Welcome to another This Thing Rules! This time we’ll be taking a look at Interstellar for Omnisphere by Subsonic Artz. You may remember my review of Gaia from Subsonic Artz, another Omnisphere expansion pack that I checked out last year. Well they’re back with another collection of beautiful sounds for Omnisphere, and the theme this time is something I think a lot of you will recognize.
Before digging into the review, check out my demo “Another World” which I created entirely with sounds from Interstellar.
If you didn’t pick up on the inspiration for this package from the name already, perhaps the demo clued you in? If not, it’s Hans Zimmer’s score for Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film “Interstellar.” Clearly inspired by the film with sound names such as “Murphy’s Tears” and beautiful, lush ambient sounds that make you feel like you’re floating in outer-space.
For the demo, “Another World,” I started out with a beautiful texture called “Last Hope.” From there I created the main rhythm and melody out of a Hit called “Kepler 9b” and a keyboard sound (that almost sounds more like a guitar) called “Murph’s Sadness.” I build up the overall vibe of the piece with a texture called “Sidereal Void” and another texture called “Interglassian” which I played with quick staccato notes.
As the track continued, I added a pulse sound called “Endurance Travel” which brings to mind classic science documentaries like Carl Sagan type stuff. I also added another keyboard called “Crop Blight” (the “Interstellar” film references are getting thick here haha). For the finale, I added in titular keyboard, “Interstellar,” which since it’s made from an organ, I believe was meant to be played the way Hans Simmer does in the “Interstellar” film score, but I played it with quick bouncing staccato notes to build up some final excitement before exiting on a crescendo of all the previously used texture sounds.
So obviously if the goal was to capture the sound of the film “Interstellar” than I think this pack succeeds. There’s some great, beautiful sounds on here. It’s a little heavy on the textures, which can be great, but aren’t always the first thing I think to go for when looking for instruments to get a song going. Still, and especially in sci-fi film scores, I can see them being very useful in the future. I also really like the sense of hope a lot of these sounds seem to be built around. Here’s the main Interstellar theme from the film just for fun:
Interstellar features a total of 154 patches spread out between seven categories. Every sound has mod wheel controls attached to it to give you even more awesome possibilities.
Interstellar is available for $35.00 from a variety of sources, all of which can be found through the Subsonic Artz website.
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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 theABOUT page for pricing and availability for your next project.