User Manual

CONCEPTSSoundsources
SoundsourcesallowOmnisphere’ssynthesistobeginwithsampledsoundsinsteadofDSPwaveforms.
TheyareaccessedbyselectingSampleModeintheOscillator.
Soundsourcesarebasedona‘map’ofaudiosamplesstoredintheCoreLibraryofOmnispherein
Spectrasonics’proprietarySTEAMformat.ASoundsourcecanbeassimpleasasinglesample
stretchedacrossthekeyboardrangeorascomplexashundredsofchromaticallysampled,velocity
switchedmultisampleslikeyou’dfindinamodernsamplelibrary.
Omnisphere’sCoreLibrarySoundsourcesvarydramaticallyinsizefromafewkilobytestoovera
gigabyte.EachSoundsourcewascarefullypreparedandoptimizedbytheSpectrasonicsSound
Developmentteam.
LargerandmorecomplexSoundsourcestakealongertoload,butstillloadrelativelyquickly,since
theSTEAMEngineincludesstreamingtechnologytoallowforplaybackofverylargemultisamples.
Streamingallowsforthesamplestobufferoffofthecomputer’sharddriveinrealtime,insteadofall
ofthesampleshavingtobeloadedintothecomputer’sRAM.Inaddition,Omnisphere'ssophisticated
ProgressiveLoadingallowssoundswiththousandsofsamplestobeplayedandauditionedwhilethey
arestillbeingloaded.
SoundsourcesinOmnispherearesimilartousing“programs”inasampler,buttherearesomekey
differences:
1.ASoundsourcecontainsnotonlyalloftherawsamples,mappinginformation,such
aspitch,velocity,zones,andlooppoints–butalsoSoundsourceimages,notesand
tags.
2.Soundsourcesdonotincludeenvelopes,filters,LFOs,FXoranymodulationsettings
(thosearestoredinthePatch).
Forthisreason,youcanloadanewSoundsourceintoaLayer,withoutchanginganyoftheLayer’s
synthesissettings.Thisallowsyoutotakeanypatchyoulikeandcreatethousandsofvariationsby