Daniel PowersComposer/arranger | Contact meDaniel Powers
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The Omnisphere one-hour challenge
Having recently acquired the amazing softsynth Omnisphere (from Spectrasonics), I found myself a bit overwhelmed by its possibilities. With so many presets to choose from, and such powerful editing tools at your disposal, this is a product designed for a lifetime of learning.
After trying to explore it systematically, I felt like I wasn't getting the full Omnisphere experience, so I tried selecting patches randomly and working with what came up. One thing led to another until I came up with what I'm calling The Omnisphere one-hour challenge.
The objects of the challenge are:
To become more familiar with Omnisphere.
By placing certain elements beyond my control, to force myself to think in new, unfamiliar ways ("outside the box," in other words).
To have a little fun.
Here are the rules:
Create a project in your DAW consisting of eight MIDI tracks and a single instance of Omnisphere. No other instruments or effects are to be used.
Load the eight slots in Omnisphere with eight randomly selected patches. Any patch, once selected, cannot be changed. (Exception: if a patch was used in a previous project, you may at your discretion decide to discard it and load another.)
Though you may not unload a patch, you are free to edit it as much as you like.
Using the selected patches, you have one hour to create and record a composition. At the end of that hour you must stop, whether the work is "finished" or not.
Here are the results so far, along with some commentary.
1. Twilight November 22, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Also loaded but not used
| The title has nothing to do with either the current best-selling book or the movie based on it. I'm not a teen-age girl and I don't care about vampires. I just took the title from the name of one of the patches. The piece is improvised and mostly formless. Overall, I think it was a successful effort. Some things about it could have been better, but a lot of interesting things happened. The Double Tracked 6-strings preset was difficult, in its original form, to work into the piece as it developed. I ended up editing it quite a bit, adding some chorusing and so forth, in an attempt to make it spookier and more ethereal. But I ran out of time before I could really come to grips with it. Also, two patches defied all efforts to work them into the piece. So I decided that they would be the first to be loaded into the next one. I thought about making up a rule about that, but since I haven't done that since, there seemed little point. (I may add the rule later.) |
2. Trance Mission December 2, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
| This one turned out to be a two-parter, an introduction followed by a faster "trance-music" section. (Is that what it is? I don't even know!) More percussion would have been welcome, but I tried to work with what I had. The open hi-hat by itself wasn't very interesting as a percussion track, so I modified it mainly by applying a random LFO to modulate its decay time. Then I created a rhythmic pattern in the arpeggiator, and "played" it by depressing random keys. The result was interesting, though more time would have been welcome. |
3. Apparation December 13, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Loaded but not used
| Most of the time I seem to come up with these moody, atmospheric pieces. I like that kind of thing, and this one turned out very well. |
4. Ice Planet December 16, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Loaded but not used
| I love this one. I didn't modify any of the presets, but they seemed to go together easily. The piece that emerged had an eerie, frozen quality to it, which might be suitable for a documentary on Antarctica or something similar. One thing that bothers me about it is that it's very similar to the preceding one, sharing a lot of the form and motivic ideas. Probably not really a serious issue, but still, I should try for a little more variety. |
5. Ash and Stone December 19, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
| A mixed success. Parts of it worked, others didn't. The main problem is that it just doesn't sound finished. I wanted to work some more on the last section, but ran out of time. Parts of it cry out for a drum track, and I kind of regretted the rule that I couldn't use any other sounds besides what I loaded into Omnisphere. Perhaps I'll come back to it sometime and address these issues. I liked the Sustanance patch as a guitar track where it first came in. I think it was less successful at the end, where I used it with the arpeggiator. |
6. Peace December 22, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Loaded but not used
| My favorite one so far. I fell in love with the Ponderosa Prophet patch from the moment I heard it. And luckily the Love Signs and Triangles patch seemed to complement it perfectly. Most of the piece is built around the interplay between the two patches, with Pipe Harp 1 being used decoratively. Here the three patches seemed enough, and I simply didn't use the other five. If I ever come back to this one, I'd re-do a lot of the Pipe Harp track, probably using a different patch for it, and putting it further in the background. The Ponderosa Prophet should really be the lead. |
7. Fight or Flight December 23, 2008 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Loaded but not used
| Another two-parter, combining an oddly formed introduction with faster, action-sequence type music. Kind of a strange combination. I love the Power Strings. Something that's been in short supply in this project is aggressive, driving music, and the Power Strings really filled a void. I'll definitely plan on using them again. |
| 8. Metallurgy in the Morning listen January 2, 2009 Patches used (in order of appearance)
Loaded but not used
| This one kind of sucks. It just took me too long to get a composition going, and by the time I got one started, there wasn't enough time to get it done. There are some uncorrected notes, and it doesn't end very effectively. I plan to come back to it at some point, though. There are some good ideas in it, which would probably benefit from some additional work. |
| 9. Ice Planet 2 (Dancing Under the Ice) listen January 3, 2009 Patches used (in order of appearance)
| Turned out pretty nicely. I would have liked more time to work on the 7/4 dance section, but this is another one I'll have to come back to at some point. One thing I like about this project is the way it inspires unexpected ideas. I'm not sure I would have come up with the little dance tune in the middle if chance hadn't served up the Plucked Airbell Patch. |
| 10. Syncro City listen January 4, 2009 Patches used (in order of appearance)
| A lot of layering went into this one, so some parts are in effect composite patches. For once, I had some time to mess around with balance and panning before finishing. |