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USER MANUAL

_SOLINA V

Summary of Contents for solina v

Page 1: ...USER MANUAL _SOLINA V ...

Page 2: ... Chuck Capsis Jeffrey M Cecil Denis Efendic Ben Eggehorn David Farmer Ruary Galbraith Simon Gallifet Jeff Haler Marco Correia Koshdukai Simon McDonnell Lewyn Mitchell Ken Flux Pierce Fernando Manuel Rodrigues Daniel Saban Chad Wagner Stephen Wey ARTURIA SA 2022 All rights reserved 26 avenue Jean Kuntzmann 38330 Montbonnot Saint Martin FRANCE www arturia com Information contained in this manual is ...

Page 3: ...Product version 2 10 1 Revision date 9 August 2022 ...

Page 4: ... The information contained in this manual is believed to be correct at the time of printing However Arturia reserves the right to change or modify any of the specifications without notice or obligation to update the hardware that has been purchased IMPORTANT The software when used in combination with an amplifier headphones or speakers may be able to produce sound levels that could cause permanent...

Page 5: ... options that take the Solina experience to a new level As with all of our products we believe in offering the best of both worlds in a single package and letting you choose how you want to use it You can choose to focus on the Main Panel and get a slightly improved vintage Solina experience or pop open the Advanced Panel and discover a universe of sounds that the original Solina engineers could o...

Page 6: ...wer Toolbar 20 3 4 The Side Panel 21 3 4 1 Settings Tab 21 3 4 2 MIDI Tab 23 3 4 3 Macro Tab 28 3 4 4 Tutorials 30 4 The Preset Browser 31 4 1 Search and Results 32 4 2 Using Tags as a Filter 33 4 2 1 Types 33 4 2 2 Styles 34 4 2 3 Banks 34 4 3 Search Results window 35 4 3 1 Sorting the Preset Order 35 4 3 2 Clearing Tags 35 4 3 3 Liking Presets 36 4 4 Sidebar 37 4 4 1 My Sound Banks 37 4 4 2 My F...

Page 7: ...d Panel 53 6 1 The Advanced Panel and its Controls 53 6 1 1 Master Section 54 6 1 2 LFO 55 6 1 3 Bass Section Filter and Envelope controls 57 6 1 4 Bass Section Arpeggiator 58 6 1 5 Upper Resonator 60 6 1 6 Effects 62 7 Software License Agreement 69 ...

Page 8: ...gan and maybe a monophonic synthesizer There wasn t really room in the van or the budget for a string section But technology has a way of answering musicians prayers so various ways to give a keyboardist orchestral sounds had been in development for a while The primary solution in the early 1970s was the Mellotron a keyboard with a strip of recording tape under each key that would play whatever wa...

Page 9: ...P Model 2100 String Ensemble SE IV After this historical introduction we ll stick to the name Solina both to reflect the name of our product and to give credit where credit is due 1 1 2 1 Arrival of the fittest The ARP String Ensemble became the most popular product ARP ever made surpassing the famed ARP 2600 and Odyssey synthesizers Its unique sound carried an instantly recognizable stamp of auth...

Page 10: ...rt Korg Trident Oberheim OB Xa 1981 Roland Jupiter 8 With the rise of polyphonic synthesizers and the attendant waning of interest in string machines as well as other technological and financial pressures ARP Instruments Inc was forced to close its doors in 1981 Even so the ARP legacy lives on in the 21st Century as synthesizer enthusiasts are once again paying top dollar for ARP synthesizers incl...

Page 11: ...the instrument such as bowing a string pressing a valve changing breath pressure etc In the electrical world these parameters include the properties of different electrical components and circuits and how they interact in complex ways This is the basis for Arturia s TAE True Analog Emulation technology which models the behavior of classic electronic instruments down to the finest details This conc...

Page 12: ...ve space than a collection of sampled recordings of notes would use Not only that but physical modeling algorithms don t have to strictly limit themselves to existing instruments They can combine mismatched parameters to create instruments that have never existed even instruments that couldn t exist in the real world From playing a 50 foot piano to bowing a drum made of glass There s no limit to t...

Page 13: ...ere https www arturia com support downloads manuals You ll enter your email address and password to set up Arturia Software Center which acts as a central location for all of your Arturia software registrations and activations It also helps you install and update your software by keeping tabs on current versions You can register activate and install your product inside Arturia Software Center by p...

Page 14: ...hen you load Solina V as a plug in instrument inside your host software its interface and settings work the same way as in standalone mode see below with a few small differences Solina V will synchronize to your DAW s host tempo BPM when sync is desired You can automate numerous parameters using your DAW s automation system You can use more than one instance of Solina V in a DAW project standalone...

Page 15: ... only applies to readers that plan to use Solina V in standalone mode If you are only going to use Solina V as a plug in inside a host music software you can safely ignore this section your host music software handles these settings 2 3 1 Audio and MIDI Settings Windows At the top left of the Solina V application is a pull down menu It contains various setup options Click on Audio Midi Settings to...

Page 16: ... Rate menu lets you set the sample rate at which audio is sent out of the instrument The options here will depend on what your audio device can support nearly every device can operate at 44 1kHz or 48kHz which will be perfectly fine for most applications If you have a specific need to use a higher sample rate up to 96kHz Solina V will happily support that The Show Control Panel button will jump to...

Page 17: ... notes on Solina V If not use your mouse to play the on screen keyboard The up and down arrows at the top of the instrument let you step through all of Solina V s available presets Try playing a few and when you find one that you like try adjusting some of the other on screen controls to see how they affect the sound Play freely with the controls nothing is saved unless you specifically save a pre...

