Adding an extension to your living accommodation gives your property a new lease of life. Is the same true of Spectrasonics’ flagship plugin?

˃ Amid much secrecy, Spectrasonics released a teaser video as a warm-up ahead of their latest release. “It’s not going to be what you think,” they said, and it isn’t! It’s probably fair to say that many were hoping for something along the lines of a much-awaited update to Stylus RMX, which might also explain why initial reactions in industry circles seemed somewhat muted. But dig a little deeper and there are some very happy surprises, so let’s get curious!

EXtending Omnisphere

Sonic EXtensions are a series of expansion packs for Omnisphere 2.8. There are four in this initial release, with each adopting a stylistic persona, presumably with more to follow. There is a caveat: you must have Omnisphere to use these EXtensions, as they load and run within that package. This could make the initial prospect quite pricey, but Omnisphere is a Goliath in this domain, and can cater for just about any genre of music you care to mention.

Each pack is something of an artist playground, with new samples and patches, and a streamlined custom interface that is unique to each EXtension or even patch. There is an association between each pack and one of the Spectrasonics’ sound design team, so in the case of our first EXtension candidate, Undercurrent has been designed and curated by Argentinian sound designer, Ignacio Longo.