Omnisphere VST Synth Alternatives

Omnisphere by Spectrasonics is a powerful and versatile synthesizer that has become an essential tool for many musicians and producers worldwide. With its extensive sound library, hardware synth integration, and advanced synthesis capabilities, it offers a vast range of creative possibilities. However, for those seeking alternatives, either due to budget constraints or personal preferences, there are several other virtual synthesizers available on the market. These alternatives often provide unique features, distinctive sound design, and in some cases, more affordable pricing options, catering to diverse musical styles and production requirements.

List:

1. Analog Lab V
2. Xfer Serum
3. reFX Nexus 4
4. Arturia Pigments
5. Output Arcade
6. KV331 SynthMaster
7. NI Massive X
8. Synapse Dune 3
9. Kilohearts PhasePlant
10. Vital

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Analog Lab V

Analog Lab V comes with a huge selection of 2,000 presets and patches covering all kinds of musical styles. This vast library was created by renowned sound designers with decades of experience, so you know the sounds are top-notch. The smart browsing feature lets you search for sounds by instrument type, sound bank, designer, genre, and more – making it easy to find exactly what you need. You can favorite your go-to presets for quick access and create custom playlists organized by song or project for convenient performance and practice.

While the sounds are generally good quality right out of the box, you may need to tweak them a bit if using them in a busy track. The preset browser-style interface is great for beginners to explore famous synth tones without getting too technical. However, a huge preset library can sometimes be overwhelming when you’re just starting out with sound design. The key strengths are the sheer variety of high-quality presets curated by pros, the smart browsing/playlisting features for organizing your favorites, and the accessibility for beginners wanting to familiarize themselves with classic synth tones. But you may find it limiting if you want to dive deeper into crafting your own sounds from scratch.

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Xfer Serum

Serum is a highly flexible and creative wavetable synthesizer that gives you immense freedom to design unique sounds. One of its standout features is the built-in wavetable editor that allows you to import your own audio files or draw/generate custom wavetables from scratch. You can then morph between different wavetables in real-time for dynamic, evolving timbres.

The synth has ultra-clean oscillators with high-precision resampling, ensuring artifact-free playback. The modulation system is extremely flexible, allowing you to make modulation connections simply by dragging sources to destinations.

Serum offers a variety of unique filter types beyond the classics, like comb filters that can key-track to the notes you play. The effects rack with 10 modules lets you completely finish your sound within the synth. Many of these effects have special modes made specifically for Serum.

The advanced unison features allow you to stack up to 16 voices per oscillator for a fatter sound, with options to detune, shift wavetable positions, and warp each voice differently for rich sonic textures. Overall, Serum’s strength lies in its deep editability combined with creative workflows that inspire unique sound design. The flexibility to import audio, draw wavetables, morph between them in real-time, and manipulate them through effects and modulation enables you to craft sounds from scratch with ease. Serum is probably one of the most popular VST synths on the market so there are tons of preset packs for every genre available as well.

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reFX Nexus 4

reFX Nexus is a great alternative to Omnisphere catering to its preset heavy sound design. Also, is a great tool for beginner music producers. reFX Nexus offers an advanced librarian with three columns for easy sound browsing, color-coded tags and bookmarks, and the ability to quickly preview sounds as you search. Its arpeggiator is highly flexible, allowing you to access and edit the arps for all 16 layers, extend patterns up to 256 steps, and visualize the playback.

The routing system provides a visual signal flow for quickly enabling/disabling layers and effects to isolate sounds. Customization is a breeze with the built-in skin browser that lets you choose and create your own customized skins for the interface. Overall, Nexus 4 is a great preset machine thought might not be the best for sound design from scratch.

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Arturia Pigments 5

Arturia’s Pigments 5 is a powerful and versatile synthesizer and has a bunch of features that make it a great alternative to Omnsiphere. Pigments 5 has an easy-to-use and visually appealing interface that makes it simple for users to explore and modify sounds. It has two main sound engines, each with four different types: Analog (for warm, classic synthesizer tones), Wavetable (for complex, evolving textures), Sampler (for using your own audio samples), and Harmonic (for rich, layered tones). It also has an additional Utility engine with noise and wave oscillators.

This variety of engines allows users to create a wide range of sounds, from classic analog synth tones to intricate wavetable textures and realistic sampled instruments. Pigments 5 also has a powerful effects section, with high-quality effects that users can apply to shape and enhance their sounds. Features like the Randomizer (for generating random, unexpected sound variations), Functions (for creating complex modulation patterns), and Combinate (for layering and blending multiple sound sources) give you even more creative possibilities.

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Output Arcade

Arcade is a loop synthesizer from Output that provides a constant stream of new kits and loops across over 40 different product lines. The ability to use your own samples or manipulate the included loops in real-time makes it versatile for inspiration and developing them further. A major feature is Note Kits – fully playable, multi-sampled kits with up to 88 keys of polyphony that can be played chromatically like a typical synth. Each kit has custom macro controls and deep editing capabilities for layers, mixing, modulation, and more.

The constantly evolving loop library, flexible loop manipulation, Note Kit playability, and sound sculpting options make Arcade 2.0 a powerful idea generator and development tool. With an affordable $10 monthly subscription model, it provides tons of inspiration for music producers.

