Third-Party Guidelines

We are extremely thankful that Omnisphere has such a big community of third-party developers! To ensure the experience with third-party libraries is as consistent as possible with Omnisphere’s factory libraries, we provide the following guidelines and recommendations.

Explore the “Current Categories.zip”

Omnisphere provides an empty Patch Library that can be used as a starting point for new Libraries. It’s located in a .zip file called “Current Categories.zip,” in this directory on your computer:

• Spectrasonics/STEAM/Omnisphere/Settings Library/Patches/Current Categories.zip

Once uncompressed, you will find the latest Categories and Sub-Categories used in Omnisphere, as well as example images to use as a reference.

Navigation

As the Omnisphere factory libraries have grown over the years, we’ve discovered the most effective way to navigate them is to use file-based Categories and Sub-Categories, instead of Tags. While Tags can still be used as metadata, we HIGHLY recommend using the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer to organize your Patches using multiple folder levels like the ones used in the “Current Categories.zip.”

*Although you can create your own Categories and Sub-categories, we recommend conforming to the ones in the “Current Categories.zip,” since it will make for a better experience when browsing using “View All Directories.”

Tags

By removing Tags as the primary navigation method, they now function much better as metadata that helps you further narrow choices and improves search results. Omnisphere’s Browser Tags have always been extremely flexible and customizable by design, which allows users and developers to create their own methods to customize the experience.

As Omnisphere grows, we’re always finding better approaches to Tagging, so it’s complicated for third-party developers to conform to the Factory Tags—they are a moving target. Now that the navigation is done via folders and subfolders, not conforming to Omnisphere’s Tags won’t have such a big impact as it has in previous versions.

*Check out how the “Keyword” Attribute is used in Omnisphere. It’s a quick and simple way to add Tags that don’t fit the criteria of other Attribute Types.

Images

There are several pages in Omnisphere’s interface where images are shown as a visual representation of a sound. Refer to the images included in the “Current Categories.zip” and to the section of the guide on How to add custom images for more information.

FAQ

• Will the libraries I released for previous versions of Omnispere work in Omnisphere 3?
  Yes! Omnisphere 3 is fully backwards-compatible.

• Do I need to revise old Patch Libraries to conform to the new Categories/Sub-categories navigation in version 3?
  It would improve their navigation in version 3, but no, it’s not necessary. Your old Libraries will still work exactly as they did in previous versions if you don’t. We realize it can take a considerable amount of time to revise them, so it’s entirely up to you.