Spectrasonics has released Omnisphere, surely the most eagerly-anticipated software instrument of 2008. This is powered by a variety of hybrid synthesis techniques and comes with a massive library of what the company calls 'psychoacoustic' sounds.
Omnisphere has been designed so that its key features are easily accessible, but more advanced users can go deeper. It comes with arpeggiators, a stack mode for patch layering and is 8-part multitimbral.
The synth's sound library is vast, weighing in at 40GB, and according to Spectrasonics' Founder and Creative Director Eric Persing, "filled with unique sampled sounds and amazing patches created by our international sound design team".
The Psychoacoustic sounds were created with a new Composite Morphing Technique (CMT), which is used to morph the harmonic characteristics of one instrument to another.
You can find out more about Omnisphere in our original news story and on the Spectrasonics website, but as we said at the top, the big news now is that you can actually buy it. Cross-platform and supporting multiple plug-in formats, it's available from Spectrasonics' Techshop for $499/€379.