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KV331 SynthMaster

SynthMaster is a powerful virtual synthesizer with stereo oscillators that can create rich, unison “supersaw” tones. It has basic oscillator types like sine, square, etc. but also supports custom wavetables and samples imported from WAV/AIFF files. The semi-modular architecture provides flexibility with two layers, each having oscillators, modulators, filters, envelopes, LFOs and more. The modulation system is incredibly deep, with hundreds of modulation routings possible between the various sources and destinations.

The filters use zero-delay feedback technology to achieve an analog-style sound and can have effects like distortion inserted within the filter circuit. SynthMaster includes 11 different effect types, flexible routing for effects per layer or globally, and an arpeggiator with per-step settings. Other features include microtuning support, a preset browser, the ability for users to share custom presets online, multiple customizable interface skins, and easy macro controls. SynthMaster is a combination of synthesis types, sound sculpting options, and workflow capabilities.

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NI Massive X

Massive is one of the most versatile and widely used virtual synths, especially popular among EDM, dubstep, and hip-hop producers. Its strength lies in its highly flexible wavetable oscillators, envelopes, and LFOs that allow for complex modulations and sequenced sounds. The latest version of Massive is the Massive X.

Massive X is a unique hybrid synth that blends aspects of wavetable, FM, modular, and physical modeling synthesis into one versatile instrument. While it has an unconventional workflow, once you get accustomed to its peculiarities, it excels at creating lush, warm pads and gritty industrial textures. The unison mode provides a unique “liquid” and wide stereo sound. While it excels at gritty basses, distortion, and digital textures, it can also produce warm pads, effects, and even authentic 8-bit chip tunes with some programming effort. Massive’s factory presets are exceptional, covering diverse styles from soundscapes to dubstep basses. Other notable features include the highly modulatable insert effects, different LFO modes including a step sequencer, and the ability to use envelopes as complex LFO shapes.

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Synapse Dune 3

DUNE 3 introduces some powerful upgrades compared to Dune 2 like a dual multimode filter with creative routing options and new filter types including zero-delay feedback filters. The effects section has been expanded with new high-quality algorithms like a mastering-grade EQ and the lush Shimmer Hall reverb. Synthesis section now includes a dedicated wavetable editor for drawing, importing, and morphing wavetables. You can even import and loop WAV files as an oscillator source. The arpeggiator has been doubled for independent programming of two simultaneous arp sequences or playing MIDI files.

On the backend, the oscillator section gains a “Swarm” mode for ultra-dense unison stacking up to 8,320 oscillators. With dual arpeggiators, mighty unison capabilities, a wavetable editor, creative filtering options, and enhanced effects, DUNE 3 significantly expands its sound design potential over previous versions. Dune 3 shines as an awesome synthesizer for crafting background textures and special effect noises, coming packed with an excellent collection of presets tailored for those types of atmospheric and experimental sounds.

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Kilohearts PhasePlant

Phase Plant is a semi-modular software synth that provides immense creative freedom through its open-ended, modular architecture. You can combine and modulate many oscillators, samples, wavetables, modulators, and effects to craft truly unique patches. Its robust sound generation includes an advanced wavetable editor, while the modulation matrix enables intricate cross-modulation between all signal generators for complex animated timbres.

Phase Plant strikes a balance between quick sound design and deep editing capabilities. While not as complex as modular behemoths like Falcon, it offers far more routing flexibility than typical subtractive synths. Other standout features include MPE support for expressive playing, a granular generator, high-quality effects from Kilohearts’ Essentials bundle, and a frequency-modulation universe to explore. Phase Plant owners also get regular free updates adding new synthesis models.

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Vital

Vital is a free visual synthesizer that packs professional-level sound design capabilities. It allows you to spectrally warp and morph wavetables in ways that radically transform their timbre. You can even generate custom wavetables from imported samples, drawn waveforms, or incredibly, text strings. Modulation routing employs a fast drag-and-drop workflow with live previewing.

Vital provides deep modulation options like customizable LFO shapes, per-voice randomization using Perlin noise, MPE support, and the ability to split stereo modulation signals. The synth’s animated interface visualizes everything from oscilloscopes to filter responses in a GPU-accelerated 60fps environment. While not quite as deep as powerhouses like Serum, Vital delivers an inspiring and capable sound design experience for free. Its efficient code and lack of CPU strain also make it well-suited for running multiple instances in a project. With consistent updates adding new features, Vital has rapidly become an essential freeware synth.

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FAQ

Q: Are there any free Omnisphere alternatives?

A: While Omnisphere itself is a paid VST, there are some free alternatives like Vital by Matt Tytel, Surge by Vember Audio, and Dexed, a free DX7 emulator.

Q: What Omnisphere alternative has the most wavetables?

A: Falcon by UVI is known for its extensive wavetable synthesis capabilities and is often considered one of the best wavetable synths on the market.

Q: What Omnisphere alternative is best for cinematic sound design?

A: While Omnisphere itself excels at cinematic sound design, alternatives like Falcon, Zebra by U-He, and Avenger by VenholdAudio are also well-suited for creating complex, evolving cinematic textures.

Q: Which Omnisphere alternative has the best effects section?

A: Serum by Xfer Records is widely praised for its extensive and high-quality effects section, which includes filters, distortion, and modulation effects.

Q: What Omnisphere alternative is best for beginners?

A: Vital by Matt Tytel is a free and relatively user-friendly synth that could be a good entry point for beginners before exploring more advanced options.

Tags: Omnsiphere, Serum, Massive, SynthMaster, Analog Lab, Omnisphere alternatives, Omnisphere vs Serum.