Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3: flagship Synthesizer plugin gets a major update with plenty of new sound design features, FX plugin, and more.
Good news: Omnisphere 3 is available now.
Synthesizer plugins are plentiful. Only a few stand out and perhaps even become industry standards. These certainly include Serum 2, u-he Zebra 2, and Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3 by former Roland sound designer Eric Persing.
For the latter, there’s big news. Spectrasonics announced Omnisphere 3 today, a significant upgrade of its flagship Synthesizer plugin with many new features and sounds.
Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3
Major updates/upgrades for Omnisphere are rare. As a reminder, Spectrasonics released Omnisphere 2 back in April 2015, 10 years ago. The moment I also decided to buy OMN1 and take advantage of the free upgrade/grace period from OMN1 to OMN2.
With Omnisphere 3, Spectrasonics presents the next evolution of its flagship Synthesizer plugin. It introduces plenty of new synthesis features, improvements, and sounds. Let’s start with the engine.
The synthesis forms have remained unchanged, but the internal shaping options have expanded. Omnisphere 3 introduces a fully upgraded filter section with 36 new filter types in seven distinct sonic colors. No details yet on which filters it will add.
Then you can spice up the filters with a new, authentic component-modeled filter saturation that offers warm analog coloration. Also, on the synthesis side, you can work with a new oscillator drift function that provides beloved vintage analog instability.
The wavetable engine now ships with a wide array of new sweepable wavetables perfect for futuristic and modern sound design. A novelty is the polyphonic dual frequency shifter, which can fully track the keyboard. Spectrasonics says it’s the world’s first.
Other new features on the synth engine side are a unique unison phase cater for lush sonic landscapes and new classic glide modes modeled after vintage analog synths. This includes (OBXA®/Moog®/Odyssey® portamento curves with auto-bend and CS80 glissando).
Quadzone Synthesis/Modulation
A big highlight of Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3 is the quadzone synthesis/modulation that offers three sections: notes, velocity, and fader. In the notes section, you can now split your four layers more deeply on your keyboard. For example, you can have a different sound on each key.
Velocity lets you trigger different sounds in your layers by playing at different velocity levels.
My favorite, however, is the new fader functionality, which allows you to move between zones with a MIDI fader or modulation. You can blend smoothly between four patches with a MIDI control.
Alternatively, you can map an envelope or polyphonic aftertouch to blend between them. I’m pretty sure this will result in amazing new, expressive patches. And yes, a long-awaited feature is now on board. Omnisphere 3 now supports full MPE.
New Multi-FXs & Plugin
One of Omnisphere 2’s strengths, for me, is the multi-FX section, which features many very inspiring processors, including some unique to the plugin. The developers have continued this in Omnisphere 3.
Version 3 introduces 35 new effects processors, including new reverbs (Solar Shimmer, Inversions…), delays (magnetic echo…), dynamic processors, saturations, EQs, and many unique creative ones. This gives you nearly 100 effects processors.
In addition to this vast plethora of new algorithms, you can now use them standalone. Spectrasonics is adding a dedicated Omnisphere 3 FX plugin to the package. So you have two plugins in one—excellent decision, since the multi-FX section contains many algorithmic gems.
Expanded Hardware Integration
In August 2018, Spectrasonics released Omnisphere 2.5 with hardware integration, enabling many hardware synths to serve as Omnisphere MIDI controllers. Seven years later, they continue this hands-on functionality.
The new generation hardware integration works with every major brand of synthesizers and MIDI controllers. Spectrasonics promises that it ships with over 300 new hardware profiles, including the new Moog Messenger.
New Sounds & Patch Mutations
One reason so many people use Omnisphere 2 is its extensive, high-quality sound library, with over 14000+ sounds. There will be more. Omnisphere 3 features a new extended factory collection with 18 new libraries of thousands of new sounds, giving you a total of freaking 41.405 sounds.
Among others, you can find libraries such as electronic production, analog vibes, scoring organic, experimental organic, and more. On top of that, all of the original classic Omnisphere patches have been carefully remastered and refreshed with the latest v3 features and effects.
With their new lossless optimization technology, the Omnisphere 3 sound library actually takes no more hard drive space than Omnisphere 2.
If the sounds aren’t enough for you, but you don’t want to buy third-party libraries, there is now a clever built-in helper for new ones. Omnisphere 3 features a patch mutation function with which you can instantly create new sounds or just variations at the click of a button.
Alongside these new sounds, you can also dive into new deep-sampled sound sources from Pedro Eustache and other players, including Blown Ostrich Egg, Tonal Sand, Nyckelharpa, Lyre Harp, Celestaphone, Magic Wand Metallophones, and more. That’s enough fodder for third-party sound designer content for the following years.
Other Features
Even though the interface has been adopted from OMN 2 but refined, it also includes some new features. It ships with new adaptive global controls that let you quickly customize a patch’s overall sound without diving too deep into the engine.
It has controls for tone, ambience, filter, envelopes, vibrato, and unison. These smart controls automatically analyze the patch, so they always work with musical results…no matter what patch you select. So, more than just mapped macros.
It also comes with a redesigned full browser with a new directory tree interface and sub-categories.
Other features and improvements:
- new “Hide” feature – don’t show sounds you don’t need
- new Library images for better presentation
- simplified Tagging System with Keywords and Moods
- full backwards compatibility with all previous versions!
Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3 First Impression
This came as a complete surprise. It wasn’t on my radar, nor was it on many others. After 10 years, you’d expect a new version to be in the pipeline. Omnisphere 2 is an industry standard, and I’m sure Omnisphere 3 will be the same.
The new features are exciting add-ons that give the plugin even more of its own. Especially the MPE support and the morphing between sounds in layers will bring out many expressive sounds.
A $199 upgrade is a lot of money, but after 10 years of free updates and a ton of new features, I find it very fair. Others charge $99 every two years. This will undoubtedly be a must-buy for many.
Spectrasonics Omnisphere 3 will be available on October 21st, 2025, for $499/399€. You can upgrade for $199 from Omnisphere 2 or $249 from Atmosphere.
More information here: Spectrasonics
Available at my partners (boxed version!)
The demo sounds are amazing, but then they always were with Omnisphete.
$499 – no thanks
There are better synths on the market these days that cost half as much.
Omnisphere did have a good run 10 years ago but times have changed in 2025
Agreed. These new CPUs make VSTs sound amazing to the point of many working artists just selling big chunks of their hardware. Arturia, U-He, Cherry Audio, Serum, even NI still make great VSTs so I rather go deep learning them and not getting another super VST. I think the main buyer will be those that have been using this for years.
Which synths are better than Omnisphere that cost half as much?
Difficult because Omnisphere sounds brilliant. Falcon 2026 from the synthesis side but not from the sound content.
I’ve had Omnisphere for years and only recently discovered its power. Maybe one of the best VST’s out there and version 3 looks like it’s going to take it yo the next level.
One thinbg I find fascinating with Omnisphere is that through the years, I never had any serious issue with the synth. It simply works, no matter the OS and no matter the DAW version. I also have asked a couple of questions to the support team and got an answer the following day. So the stability and the support are a model that other companies should imitate.
Is it too late to jump on the train? I don’t need bread and butter sounds. More very special ones from Pads to Leads to Arps to Classical. I am thinking about of kicking Logic and Apple as both disappointed me at the highest bug- and hardware level since 2 years continuously and I will have to replace their internal sound sets (which is huge but not excellent). I think on Bitwig plus Omnisphere (plus my range of synths and sample instruments). 🤔