Spectrasonics

I bought it because a client had demos which required Omnisphere. I found the interface ugly and poor and first thought that anyway, once that project was over, I'd get back to Alchemy and Camel Audio which also provide nice music for image sounds. Again regarding the interface, I considered Alchemy to provide a more flexibility and settings. That's true, but the more I work with Omnisphere and the more I realise how powerful and efficient it can be. One can quickly and easily find quality sounds and edit or automate them quickly. Alchemy for instance is of course very complete, but also sometimes unnecessary complex. Sometimes it takes you in so many directions that you end up forgetting why you chose that sound for in the first place. Omnisphere offers a large, rich and complete variety of sounds! In the end it helps a lot for my productions using pads, underscores, fx and so on. Version 2 has a serach mode that is unique on the market, as it analyses a preset and compares it to other to suggest you those which are xlose to it! A real miracle. Or, you can look for a preset from only some parameters from another. It's a way yo enhance one's workflow et find THE working sound you need faster. Can't do without it, and yet I have ALL there is in this style. The main turndown is the waiting time when launching the plugin: 30 seconds... Let's hope they have an update to correct this. Then some presets can take 5 seconds to load... Like with Kontakt, there are more or less samples involved depending on the bank you choose. Yet I'm very surprised by some comments around the net by some experienced users calling it a CPU hog, unless their computer too is very experienced? The other is that the licence doesn't allow it to be used for sound design, and I know some people who only do sound design and told me they appreciate this software but won't buy it because of this.

The installation and, especially, the updates, are a bit complicated, starting with the fact that Spectrasonics offers different updates for the software itself, the presets and for the sound libraries. But everything works fine once we've gotten pass that. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I use it on a Dual Core with 6 GB RAM and have never had an issue under Windows 7 64-bit / Cubase 6. That said, I generally use one or two patches per song at most, so it's not very indicative. OVERALL OPINION I've used it for two years now and I must confess that I'm really fascinated by the software, even if it only use it rarely. Why? Because it sounds huge and its sounds are sometimes so complex that they are more than enough by themselves. It is often hard to try to incorporate them in a song. During mixdown, you will have to cut a lot with the EQ (especially in the low end). And, to compose, it seems that the best you can do with Omnisphere is start from scratch with one of the presets and see where it takes you... But we must also admit that an Omnisphere layer and a Stylus groove are enough to make a song, which can be exciting and frustrating at the same time... Loaded with processing and modulation possibilities, the software is nevertheless not the most user-friendly, in my opinion. Its interface with multiple panels make it unnecessarily complicated and might end up discouraging beginners or will make them stick to presets, which, then again, are admirable. This is without a doubt an inspiring instrument whose sounds have a lot of personality. But that's not always what you are looking for...

I have been using Stylus RMX since about 2008, I use it frequently because of the sound quality and its abilities to work with VST’s. This program does require a lot of patching though when working with sounds and VST’s it reminds me of how you have to patch a lot with Battery 3. Installing it takes a bit more time than I expected because it is a big file to have to install. It does take up a lot of disk space as well so before I purchased it I made sure that I waited until I got my new PC with a lot of disk space/CPU and RAM. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE This software is expandable, allowing you to add more groves as needed. It comes with 27 different effects like power filter, spring verb, gate expander, tube limiter, vintage compressors and many more. There are over 7 gigs of sounds that come with it, which is why it takes so long to load and install. It is not hard to install it just takes a very long time to do so. OVERALL OPINION The interface is easy to use and understand though I am not a fan of the purple color of the interface, I am not sure if you can change it but I would if I knew how because the purple is more of an eye sore for me. The price of this software is a little more than expected but after working with the effects racks I feel like I have gotten my money’s worth in no time at all. I love the compressors, in fact the “vintage” compressors could be the reason that I feel that I got my money’s worth with this software. The sounds are very good as well and the performance of this software is great. I have experienced no crashing or freezing while working with it on my PC.

