Recording - September 2011 - 41

to your taste and touch. You can take a simple patch, one that everybody uses, turn on the Orb function, and end up with sounds that no one else on Earth will get. Omni TR Concurrently with the 1.5 upgrade, Spectrasonics also released a free iPad (iOS 4.2 or better) application called Omni TR. I’m afraid that this is the part where I start to gush. Omni TR caused me to give into my GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and do a few upgrades to my DAW computer and buy an iPad!

(otherwise only possible with MIDI assignments). You can browse and load individual patches or multis direct from the iPad, without having to search on your laptop or other computer’s monitor during a performance. The Orb Page allows you fingertip control over the Orb instead of using your mouse, a very real and tactile method for controlling your sounds. You can record the movements of the Orb, select the Dice and reset the parameter modulation scenes, control the depth and inertia features, and reset the Orb’s movements all by hitting Clear. You can browse and load patches and multis on the fly.

Omni TR (for Touch Remote) allows for remote Wi-Fi connectivity to Omnisphere and gives you multi-touch performance capabilities over a wide margin of parameters. Once installed and configured with your Omnisphere host, it lets you access four pages of well-organized options.

The Controls Page lets you access 8 touch sliders and a performance ribbon for logical groupings of performance and editing parameters. As with the Orb page, you can select loaded patches 1-8 by a series of tabs on the left of the screen, and select patches and multis from this page as well. The Jumbo View is great for dark venues, or if your eyesight is starting to go like mine. A two-column version of the Live Mode Page, this page makes seeing and controlling Omnisphere a breeze. Simply touch the screen for any patch you want to enable, or multi-touch and bring several in or out at once. Summary Once again this reviewer is stunned by the simple elegance, intuitive user interface, ever expanding patch library and the wide array control options of this powerful virtual synth—a free update to all existing registered users of Omnisphere. Just be prepared to run out and get an iPad when you get a whiff of how cool it would be to control the Orb via multitouch... Price: $499 (upgrade from 1.0, free) More from: Spectrasonics, www.spectra sonics.net; dist. by ILIO, www.ilio.com Allen Goodman (goodman@recording mag.com) is a guitarist, keyboardist, and recording engineer working in Phoenix, AZ.
RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2011

The Main Page is a replica of Omnisphere’s Live Mode screen, with access to all 8 patches and their controls, such as individual mute/solo, latch buttons, and level sliders. You can select individual patches or use multi-touch to enable all 8 patches at once

http://www.t-funk.com http://www.spectrasonics.net http://www.spectrasonics.net http://www.ilio.com

Recording - September 2011

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