John Bowen introduces the Solaris hardware synth

[dawman]

Talk of a new wavetable also.

[Shroomz~>]

It would be good to hear some more demo sounds. Btw, that classic polymod demo sounded beefy.

[spacef]

DADSR: delayed ADSR ? seems to be the fashion these days (and it is a cool effect too). congratulations anyway, the color is really nice with the blue displays (that's a good start )

[hifiboom]

very nice indeed. It seems that John is building the most complex va synth available till now.

And its sounds good so far.

Can't believe how quickly this project is going. Normally I`d say such a big synth needs more men and time to develop.
Really awesome work.

And the interface seems to be really the one to go for this synth. From the video I can see that its even easier to use than the original solaris plug-in, as you have access to most important parameters instantly.

BTW:
where does this Oberheim filter come from.... can we please have an oberheim plug-in emulation for scope v5?

[spacef]

it sounds great too of course, even through the web compressed format (i was at the middle of the video when i posted, there was no sound yet).

[dawman]

Where Is Task Force Bowen?........The World Wants To Know.



Adniral Chester Nimitz in the South Pacific.....September, 1944.

[hifiboom]

Some of the comments on the page think it sounds digital,

I think any VA will stay a bit behind a real Analog in terms of smoothness and that "analog vs digital" thingy, because of discrete stored values (sample based resolution).
Techniques like interpolation, antialiasing and higher sampling rates reduces these differences certainly but yet there is still a difference which seems to get smaller with every decade.

For me all creamware stuff/plug-ins are among the best if not the best in coming close to the analog sound.
And from what John told in the past the solaris hardware will run in 96khz sampling resolution, that will make it sound even a little bit smoother than the already very very nice creamware plug-ins.

So I guess for a VA hardware soundwise its about state of the art.
And featurewise there is no question that its among the most flexible synths around.

we also should not forget that VAs have big adavntages like all the great features and options you get, various oscs, filters, fx and a great polyphony.
Such a sheer flexibility seems almost impossible to gain with an analog synth.
At least if price is a factor.

Yet I still believe analog synths have their place on the market and are not completly ruled out by VA gear. That may change through genious algorithm and dsp power, wheras dsp power alone does mean nothing:

That is shown impressively on our ~10 year old dsp cards that can hold up perfectly against the most hungry synth plug-ins in native world.
more dsp power does not automatically lead to a better sound. Many programmers tend to use the power for the ease of programming.

So if anyone can close the gap between VA and analog completly its def. the cw/sc crew and that for sure also includes the solaris project and John Bowen.
So to sum it up in this case: I believe in the aggregation of skill.

Surely the solaris will be a great synth and instrument. And the sounds played in the video sound nice too.

my 2.

[dawman]

As your MSF-1 Filter demonstrates.

[hifiboom]

thanks!

[valis]

John's synth will also calculate all control signals at full audiorate (1/1 or 96khz). This means that you can do things like use control signals (and your mod matrix) for FM style effects. It also means that even with lower rate control signals, every sample will have the proper variation (rather than being calculated with the same value in chunks of 4, 10 or more samples as is the case with many/most dsp & cpu based VA).

[hifiboom]

pretty cool

[Septic]

thx

hardly cant wait till june

[dawman]

Countdown.

[emphazer]

great clip!
cant wait to hear it live

[dawman]

Awesome news.


Kurzweil Ribbon Controller can be purchased separately and used via an input for around 50 USD.

New Analog Devices 333MHz Chips instead of the 266MHz versions.

I will keep my Expressionmate for the KS88 and SE-1X, and Solaris will get it's own Ribbon Controller.

This is really an exciting summer.

[johnbowen]

Here's a link for more info about the Kurzweil Ribbon:
http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/Pro ... roduct=111

-john b.

[johnbowen]

From their Website, this link comes up for Germany:
http://www.sound-service.eu/

[dawman]

Here's a place with plenty of new stuff from Bowen also.

http://www.bowendesigns.com/

[dawman]

http://synthwire.blogspot.com/2008/07/w ... sitor.html

Solaris w/ a Korg Drum Machine.

Brotha' Man Carbon Hard @ Work.

[next to nothing]

i can hear brotherman has a liking for Boards of canada

i would like this one to pass on to some certain people who did incredible presets for the Minimax (in the more techno/ambient area, in which synth (based on my solaris usage) will exel). Hand one over to Wavelength and pass it on to the Doctors! Please!