Trillian is a Acoustic/Electric/Electronic Bass Virtual Instrument from Spectrasonics with over 34 GB of samples. Over sixty different 4, 5, 6 and 8 string Electric basses are presented in fingered, picked, fretless, slapped, tapped, and muted technique variations – providing a huge variety of sounds for any musical genre. Highlights of the new Electric Basses include a Music Man™ 5-string Studio Bass, Chapman Stick®, Lakland™ Rock P-Bass, Clean Fender® Jazz Bass, a Hardcore Rock Bass, a Retro 1960’s Epiphone® Viola Bass and much more. Trilian’s stunning new Acoustic Bass is the most detailed instrument Spectrasonics has ever released, with 4 audio channels and over 21,000 samples to create this single instrument! All this combined with Trilian’s high-resolution streaming of the sounds puts a depth of realism into performances that is truly inspiring. I’ve used this in Logic Pro 8 and 9, in 32 and 64 bit mode without a problem. I have a Mac Pro 2.66 Quad Core with 8 GB of ram and a White Macbook with Intel Core 2 Duo Cpu with 4 GB of Ram. The installation is really easy and the the manual is well written. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The software reacts really well, however to use its full potential you need to have at least 4 gb of ram. With 8 gb and in 64 bit it works like a charm. OVERALL OPINION I've used this in my home studio for a lot of different projects. From Pop rock, to Electronica, to Heavy rock the VI always suited perfect in the mix. A bit pricey, but you will have a Class A product, that was created with an exceptional cure of details. Especially for the Acoustic and Electric Basses, you will have all the nuances and different playing styles available in the original instrument. It can be a little complex in the begininning and some patches are really heavy on the RAM, but it will give you stunning results. I used extensively Trilogy, its predecessor, and I can say without doubt that Spectrasonics it's my favourite Virtual Instrument Software house. Always ahead of the time in terms of features and innovations, and with a stellar sound quality.

Trilogy was introduced in 2002 by Spectrasonics and, since then, it has become the tool of choice of many musicians when it comes to sampled bass guitars. I first found it in 2010 and since then I have been unable to find any other tool that gives me as many choices and possibilities and Trilogy does. I have never found compatibility issues, and that's a lot to say since I've used trilogy on six different hardware setups and for many different endeavors. There are no unnecessary steps when it comes to installation: you just place th 3gb samples file wherever you choose and run the software. The only issue is that the program comes, originally, in a set of CDs, so installation may take a while. The simple interface and ready-to-go general quality of the software makes up for it, though. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The software is really stable, and to be fair the only crashes I experienced while working with Trilogy were due to issues with Nuendo or overloading my sound card. As said before, I've been using it for four years and I've never had the need to look for other solution when it comes to sampled bass. Trilogy provides you with an incredible amount of patches to choose from, broken down into easily identifiable categories (that mostly rely on style, so that makes choices even faster). As it usually happens with this type of software, there is an overabundance of preset synth instruments, and that makes it a little harder to find the correct sound when working with certain types of electronic music. As instruments are subcategorized by articulation or general dynamic range, you will usually have to load more than one instance of Trilogy, and eventually that hinders performance. OVERALL OPINION I particularly like the straightforward and visual appeal of Trilogy. You can easily create your own sound, either from scratch (though that's not what the program is designed for so that may be a little hard to pull off) or basing it on one of the thousands that the systems comes with by default. The presets include different types of bass (electric, standard acoustic, upright, synth) and it features an organization system with categories such as ''Old school'', ''Modern'', etc. that make it really easy to focus your search according to the type of music you are working with. The preset usually come in two different sound schemes, caled A and B, and you can adjust them individually. The versatility of Trilogy is also an important point. I've worked in heavy metal, soft rock, jazz, and multiple other projects, using Trilogy for sketches as well as for final versions, always with excellent results.

Atmosphere is a virtual synth that is pretty good and very easy to use and to install. The only problem that I see with it was the price. I feel like it was overpriced (at the time) but the price may have come down some since. But when it first came out years ago the price of it was just too high . When there are other vst’s on the market that are almost the same but cost even less. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I have been using Spectrasonics Atmosphere for years now as a vst (don’t think it can be used as a stand alone) and I havent had any issues yet. I still use it to this day and I purchased it years ago. I have had it on so many different machines and it worked perfect on all of them. Even the ones that are older and really outdated and slow. I have only used it in Fl Studio thinking about adding it to some of my other set ups though. OVERALL OPINION If you really take the time to get to Understand everything in Atmosphere (you will need the manual to do this!) then it can really be to your advantage in editing the sounds and parameters for each sound. You can really dig deep and just do some flat out cool stuff with it. It will allow you to bring out creativity that your fellow musicians may lack. But this virtual synth will cost you a pretty penny , which is the downside. I am happy that I purchased it though, but if I was on a tighter budget at the time I probably would have got it. Or if I tried it out before I spent the money I might not have got it because there are cheaper vsts that are almost the same. But hey if you want something good that will last you have to invest!

(Originally written by Karimus/translated from Audiofanzine FR) I've been using it for almost two years It's very intuitive and easy to use but it's a pity that effects affect the global sound (bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, etc.) Version 1.5 brings many improvements, especially regarding the new drum kits Good value for money. It's a pity that the Spectrasonics website doesn't provide downloadable demos. I would certainly buy it again as well as all other Spectrasonic products (especially Trilogy, which has a superb double bass sound).