Review: Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

With the release of the Nordic soundset for Omnisphere 2, Triple Spiral Audio have created a truly useable and unique sounding addition to the already powerful Omnisphere 2. With its high quality and extensive patch list and its low price point, the library is an absolute no brainer for any film composer wishing to expand the power of Omnisphere 2.

Jump to the Videos of Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

Jump to the Demos of Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

Review: Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

What’s better than a swiss army knife? The answer would surely be one that can be added to and improved upon in a modular way! Omnisphere 2 is without a doubt the de facto swiss army knife of the composer’s tool kit. It’s filled with an astounding assortment of sound sources and preset patches. Because of its popularity, however, one can often find themselves becoming hyper-aware of the frequency at which we hear these patches out in the wild. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve been watching tv and suddenly an Omnisphere patch I was just playing with the other day begins to drone. A solution to escaping this problem is with Omnisphere add-ons causing the already extensive synth to feel brand new once again! Triple Spiral Audio has created a wonderful soundset with their recent release of Nordic.

Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset sells for €24.75 from Triple Spiral Audio

Thoughts

I have been an avid user of Omnisphere since the early days of Omnisphere 1 though I will admit this soundset was my first add-on to the synth. I was curious as to how the installation process would be. To my delight, it couldn’t be more simple to install. It happens via several clicks within the Omnisphere menus themselves and doesn’t require any tedious mucking about in deeply hidden folders trying to place something in the right spot. Within minutes of the download completed, I was ready to go! Incidentally, the download occurred almost instantly because, as wonderful as this soundset is, it weighs in at a surprisingly phantom weight of only 514 MB.

Once the instrument was installed I eagerly dug in and I am pleased to say each patch put a huge smile on my face as they were just so enjoyable and fun to play. I was also struck by the diversity in sounds. The library includes not only a collection of drones and ambient pads which are perfect for scoring anything from emotional drama to dark sinister scenes, but it also included a huge collection of more playable instruments. These include tempo-synced arps which pulse and move in interesting ways. These are an instant and fun way to add a motor to any cue you’re in the middle of that needs a little extra energy. It also includes a collection of bells and vibes sure to fit in perfectly in your next pensive thoughtful cue.

An issue with some of the stock Omnisphere sounds, in general, is they can fall victim to that one not finger held down drone problem which causes the sounds to quickly become boring. What they lack is some kind of modulation in the sound which causes it to change and develop over time. The wonderful people at Triple Spiral Audio were apparently keenly aware of this problem as they have taken great care to map a series of parameters to common CCs. Because of this, playing even a simple drone can be a load of fun because you can be constantly moving faders and knobs to create beautiful and cinematic evolution and development in the texture. The main control you are given access to is a filter control which is controlled by the modwheel. Though a simple parameter, this control allows you the great power to move a sound to the front or into the background of a track. When the filter is closed the sound has a darker more ambient and perhaps emotional sound. Opening the filter brings the high-end elements back in causing the sound to grab the listener’s attention bringing it into focus. An interesting thing I had never seen before mapped like this but that I instantly fell in love with was the pitch bend wheel mapped to a control that increased the amount of “ambience”. I’m not sure if reverb is being added or what is actually happening, but the effect is that the sound becomes much more spacious and seems to balloon out. With these two controls, one can easily create evolving textures that are sure to maintain interest. A third control that was common across the patches was aftertouch controlling vibrato. Though a nice idea, I found myself accidentally triggering it more often than I would like. This is perhaps just due to my heavy-handed playing and it’s possible others won’t experience this same issue.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how well the sounds played with common plugins such as Decapitator. Using the drones and ambiences from Nordic processed through plugins like that I was able to quickly and effectively create a series of unsettling horror textures and dark sinister drones. Because of how versatile and usable it is, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this is a no-brainer purchase for any film composer looking to expand the power of Omnisphere 2. As high quality as the soundset is, they are selling it for under 30 dollars! Because of this, I can’t recommend it enough!

Facts

Nordic by Triple Spiral Audio is a soundset add-on for Omnisphere 2. It requires the full version of Omnisphere 2.6+ to run and will not work with Omnisphere 1. The pack was designed with cinematic ambiences in mind perfect for film, television, video game, and library music. It features 128 presets and 25 multis. These are organized into Arps, Bells and Vibes, Bowed Colors, Ethnic World, Guitars, Pads, Playable Textures, and Soundscape Textures. All of these patches are created using the 139 sound sources that were recorded mostly from nature like sounds taken from travels around Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The soundset is 514 MB in size.

Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset sells for €24.75 from Triple Spiral Audio

Demos of Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

Videos of Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio

Contributor Shaun Chasin reviews Nordic – Omnisphere 2 Soundset by Triple Spiral Audio
“With the release of the Nordic soundset for Omnisphere 2, Triple Spiral Audio have created a truly useable and unique sounding addition to the already powerful Omnisphere 2. With its high quality and extensive patch list and its low price point, the library is an absolute no brainer for any film composer wishing to expand the power of Omnisphere 2.”