Welcome to another edition of This Thing Rules!
You guys probably know by now that I love my Omnisphere expansions, and while there’s constantly a new one coming from one one of the big names, it’s always exciting to find one from a company I hadn’t heard from before. So when I found out about Ethnicity, a pack from composer and first-time sound designer Ikarus, I had to check it out.
Ethnicity takes new sound sources (a recent feature of Omnisphere 2) including all kinds of organic instruments ranging from didgeridoos to duduks, and runs them through the powerful synth engine. There are 123 presets in all that range from striking keyboards and guitars to lush, beautiful pads and soundscapes, as well as some pulsating patches.
In my demo track “Other Voices” I am using nearly a dozen sounds from Ethnicity. I added a drum beat from another program because I wanted to really bring up the tempo of this particular piece, but otherwise, it’s all Ethnicity.
These sounds have a beautiful liveliness and organic feel to them. Everything rattles and hums in a way that makes you feel like someone is playing these instruments for you… Only in a new and exciting way. Everything is set-up perfectly and you can tell that Ikarus put a lot of time into making these sounds sound just right.
In “Other Voices” I started off with the very funky arp “Pick Guitar Arp 2” and the chill “Ambient EPiano” as a bass. From there I built it up with the absolutely gorgeous pad “Nord Ambient,” and the guitar patch “Egit2” (which would have fit in perfectly on any of the guitar led songs on An Unseen Sky. “Egit2” isn’t a 100% realistic guitar, but it has such a great, natural play-ability to it. There’s a bunch of other sounds from Ethnicity being used throughout, but another stand-out pad for me is “Alone in the future,” which I think is so cool sounding I want to build a full song around it sometime soon.
I’d have liked to see some more percussion type sounds from Ikarus (maybe next time), and perhaps some more pre-programmed arp patterns to go with these instruments. But then again, Omnisphere 2’s incredible arpeggiator already opens the door to tons of possibilities in that department. Percussion is really the only area I felt this pack was lacking at all.
Otherwise what we have here is a solid, unique pack of sounds for Omnisphere 2. A lot of times these packs end up being more of the same (not necessarily a bad thing if it’s done well), but in this case, we’re getting a very specific spin on what Omnisphere can do. It’s a great addition and absolutely recommended.
Ikarus Ethnicity requires Omnisphere 2.1.0d or later and is available now at http://ikarusmusic.com/ikarus-spectrasonics-omnisphere-2-signature-soundset-ethnicity (and at the time of writing there is a 20% off deal going on, so hurry up and get it!)
–
David Rosen is an award-winning music composer. He composes original music for films, commercials, jingles, video-games and all other kinds of media projects. He has a vast music library of original tracks available for licensing and is also available for custom compositions. Contact him on the ABOUT page for pricing and availability for your next project.