Controlling Omnisphere with Push

[karlfranz]

I'm a big fan of Omnisphere and new Push owner. I'm wondering if anyone out there has come up with some creative ways to get the most out of them together. Just putting Omnisphere in an instrument rack doesn't seem to take advantage of all this VST has to offer. Even just having the ability of browsing through the sounds, patches and multis from Push would be nice.

[lyovino]

I set up Omnisphere with three tracks and put it all into an instrument rack like you. I mapped a few controllers and saved it. Live loads its own instruments an VSTs and allows you to browse the patches within them, I don't think they have or will bring this forward for third-party VSTs?… That would be great, but think about it.. It's probably much easier scrolling through the thousands of patches within Omnisphere's own browser.

[Badger45]

So you can play omnisphere in note mode? I have no clue about the mapping so any help is appreciated. This VST seems WAAYY more dynamic and powerful than any of the max pack synths especially for trance tracks.

[login]

You can browse and add vst if you rack them previously.

You can use them in note mode.

If you "configure" parameters you can cotnrol them from Push, in banks of 8.

browsing is more tricky, first off the way VST implement presets is different among them. One more difficult taks is that VST dont handle presets can be changed with midi messages, some can do sysex or midi CC but varies among plug ins.

[scientist]

you can assign most omnisphere parameters to be controlled from push by using rack macros, but it's a bit convoluted to do so.

1. load an omnisphere instance.
2. group it into an instrument rack.
3. hit the triangle at the top of the omnisphere rack device to unfold so you see the 'configure' button.
4. hit the configure button so it's highlighted.
5. control-click (mac) a parameter in omnisphere and select 'enable host automation'.
6. click the parameter/knob/slider so it shows up in the configure list. don't twist the knob or it might spit out a bunch of unnecessary configuration assignments.
7. hit 'map' button on the top of the instrument rack, highlight the parameter in the configuration list and hit the 'map' button for the macro you want to assign it to.
8. repeat for all parameters you want to control. (you can also assign push's pad aftertouch to an omnisphere parameter by using the max for live 'expression control' device).
9. save that rack so you never have to go through all this nonsense again! you can now load your omnisphere rack and browse/load new patches within omnisphere without breaking the macro assignments.

[lyovino]

This is pretty much exactly my procedure also. The only problem is that if you load patch number two in Omnisphere you cannot reach the macro assignment's in live because when selecting channel 2 on push all of your macro assignments are on Omni one. Truly a pain in the arse, hence the need for a another instance of Omni.

[Badger45]

only just got omnisphere to show in ableton

[joefrost01]

I'm part way through creating Ableton racked patches for all the Omnisphere and Trillian sounds using Keyboard Maestro on the Mac.

Have also done a large chunk of the Alchemy and Predator and all of impOSCar and most of Twin2 libraries.

There are quite a few YouTube tutorials on how to do it and Keyboard Maestro only costs about £20 so if you have a Mac then it's well worth going to the effort of setting up your synth with the parameters you like configured and then generating Ableton patches.

[lyovino]

I'm part way through creating Ableton racked patches for all the Omnisphere and Trillian sounds using Keyboard Maestro on the Mac.

Have also done a large chunk of the Alchemy and Predator and all of impOSCar and most of Twin2 libraries.

There are quite a few YouTube tutorials on how to do it and Keyboard Maestro only costs about £20 so if you have a Mac then it's well worth going to the effort of setting up your synth with the parameters you like configured and then generating Ableton patches.

So you're saving each patch individually in an instrument rack. I guess you have a couple of thousand instrument racks then…

[joefrost01]

More than a couple of thousand between all of those VSTs but so far Live's browser seems to be holding up fine...

With the instrument racks categorised by VST then by sound type etc. it makes it easy to find the sound that you want with the VST that you want directly from Push.

[Badger45]

When I use cc learn to map my filter cutoff knob to one of the push knobs it goes from all the way down to all the way up when I touch the knob...no in between! Anyone know why that is?

[lyovino]

Try again… I would do this: clear the macro and then in Omnisphere right-click on the controller you tried to assign and select clear, then right-click on it again and select "enable host automation" now assign the macro once again. Follow the post by scientist above, he spelled it out like it is. Don't use CC learn in (Omni)

[jestermgee]

I'm also doing a wrap for the Omnisphere presets...

As JoeFrost posted, There are THOUSANDS of these presets but the Push seems to display the folder structure on the fly using the Ableton indexing which makes it pretty fast.

My presets have a blank set of Macro knobs for self mapping but contain about 100 pre-configured parameters for Omnisphere that you can DIRECTLY access via Push without having to use the Macro knobs. I also have an EQ8 on the output set flat but with a 40Hz low cut filter pre-loaded as that is what I always have on all instruments.

Each Ableton preset file is about 61kB and it takes the script 5 seconds to convert each Omnisphere patch to an ableton preset and in 2.5 days of half-constant wrapping I am still in the ARP section

What I am doing is creating a 3 folder deep sorting scheme similar to how Omnisphere displays the browser but I am also creating an "ALL" genre because as you have maybe 20 genres for a browsing type, there are often duplicates of all sounds that fall under multiple genres. Having an ALL genre means I can also browse all patches without hearing the same one twice.

And....

