How is Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

[bjcistok]

So after you guys helped me in my decision to get stylus RMX which btw is just amazing, i was wondering about Atmosphere. Is it comparable/better Then NI Absynth 3??? Any thoughts appreciated Thanks

Btw is it true that it is VERY cpu demanding?

[TEMAS]

Its not that processor hungry.

I make a living from making music and sound design for Film/TV/Multimedia etc and I've found it incredibly useful on many, many occasions.

I believe the presets were made by the guy who made the Distorted Reality sample CD, which I also use very often (and so does eeveryone else).

When doing my own stuff though, I'd very rarely consider looking to Atmospheres for a sound. (Same goes for Stylus and Trilogy).

Too many of the presets seem to play chords when you hit one note and they always seems to have a kind 'minor/new-age' vibe coming through. So if your composing something with major chords or jazzy or experimental or pretty much anything the presets just don't gel well with what you're doing.

[Jamz]

Atmosphere is very cool if you're looking for mood. It excels at ethereal moving textures. A fair amount of editing flexibility as well. Makes me want a controller with knobs and sliders to grab and move Atmospehre's interface.
My first thought when auditioning the sounds was that it might be better suited for scoring than most pop or rock music. Not that it can't used in that context it just wouldn't necessarily be my go to synth bank. More like icing on the cake or at least interesting pads within a song.
I'm not familiar with NI Absynth. I have Indigo and virus for synth sounds and Ivory for piano ITB. If you're looking for more standard keyboard sounds i.e. piano, organ, moog etc. Atmosphere may not be your first choice.

[PopIsNotDead]

I don't think a day goes by that I don't use Atmosphere. The sounds are infinite, as most presets are built from 2 diffrent sounds, both of which are swappable. You have control over every aspect of the sound, relative levels, frequency and amplitude envelopes, pitch, filters, plus the presets list is huge. It's a little daunting at first, but once I got accustomed to it, it became essential for me. Not to sound like too much of a fanboy, but Eric Persing and his people over at Spectrasonics are doing some incredible stuff. (Stylus and Trilogy included)

[statikcat]

Atmosphere is my favorite plugin. Keep in mind it is a different beast than Absynth. Absynth uses in depth synthesis and editing to create crazy sounds. Atmosphere at its core is sample playback with some basic editing (filter, lfo). Atmosphere has so many awesome sounding patches.. both musical and fx.

[djbrough]

It's hard to go wrong with spectrasonics

[Solar]

The BEST!!! Speactrasonic simply DO the BEST in sound Quality... try it!!

[DAWgEAR]

To answer tne original question: nice, but mostly pads and ambient as others have mentioned.

You might want to look into USB Plugsound Pro. It, combined with the Synths Anthology expansion, amounts to what used to be Ultra Focus. Ultra Focus had the same UVI engine (developed by Ultimate Sound Bank) as Atmosphere and similar stunning sample quality, but was more versatile.

I haven't used Plugsound Pro as Ultra Focus currently works fine for me, but USB claim that Plugsound Pro can achieve all of Ultra Focus' sounds ... and do a fair bit more.

http://www.ultimatesoundbank.com

[terminal3]

Atmosphere is amazing. My only gripe is that it's going to be a "long time" (Spectrasonic's words, not mine) before there's a UB version available.