Welcome to another installment of This Thing Rules! This time I am going to look at a monster of an expansion for my favorite synth, Omnisphere 2. I’ve covered PluginGuru’s software before in two of my first reviews, Omnipulse and Omniverse 1 & 2 (which I still use all the time). I’ve purchased many of their other packs over the last couple years, but I’m glad to be finally covering them again with their new OMG! Drums Vol. 1 for Omnisphere 2. Before we dive into some of the features and what I liked about it, check out my demo “Nebula.”
The first thing I should mention is that this package is an alternate version of OMG! for Breaktweaker (I reviewed iZotope’s Breaktweaker itself in a previous This Thing Rules). It’s actually much more than that, since the original OMG! (which I also have and you’ve heard in some of my more recent songs) was just about drums, but this Omnisphere version also includes all kinds of other sounds. In my demo, “Nebula,” everything you hear is strictly from OMG! for Omnisphere. The main beat is made up of loop called “Dubstep – Tr0llstep GRV” and these cool, trap-like plucks called “SYNTH – Pure Velo DDL Pluck.” I filled in the background with a great bell/keyboard sound called “BELL-Fuzzy Pretty.” I then picked things up in the 2nd half with a big drum kit called “Chill – DarkScape KIT” and played that along with a fast arp called “BPM LEAD – Arp-a-Glider.”
That’s it. I could have kept building and building, and playing with the awesomely programmed mod wheel effects that every sound is setup with, or messing with those drum loops to add more variety, or just continued with layering… But it already felt like such a full, great demo at 5 tracks, I figured why not just stop there. After all, my last couple reviews have taken so long to get out (I blame the holidays and New Years), I figured why not get this one done in a more *cough cough* timely manner – haha.
As you can hear in “Nebula,” the sounds are all excellent quality. Using samples and Omnisphere’s powerful sound shaping tools, PluginGuru has created some really great stuff. They’ve also created drum loops in a way I’ve never quite seen before. The variety of what’s included and the new ways that you can mess with them is just really great.
Also, more than most synths (or Omnisphere expansions for that matter), OMG! is seriously a lot of FUN. Aside from having tons of sounds separated into categories from the titular drums to everything from Synth Bass, Guitars, Keyboards and Textures, Plugin Guru did something extra special this time around. Using the tools available in the still-new Omnisphere 2, they essentially created these amazing groove multis that allow you to just straight-up jam. The groove patches (marked by a “GRV”) have a repeating drum pattern that is triggered by one key, and then appropriate synths layers all throughout the keyboard so you can just play around and have fun with the sounds. Before I started really building up “Nebula,” believe me when I say I spent like a half hour just playing around with the sounds on the “Dubstep – Tr0llstep GRV” that I used as the base drum beat for this demo. It’s a unique and fresh idea, and the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it in Omnisphere.
This review is mainly for the Omnisphere version of OMG!, but I wanted to take a minute to talk about the Breaktweaker version as well. I bought it back when it first came out, and quite frankly, it breathed new life into Breaktweaker. I was very positive in my review of Breaktweaker back when it came out, but over time, I found that a lot of the presets were somewhat too crazy to really use. I understand that iZotope wanted to show off what it can do, but for someone like me who likes to browse presets and then just tweak a little, not start completely from scratch, it made it a little hard to find reasons to keep coming back. The patterns in OMG! however, are almost all completely usable right out of the box… er, download. And of course, using Breaktweaker’s awesome tweaking tools, they’re totally editable and changeable. I’ve already used OMG! for Breaktweaker on I believe three songs for my next full length album. I’m sure I’ll be using OMG! for Omnisphere on it too, but don’t forget about this version… Especially if you already have Breaktweaker. It’s a huge expansion.
While I was in the middle of writing this review, PluginGuru came out with an amazing hour long video detailing both OMG! for Omnisphere and OMG! for Breaktweaker, the differences between the two, and some tips and tricks for getting the most out of both of them. I highly suggest you watch it if you’re considering buying either of the OMG! packages, both of which are extremely useful.
OMG! is available from PluginGuru’s online store. The Omnisphere 2 version is $59.95 and the Breaktweaker version is $55.00. While they’re not the cheapest, and if you’re not tweaking the loops, they do cover some of the same content, they’re both excellent buys and highly recommended in their own ways.
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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.