In addition to this I have sorted all folder results to limit the patches to 40-60 MAX for each folder then I create a 2nd folder so something like:

ARP + Rhythm
__Modern
____ALL [1]
____ALL [2]
____ALL [3]
____ALL [4]
____Electronica [1]
____Electronica {2}
____Old School
__Organic
____ALL [1]
____ALL [2]
____ALL [3]
____ALL [4]
____Electronica [1]
____Electronica {2}
____Old School

All patches are alphabetically sorted and being in groups of 50 it makes browsing a little easier. I also am trying to combine some of the unneeded sorting tags so the browsing is only ever 3 folders deep (Omnisphere\Modern\Electronica\Patch.adg)

All patches are named exactly the same as the patch name and as part of my script I am also creating text files that list every Omnisphere patch and what folder/structure these are in for Ableton:

Code: Select all

OMNISPHERE PATCH LIST

CATEGORY: ARP + RHYTHM
TYPE: MODERN PATTERNS
PATTERN: ALL PATTERNS

GENRE: AMBIENT (140)

>AMBIENT [1] (47)

Air of Resignation
Android Heartbeat
Angelo gets glitched
Backwards Masking
Bipolar Swings
Bit Crushed Club Sine
Blackhearted Crush 1
Blackhearted Crush 2
Buenos Aires Arp
Chaos Celeste
Cheerfully Crushed Vibes 1
Cheerfully Crushed Vibes 2
Chinese Checkers
Cleansing Dance
Clocking the Timeshift
Clubbing Voices 3
Cobalt Droid 
Cross Beat
Cross Beat Breakdown
Cross Beat Flangestep
Cubist Rhythms
Cycle of Grace 1
Cycle of Grace 2
Dark Day for Renée
Deep Undercover Syncronization
Denmark Mood Pad
Departure Lounge Groove
Diamond Sky
Dissolutioned
Droid Mystery 2
Echoes of Lightbulbs
Electro Ebow 1
Electro Ebow 2
Engines of Malice
Eternal Changling
Execution Cell
Execution Hall
Execution Hour
Execution Room
Falling Forward
Fashion District
Fast Forward Motion Groove
Floating Aloft Groove
Forgotten Town
Franken Factory 1
Franken Factory 2
Grooving Water Stream 1

>AMBIENT [2] (62)

Half-Time Malevolence 1
Half-Time Malevolence 2
Harmo Generator
Hidden Tribe
Hiding in the Icefields
Hope U Know Someone Inside
Hyperdimensional Mirror Groove
Hypnotic Minimalism
Hypnotic Minimalism Crush
Hypnotizer
Iceland Groove
Infrared Groove Hallucination
Intermittent Hearbeat Bass
Inversion Revision
Juicy Lounge
Kites in the Clouds
Kites in the Sky
Kites on the Run
Light the Darkness
Liquid Life 1
Liquid Life 2
Long Distance Runner
Lounge Groove 1
Lounge Groove 2
Magma Chaos Gate 1
Magma Chaos Gate 2
Metropolitan Minimalism
Microglitch 1
Microglitch 2
Minimal Luminescence
Monopolyphonic Sea Dive
Morphionic Dance
Morse Chill
Moving Skin
Night Skies in the City
Noisy Contest Groove
Obscured Echo
Orange Lounge Groove
Pattern of Reflection
Pax Groove 1
Pax Groove 2
Perfect Structures of Crystals
Planning the Demise
Planning the Revenge
Plucking the Musicbox Arp
Pulsating Techno Interlude 2
Pulse of the Synthetic Voices 2
Pulsing Resonance
Radio Pulse Transmitter
Raining on Replicants
Raving in the Estuary 1
Raving in the Estuary 2
Raving in the Estuary 3
Rectifier Reaction 2
Redwood Messaging 2
Reso Fuzz Echoes
Resonation 1
Resonation 2
Resonation Cycles
Retrograde Looper 2
Rhythmic Structures
Ruptured Glitches

>AMBIENT [3] (31)

SETI Machine Wheel
Sonic Highway Jam
Sonic Highway Trance
Strategy Elements
Strategy Evaluation
Strategy Execution
Sustenance
Symphony of Pulsing Harmonia
Teknik Bombastic
Tempo Control Kaleidoscope 1
Tempo Control Kaleidoscope 2
The Aerophonic Steps
The Altered Sleep Cycle 1
The Altered Sleep Cycle 2
The Altered Sleep Cycle 3
The Altered Sleep Cycle 4
Tickle the Icicles
Troubled Heart
Troubled Mind
Tuvan Dance 2
Tuvan Orchestra
Ultraviolet Groove Hallucination
Vertigen Res
Vertigen Sweep
Visual Vortex
Vocal Sync Ornaments 1
Vocal Sync Ornaments 2
Walk of Fame
Wandering Mind
Watery Gamelan Spreader
Whining Pulse

I have scrapped and redone the process a couple of times to make it more efficient for exporting and Push use and here is the last thing to add... Rather than praying on the needy for the shortcomings of Push and charging for the use I plan to offer the complete patch set as a Free download with the option to buy me a scotch if you feel it is of use. I also plan on doing this for additional VSTs (Sylenth / Z3ta2 and maybe some of the NI Komplete 8 but that has been done).

I am looking for some willing testers I can forward the first wrapped patches too. These were created in Live 9.1 but I see no issue using them in Live 8 (so long as the EQ8 works backwards).

[Tarekith]

Happy to test it on the Live 9.1 beta if you want.

[plopseaw]

Me too, would be happy to test on 9.0 and 9.1 Live on Mac OS X. Let me know and good luck!