Outputting Omnisphere’s Audio

There are two ways to send Omnisphere’s audio from the computer to an amplifier or mixer.

This can be done via the headphone/audio out jack or with an external audio device—there are pros and cons to both approaches.

Using the Headphone Jack

Pros:
The analog headphone jacks on most modern computers sound quite good and some computers, such as some older Macs, allow you to access the digital output with a small, inexpensive adapter that fits on the end of your output cable.

Cons:
This simple approach works well—the only drawback is that the output is stereo and you’ll need to use the mouse, trackpad, or map a hardware controller to adjust levels.

Using an External Audio Device

Pros:
Using an external audio interface gives you more flexibility in routing the audio. With most devices, you’ll be able to access multiple outputs from Omnisphere and mix them individually, using hardware knobs and/or faders.

Cons:
This gives you one more piece of gear to carry and one more thing to keep up-to-date with proprietary software drivers and operating system compatibility—things worthy of consideration.

Buffer Sizes

In order to reduce latency (the time between pressing the key and hearing the sound), it’s best to keep your hardware buffer size as low as possible.

This is especially true of Patches with sharp transients (attacks), such as piano or other percussive sounds, where precise rhythm is required. Sounds with slower attacks, such as pads, strings, or voices, are more forgiving and you’ll be able to get away with higher buffer sizes, if necessary for your computer.

The minimum buffer settings you can use (without causing audio glitches) can depend on a number of factors. It can be affected by the number of sounds you have loaded and if any of those sounds place a heavy load on your CPU.

If you’re using sounds that require a lot of memory or CPU power (such as some of the Keyscape pianos or sounds with lots of FX), you might need to find a balance between optimizing the sound for live use and increasing the buffer size to avoid glitches.