Omnisphere Colossus IV by The Unfinished

The Unfinished is back with the fourth installment of his fantastic Colossus series for Omnisphere 2. If you compose trailer tracks, action scores, or are looking for some dark and dramatic sounds, Colossus IV has you completely covered. This is one heavy hitting collection of sounds!

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Review: Omnisphere Colossus IV by The Unfinished

To say that I’m a fan of The Unfinished’s synth work would be a massive understatement. I love just about everything that The Unfinished (aka Matt Bowdler) creates. I just don’t know how he does it, but in Omnisphere Colossus IV, The Unfinished has upped his game once again and created a simply FANTASTIC set of coherent sounds. This is going to be among the first places I go when looking for a dark, edgy bass, percussive loop, or other sound to start a dark cinematic track.

Omnisphere Colossus IV sells for £59.99 from The Unfinished

Thoughts

Omnisphere Colossus IV is broken into 13 categories: ARP + BPM, Bowed Colors, Guitars, Hits and Bits, Hybrid Instruments, Keyboards, Pads + Strings, Synth Bass, Synth Poly, Synth Sweep, Textures Playable, Textures Soundscapes, and Transition Effects. These sounds aren’t just amazingly deep, dark, and edgy, but they are completely coherent and could easily serve as not only the inspiration for, but also the entire sound collection of an entire film score. I’m going to say a little about each category to let you know how many sounds you will find in each and what you can expect from those sounds.

ARP+BPM – 210 Patches
Out of 400 sounds in Colossus IV, this category of 210 patches represents over half of them. I couldn’t be happier about that! This category is always one of the first places I look for inspiration when I’m composing a new track. Something about pulses and sequences gets my inspiration flowing like little else. This collection of ARP + BPMs is simply awesome. You will find a plethora of useful stuff here – percussive sequences, deep, growling, pulsing basslines, arpeggios, and more. These are raw, industrial, and gritty. The percussion loops are super-useful and could find their way into just about any kind of track. One of the cool parts of this collection is the inclusion of both standard and non-standard time signatures in these sounds. All this, not to mention there are some sick, cinematic breakbeats in here!

Bowed Colors – 3 Patches
There are only 3 patches here, but again, what you get is great. These are aleatoric, scraping bowed sounds that are useful for everything from horror to dark and atmospheric drama.

Guitars – 10 Patches
It’s a small collection, but there are some good electric and acoustic guitar patches here, including a couple of especially good “wall of sound” distorted guitar pad-like patches. “Black Flags” is the star of this show – described as “Rising, filtered, power guitar chord effect.”

Hits and Bits – 25 Patches
This category of sounds is, again, just fantastic, and so useful. There are some epic, pounding, drums and subs drenched in reverb. There are some huge hits here, and even bass drops. If you didn’t think Omnisphere could be an all-one-in scoring solution – think again. The Unfinished has a way of teasing the best out of Omnisphere, and this category is a great example of that (as is the entire soundset!).

Hybrid Instruments – 4 patches
This is a small category, but there are some useful patches here. My person favorite is “Occupants” – described as “Dark and distorted, dramatic, hybrid bowed and blown instruments. Modwheel goes extra dark-fi and ambient.”

Keyboards – 5 Patches
These 5 patches are a perfect juxtaposition to the darker tone of the rest of the soundset and would sit perfectly on top of the soundscapes, basses, etc. you will find throughout the rest of the categories. These sounds are ambient and light and will shimmer against the rich backdrop of the rest of the soundset.

Pads+Strings – 50 Patches
One can never have too many pads, right? The pads you will find in Colossus IV are the epitome of “cinematic” – lush, airy, and dusty are some of the words I would use to describe them. This is a great stable of useful pads for many musical applications.

Synth Bass – 35 patches
I first encountered the genius of The Unfinished via Absynth. At that time, synth basses were always a big highlight of his Absynth soundsets. The Unfinished has continued to create some stellar synth bass patches, but I dare say, this is his finest synth bass work to date. These include hard-hitting subs, pounding deep and clear bass lines, fantastic sine basses, and a great use of distortion. If you are looking to score a hard-hitting action movie and need some thunderous low-end synth basses – Wow! – does The Unfinished ever have you covered here!

Synth Poly – 5 patches
This category might be small, but it features some sounds that are really cool. “Also Known As” is especially a highlight here; “Bright synth keyboard sound. Modwheel mellows.” This one uses some sort of cool delay effect unlike anything I’ve heard before. The mellow version of this patch (activated by the modwheel) is a winner for sure.

Synth Sweep – 5 Patches
These are excellent, huge, wide, and lush. Other words I would use to describe these would be harmonic, pitch-shifting, growling, deep, thick, and pulsing.

Textures Playable – 10 patches
This might only be 10 patches, but when it comes to the dark side of things, these are 10 of the best playable texture patches available for Omnisphere 2. These all focus on the darker side of the sonic landscape, setting a great sound bed for some dramatic and dark scenes. These are evolving, dusty, glitchy, deep, gentle, dense, and lovely.

Textures Soundscapes – 35 patches
The 35 patches here are great sound beds for scoring. In fact, you could score an entire dark, dramatic scene from this category or sounds along. These are, once again, dark, distorted, rich, full of texture, and featuring unusual textures like harmonic washes.

Transition Effects – 3 Patches
Again, a small number of patches here, but good stuff. There’s a nice reverse, an impact, and a gated noise effect – all fantastic and ready for the big screen.

Alright, enough swooning over Omnisphere Colossus IV. Suffice it to say that, if you’re looking for patches for action or dark drama, this is one of the best soundsets going for Omnisphere 2!

Facts

Omnisphere Colossus IV features 400 original patches for Spectrasonic’s Omnisphere 2.6+. You can purchase Omnisphere Colossus IV from The Unfinished for £59.99.

Omnisphere Colossus IV sells for £59.99 from The Unfinished

Demos of Omnisphere Colossus IV by The Unfinished

Videos of Omnisphere Colossus IV by The Unfinished

Contributor Raborn Johnson reviews Omnisphere Colossus IV by The Unfinished
“If you compose trailer track, action scores, or are looking for some dark and dramatic sounds, Colossus IV has you completely covered. This is one heavy hitting collection of sounds!”