make sure you check out the tinga compil presets i mentioned earlier (if you haven't already
). there is some stunning sound design in there.
http://www.kvraudio.com/banks.php?s=...at=&order=date
the insect sound presets are just brilliant. there is one called 'nuns2' that i just love - turn up the volume, as it is a quiet patch, and keep a chord held down for a while. very choir like. check out 'inside earth' too.
oatmeal is a stunning synth with many, many features under the hood. did you know that it has additive oscillators for instance? just amazing really. i did get jaded with it crashing on preset changes but i guess if you are programming it most of the time rather than leafing through sounds it shouldn't be much of a problem. one thing i found was that it does seem to lose something in the extreme highs and lows - not aliasing - just a reduction in its 'power' is the best way to describe it. you are right about the arp - probably the best one i have come across in any synth - tons of options there. it's a shame the developer left it in it's current state. although is does function as a complete synth apparently there were plans for more stuff, bug fixes etc.
one tip, in relation to the additive oscillators i mentioned earlier - if you are using a regular waveform such as sawtooth or square - select the user waveform in the oscillator section then right click on the waveform display and select the sawtooth/squarewave preset from there. once you have selected a preset right click again and select edit/display spectrum. this means that you will have access to the individual harmonics of each waveform. if you are lacking bass in a patch you can, for instance, just raise the volume of the fundamental/first few harmonics to achieve this or if you want a patch to sound a bit brighter you can raise a few higher harmonics (just tell me if i am telling you stuff you already know
). just one example of how powerful oatmeal is.