I got the Omni on sale over the holidays. Just now beginning to toy around with it. This is an impressive little swiss army knife that seems to be quite the channel strip.
I’m still exploring and playing around. The presets themselves are worth the price of admission (well, at least for someone like me who hardly knows what they’re doing!), but I’m really trying to get the hang of it.
So many possibilities, especially when reordering the components. Seems like it’s got a ton of potential.
I’m curious how much people use this? Are you finding it’s another tool in the toolbox? Or is it your toolbox? Using it on mix buss alone? Do you throw it on all channels?
What instruments have you found it most helpful with?
Would love to hear, just out of curiosity, if anyone could post any mixes that use only (are “near-only”) the Omni and nothing else.
That saturation knob module is my favorite color and saturation flavor in the entire waves library. Make sure you spend some time fiddling with those. Quick tip: You may already know this but the even order (second button) in the saturation is the tube-like flavor.
I definitely didn’t know that because I am not even sure I’ve installed the plugin yet. I’ve been getting more into my SoundToys bundle and using Decapitator a lot for saturation. But yeah I’ll keep that in mind for when I finally give it a go.
It doesn’t say that in the manual, so I’m curious where that’s coming from. Maybe I’m confused, as I thought tubes can sometimes be odd-order harmonics which are more distinct and harder to replicate digitally. Though, apparently, even-order harmonics are supposed to be more pleasing (octave overtones vs. partial overtones).
I can’t tell you anywhere specific. Other than overhearing conversations about how ‘analog tube gear’ works on the Plugin Alliance forum. I thought it was common knowledge but I’m not an expert on this stuff and I could be wrong.
I seem to remember surfing the guitar tube amp forums and the big deal with tube amps was the odd-order distortion from those tubes and amps that you couldn’t get from solid state. The ‘warmth’ and the grit, etc. However, I’m equally as uncertain as to the technicalities. This may help explain a little, and I’m guessing there is no better or worse, simply what you want in your particular production.
Harmonics are whole-number multiples of a sound’s fundamental frequency that psychoacoustically excite the overall timbre, adding depth, color, presence, character or warmth to a sound. Any sound which is more complex than a simple sine wave has inherent harmonic content above its fundamental pitch, making the timbral distinction between the sound of a violin versus a flute, piano, or guitar all playing the same note.
There are two simple types of harmonics: even and odd . Even harmonics are the result of even number multipliers (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) and odd harmonics are the result of odd number multipliers (3, 5, 7, 9, etc.) of the fundamental frequency. For example, if your fundamental tone is a 1 kHz sine wave, 2 kHz would be an even harmonic and 3 kHz would be an odd harmonic. Each set has a distinct resultant feel and is important in exciting a sound.
These same additive principals are at play when passing audio through analog equipment as the components add artifacts to the signal, altering and adding to the original sound. These distortions are created by physical limitations of the electrical components, which together change the source sound.
Its on every channel in my templates. If you think that you’ll be putting an EQ, compressor, gate, Desser, and / or saturation plugins on your tracks, with this plugin you put one single instance in your rack and get all those plugins at the same time.
I played around for a while with the presets for drums and guitars and bass, so that I could learn from the professionals who created the presets. Now I can dial in a sound in seconds. I love the compressor, it’s got to be one of my favourites. The EQ is easy and it does it’s job well. For me the standouts are the saturation and DS2 modules. The saturation is phenomenal on voices, as it is on guitar and drums. I’ve even thrown it onto synth tracks and turned up the saturation. If that alone was on sale I would buy it again!
The Desser is actually 2 dessers in one slot. I’ve realised that a desser on a drum or bass or guitar track can be amazingly good at getting rid of squeaks and whistles without having to try to find it on an EQ.
I’m trying to wrap my arms around the difference between the “Mid” and “Tone” sections on the EQ. I’m sure that part of my difficulty is that my ear is not trained well enough to hear it, and I don’t understand the significance of the different frequencies on the spectrum, but, well, here goes. The manual describes it this way: it says that they’re identical, “except in the wide mode, where Mid is a wider, cleaner filter, best suited for enhancing the characteristic sound of the source. Tone is a bit narrower and can really help a source pop out of the track without much EQ…it’s good for coloring and gluing a track together.”
So, I guess I “sort of” understand it, as in, sure, I would know the correct answer on a true/false test, but I don’t really get “why” that is true. Well, it makes sense to me if indeed it’s just a matter of the boost or cut simply being narrower in the Tone section of the EQ. But I’m suspecting there’s something for me to learn about why they did it that way. Meaning something for me to better understand about those portions of the frequency spectrum.
So, I guess my question is probably more about EQ than about the Omni. Trying to understand the ins and outs of my mids and my low-mids. Stumbling along and trying to learn and understand. I just have a hunch that somewhere there’s a decent question in all of this, and something for me to better understand.
Click through the different bell curves and play with the slope control. 5 minutes with that thing, and I think it’ll help clarify the ‘why’ part on a conceptual level. If you don’t have it, download the demo and play with it for 10 min.
…ps - I assume you looked through the manual on the Scheps? If there is one plugin truly worth becoming thoroughly acquainted with, its this one
I’ve been getting more into my SoundToys bundle and using Decapitator a lot for saturation. But yeah I’ll keep that in mind for when I finally give it a go.