Thursday, March 14, 2019

REVIEW: ESC Personal Flavours for Omnisphere 2.5




ESC Personal Flavours is the second release in a much anticipated library for Omnisphere 2.5



OVERVIEW
ESC Personal Flavours contains 256 Patches, 50 Multis and 45 new sample soundsources for Omnisphere 2.5

 This library was created by 15 world-class programmers that designed sounds that match their personal passions in sound design and patch creation.


 Here is the list of the 15 Programmers who contributed to this library, their country of origin, and the website addresses of those who sell their own patch libraries:
Anton Anru (Russia)
Burny Huber – ESC (Holland)
Caxa from (Thailand)
Clark Parker (Germany)
Claus Gahrn – Gahrn Audio (Danmark) www.gahrnaudio.com
Frank Dierickx – CL Projects (Belgium) www.cl-projects-sound-design.com
Fred Nongat – Subsonic Artz (France) www.subsonicartz.com
gareth (Germany)
Harald Geyer (Germany)
Henrik Henky Johansson (Sweden)
Henrik J Larsen (Danmark)
Jaap Visser – Triple Spiral Audio (Holland) www.triplespiralaudio.com
Jan Bakker (Holland)
Jason Ray Schoepfer – Rocky Mountain Sounds (Canada) www.rockymountainsounds.com

John Lehmkuhl – Pluginguru (USA) www.pluginguru.com
Marcel Krapels (Holland)
Marius Janssen – mj-prod (Germany)
Stephan Baer – Sonic Underworld (Switzerland) www.sonicunderworld.com
Tim Dale (England)
Wolfgang Stindl – Ikarus Music – (Austria) https://ikarusmusic.com/ 


Requires Omnisphere 2.5 or later
Download size: 32MB
 Digital Download 99MB compressed zip file – 152MB unzipped


REVIEW
 

ESC Personal Flavours is the 2nd Omnisphere 2 release and the first to use the updated 2.5 features in Omnisphere. ESC stands for 'European Sound Collective' and is made up of 15 amazing sound designers from all over the world. The first release was an incredible tribute library to John "Skippy" Lehmkukl of PluginGuru.com where these libraries are sold. I did a review of the ESC PluginGuru Tribute Library back in June of 2018 and absolutely loved the diversity of the patches. In fact, when Personal Flavours was released I was wondering if it could hold up to the originality of the debut.
One thing I love to do when I get a new library is to demo each patch and record my experience.  I ended up making a 2 hour and 55-minute video auditioning each patch in the Personal Flavours library. If you watch the video, I operate the modulation wheel so you can hear what effects were assigned to each of the patches. The video can be found below at the bottom of the page but please read on.

It's been said," variety is the key to success" and I can't argue with a library that was created with 15 talented forward-thinking sound programmers. Honestly, it was so frustrating playing a snippet of each patch because all I wanted to do was stop and start writing a new song. These patches are full of inspiration. I imagine there's a lot of pressure to create something very memorable because your name is attached to this library. I mean, you don't want to be the guy that releases a patch that sits on the 1-star list. You want to give your best because you're among the best. ESC has taken an idea and created a reality. It's like buying one of those ‘best of the decade’ albums and getting nothing but hit songs. These patches are a collection of hits from some of the most talented people all over the world.

There is a total of 16 categories plus the multi section in this library and is comprised of 45 new soundsources for Omnisphere. Some of the patches make use of the granular synth engine that can be CPU intensive. I noticed this mostly in the multi section where the patches that use granular were stacked. I did have a lot of resources running on my laptop, so I figure this contributed to my problem. Hopefully, Spectrasonics does something to address the granular CPU issue with the next update because it is an ongoing complaint among users. Nevertheless, I can't fault this library for the granular CPU intensity. 

Another great thing about Personal Flavours is the fact that you get to discover new talent from designers that you may never have heard of. So not only are you getting a passionate library of sound diversification, but they may be generating customers for life. After each patch in the general category section there are initials of the author who created the sound, or you can click on the author section. 

There is no specific niche of style or mood in this soundset. It's little bit of everything, making this library very versatile. My favorite part of the Personal Flavours is hard to say because there is so much there. However, let me try to name a few of my favorite categories. The first one I would pick is the Arp+Bpm because of the amount of content. Everything from bpm sequences, bpm synths, bpm arpeggios, bpm textures, bpm pads, and more complete this category. My second favorite is the Pads + Strings, and the third is Synth Poly because of all the rich analog sounds. However, besides the extremely fun multis I cannot move on without mentioning the Textures soundscape category that was brewing with some incredible horror and sci-fi atmospheric environments. So, as you can see there is a lot of substance in this library.
ESC Personal Flavours is what's on the menu my friends. Don't settle for processed junk, get a gourmet meal cooked up by some of the best sound design chefs in the business. This soundset for Omnisphere 2.5 is a library that will surely satisfy those taste buds and I'm serving it a 

5 Out of 5 Stars!!














Written by Steve Montgomery (Infinite Mindscape & Darkmood)

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