged a la Spectrasonics etc? Cheers


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## suprano (Jul 17, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> suprano @ Thu Jul 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Can I offer my personal soundbank here, Donate based?
> ...



Yeah its 33 patches and you can hear most of em in those two tracks. 
its tagged inside omni as well as patch name tag, that now I found out its pretty bad right?


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 17, 2014)

suprano @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> Yeah its 33 patches and you can hear most of em in those two tracks.
> its tagged inside omni as well as patch name tag, that now I found out its pretty bad right?



Ha ha - that's my obsession! As I've argued (frequently on this thread it must be said), I think it's important to keep to the Spectrasonic style as much as possible. Categories in patch names is so 15 years ago, imo.


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## Luca Capozzi (Jul 17, 2014)

well Guy, sometimes name tagging may be needed. That's the case of Driving Force, since almost all presets are in the ARP+Rhythm section. I had to use name tagging to separate Basses, Drums and so on inside the ARP section.


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## suprano (Jul 17, 2014)

I came from EDM scene and its so common even by now. Omni is a special case which has proper tagging system so, i admit!


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 17, 2014)

Luca Capozzi @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> well Guy, sometimes name tagging may be needed. That's the case of Driving Force, since almost all presets are in the ARP+Rhythm section. I had to use name tagging to separate Basses, Drums and so on inside the ARP section.



Again, it's not how Spectrasonics themselves do it, and my whole approach would be to integrate as seamlessly as possible. Of course it would need the words "bass" / "drums" in it somewhere - even in the Notes will do as they also return results from searching. There's also a Type "bass" attribute that you can use, so you can quickly subdivide the ARP + Rhythm category, though Spectrasonics themselves don't do that on their own patches.

Suprano - yes it is indeed still common, which imo exposes how poor the browsers are on most synths - and the reason I stay away from them!


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## Guy Rowland (Sep 18, 2014)

Good times - The Unfinished's 4th Horizon bank is out tomorrow.

I've also just picked up PluginGuru's Bass Box for Trilian, and very useful it is too, on sale for another few days for $25. Made me realise how handy it is having 4-floor sidechain basses all programmed ready to go, among many other things. They provide Trilian and Omnisphere patch versions so you can load into either (you need to have both installed for this to work). The Unfinished's Raptor does the same trick.

As per usual I spent about an hour getting rid of the horrible prefixes and adding a few crucial tags to PluginGuru's bank.

LOVE how the third party market has matured in the past couple of years - Windows now tells me I have 2,914 third party patches. Omnisphere is still my first port of call for the vast majority of synths, and well tagged new libraries are always welcome. It's going to be interesting to see if the new Komplete Browser changes my workflow, integrating all the NI synths and libraries with a single tag browser. It's a huge step forward, but I've never found their tagging as musically useful as Spectrasonics, so I'm not expecting Omni to become dethroned any time soon.


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## Daniel (Sep 18, 2014)

I just bought Omnisphere a few hours ago. I hope I will have tons of idea :D

Best,


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 18, 2014)

Vin @ Sun Jun 22 said:


> Seems like an excellent soundset.




This Omniverse series seems good. Anyone know if there is a 'bundle' for all 3 titles?


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## Guy Rowland (Jan 11, 2015)

A little thread resurrection here - as we await NAMM with bated breath, I somehow missed that Plughugger have released a new 100-patch bank that's free until Jan 26 (coupon NOMONEY2015). World Of Sin bases all the patches round a variety of sine waves. Some of the arps and pads in particular are great - Angels Of Sine is a glorious mix of beauty and distortion. Oh, and there's a fantastically usable Trans Europe Express style hi hat in the electric perc section.

Thanks to Carl from Plughugger for the tip off, and double thanks as the Plughugger stuff now fits in seamlessly with the Spectrasonics tagging and categories, my pet rant subject (well, one of them...)

http://www.plughugger.com/omnisphere-world-of-sin.html


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## blougui (Jan 11, 2015)

Thanx for sharing this,Guy and kudos to Plughugger.

Erik


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## Mystic (Jan 11, 2015)

PluginGuru recently released OmniChill as well. I kinda dig it and may pick it up. John makes some of the best patches I've heard for different softsynths.
http://pluginguru.com/guru-products/omnichill


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## Luca Capozzi (Jan 11, 2015)

and Omnisphere Cinematic IV here 
http://www.audiority.com/shop/omnisphere-cinematic-iv/


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## Dryden.Chambers (Jan 11, 2015)

Matt The Unfinished and Pendle did a great Omni set this year which I think is top notch. 

Unfortunately Matt's site is down now for VAT work right now, but here is the links to there youtube previews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9jo27yRcVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02FrLPUWaNI


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## New_Loops (Feb 15, 2018)

Hey, this is a great resource for Omnisphere users. Please add Omnisphere Explorer to your list- https://newloops.com/products/omnisphere-explorer-omnisphere-2-presets


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## ManicMiner (Nov 14, 2020)

Anyone got an opinion on Plughugger Supersaw, Electro Analog All stars and UltraOne ?
I'm looking for EDM (Deep *House *specifically) sounds.
Also Smash EDM (the name Smash put me off since I thought it would be aggressive sounds, but the demo sounds milder than I expected.)


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## CarlLofgren (Nov 14, 2020)

ManicMiner said:


> Anyone got an opinion on Plughugger Supersaw, Electro Analog All stars and UltraOne ?
> I'm looking for EDM (Deep *House *specifically) sounds.
> Also Smash EDM (the name Smash put me off since I thought it would be aggressive sounds, but the demo sounds milder than I expected.)



I guess I should be quiet about my opinion since I made the sounds. I haven't made anything for Omnisphere that specifically is aimed for Deep House. I thought about it a million times, but I just never had the time to get around to it. Love the genre - but only have so much time on my hands. But specifically - UltraOne is more harder / edgier than Supersaw/All Stars.

/C


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