Monday, June 25, 2018

ESC PluginGuru Tribute Library -Omnisphere 2- REVIEW




When I heard there was a group of programmers called the ESC (European Sound Collective) that created a tribute library for the legendary PluginGuru (John “Skippy” Lehmkuhl) who started sound designing in the late 80's, I got really excited. John Lehmkuhl has put a lot of work in teaching his talents to others. He has done music, sound rhythm and remix programming for many top musicians like Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Harry Gregson-Williams, Kenny Loggins, Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Whitney Huston, and Richard Marx-  just to name a few. 

The ESC group decided they were going to thank John and build a new Omnisphere 2 Soundset Library as a Tribute to sound designing master PluginGuru. The ESC is a collective of incredible sound designers and composers. 
Even though there are more than 16 members currently part of the ESC, these are the names of the 16 who contributed to this library: Burny Huber (Holland), Gareth Adonai (Germany), Tim Dale (Wales), Wolfgang Stindl aka Ikarus (Austria), Florian Gerger aka Clark Parker (Germany), Harald Geyer (Germany), Jan Bakker (Belgium), Henrik J. Larsen aka JX3D (Danmark), Darius Jambor aka Wizmos (Poland), Marcel Krapels aka Prikwol (Holland), Anton Anru (Russia), Stephan Baer(Zwitzerland), Marius Janssen (Germany), Henrik Johanson aka Henky, Airwave aka Laurent Veronnez, Adam Henderson aka Caxa.

The library consists of 250 patches with 50 sound sources and requires Omnisphere 2.1 or later.

REVIEW

To be honest, I wanted this library so badly to live up to its name. However, I approached it with a neutral unbiased approach. Even though I was a huge fan of John the PluginGuru, I wondered if the sound designers could really produce a worthy tribute and pull this off. With fingers crossed I unzipped the file, imported it into Omnisphere 2, and took a deep breath. I knew damn well this was going to be a long session. No matter how long it took I was going to sit there and audition every patch in this library. Next to me, I had a pot of coffee brewed and my monitors turned up. I began with first folder ARP+BPM and holy cow did it hit me, this is sounding powerful, but will it stay strong. Folder after folder I played and when I landed in the Pads+Strings folder I almost choked on my coffee. The patches were so lush, full and rich with emotional character that I didn't want to stop playing them. The production level of this library is top notch and obviously has been developed with the PluginGuru standards. 

This is an absolute astonishing tribute that really showcases these sound designer’s talents. I can't wait to see what the ESC releases next, I'm sure it will be a tour de force. It must feel great to have sixteen Luke Skywalkers show off their jedi sound design skills to the great Obi Wan Kenobi. Sorry for the Star Wars pun but I couldn't help but think what a great gift to receive from such talented individuals who have learned something from John's Youtube videos. I feel this library is worth so much more than its regular price point. It not only contains a huge amount of stunning material, but it offers patches that can be used in all kinds of genres of music. Everything from killer vintage synth sounds to modern scoring textures, you'll find it here. Another part of the library I really liked was that it contains 50 new sound sources which is a combination of 100% original and some are from other PlugInGuru Sample libraries (Del Norte EDM / MegaMagic: Viola / MegaMagic: Pads, and more.

If you want to hear every patch in this library, I recorded a video below that is over 2 hours and 48 minutes long auditioning every patch. This is a tribute library that really lives up to its name and is not an Omnisphere library you should think twice about buying.

5 out of 5 stars!!

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