Page 18: ...lina V and open the Side Panel see below 2 The Main Panel Here is where you will likely spend most of your time when playing with Solina V It contains a detailed reproduction of the original Solina front panel with all of the original hardware s controls plus a few extras We will go over this panel in the Main Panel p 48 section of this guide Clicking on the lid reveals many more features that we ...

Page 19: ...w level settings MIDI control assignments the four Macro controllers and a set of tutorials 3 2 The Upper Toolbar 3 2 1 The Solina V menu In the top left corner of the window the icon of three horizontal lines labeled SOLINA V leads to a drop down menu for important global operations 3 2 1 1 New Preset The first option sets Solina V to a basic Default preset a blank slate from which you can create...

Page 20: ...mp on tags your patch might never come up in a search You can also enter your own notes in the Comments field which is handy for more detailed descriptions or performance notes 3 2 1 3 Save Preset As This works in the same way as the Save command but lets you save a copy of the preset instead of saving over the original It s useful for creating variations on patches while keeping individual copies...

Page 21: ...se files will appear in the save window but you can create a folder at another location if you like The saved preset can be reloaded using the Import Preset menu option Export Bank This option can be used to export an entire bank of sounds from the instrument which is useful for backing up or sharing presets Saved banks can be reloaded using the Import Preset menu option Arturia User Manual Solina...

Page 22: ...e that in some DAWs the same key commands may be used for zoom In this case the DAW takes priority 3 2 1 7 Audio Midi settings This is where you manage the way the instrument transmits sound and receives MIDI This menu item only appears in the standalone version as the plug in s audio and MIDI settings are handled by its host application See section 2 2 of the manual for full details on this 3 2 1...

Page 23: ...Save or with a new name Save As 4 The Preset Filter set to All Presets in the image above helps you narrow down your preset search quickly for example looking only for presets tagged with Keys Lead or Pad To use this feature click the Preset Name to open a drop down menu of various Types Keys Lead Pad etc Hold your mouse over any Type to pop up an alphabetical list of presets click the one you wan...

Page 24: ... this manual in the Advanced Panel p 53 chapter 3 2 4 Side Panel Settings At the far right of the Toolbar next to the Advanced button is the Side Panel Button gear icon a gear shaped icon that opens and closes the side panel on the right side containing four tabs Settings Global settings such as MIDI receive channels splits octave shift and Poly mode MIDI MIDI Learn functions for use with external...

Page 25: ...center menu icon Displays a pop up list of recent changes Click on a change to restore the patch to that state This will be useful in the event that you ve pushed your sound design one or two steps too far and want to revert to an earlier version 3 CPU Meter and Panic Button Displays the current CPU usage of the instrument Clicking on the CPU meter window will send a MIDI Panic message silencing a...

Page 26: ...araphonic Solina V can in fact be used as a true polyphonic synthesizer When Poly is off the Upper instrument is paraphonic which means that all notes you play are run through a single filter and amplitude envelope That means that if you play one note the filter and amplitude envelopes open up and shape that note but every other note you play while holding down that first note has no articulation ...

Page 27: ... why these settings don t work on the Bass instrument it s because the Bass is always monophonic The more you know MIDI Channels Selects the MIDI channel s on which Solina V will receive MIDI input You can set the Upper and Bass instruments to independent channels or set one or both to All Upper Bass Split Split Mode The Layer setting spreads the Upper instrument across the full keyboard range reg...

Page 28: ...el settings together and Solina V should be able to deliver any MIDI setup you might need 3 4 2 MIDI Tab This is where Solina V may be placed in MIDI Learn mode In this mode all MIDI assignable parameters on the main panel are highlighted and you can map physical controls on your MIDI controller to them A typical example might be to map a real expression pedal to the Master Volume control or a phy...

Page 29: ...here you can select templates for many Arturia MIDI controllers These map physical controls to many most wanted parameters in Solina V for a plug and play experience A Generic template is also provided for third party MIDI controllers Arturia User Manual Solina V The User Interface 24 ...

Page 30: ...he assignments from scratch each time you swap hardware For example if you have multiple hardware controllers small live keyboard large studio keyboard pad controller etc you can create a profile for each of them save them and then quickly load them here This saves you from having to redo the MIDI mapping assignments from scratch each time you swap hardware Two options in this menu are especially ...

Page 31: ...escribed below 3 4 2 4 Min and Max Values The Min and Max value columns for each parameter in the list let you scale the amount by which a parameter in Solina V changes in response to a physical control movement For example you may wish to limit the range of a filter sweep even though you re probably going to turn the knob all the way during a live performance Drag up or down on a value to change ...

Page 32: ...s that don t have physical motion limits Delete Removes the assignment and turns the corresponding onscreen control purple again Change Parameter Brings up a large sub menu of every assignable parameter in Solina V This lets you change the assignment of the current CC physical control manually and is useful when you know exactly the destination you re looking for 3 4 2 6 Reserved MIDI CC numbers C...

Page 33: ... physical control if you want Macros are saved at the Preset level 3 4 3 1 Macro Slots Click one of the Macro knobs to select which Macros you want to work with The default names are Brightness Timbre Time and Movement but you can rename them by double clicking the name field The knob above the name corresponds to the knob of the same name in the Lower Toolbar Arturia User Manual Solina V The User...

Page 34: ...to Macros Keep in mind though that while it may seem funny to name a Macro Chartreuse that might not be terribly useful when you re playing the patch in a recording session next year When in doubt go for clarity 3 4 3 3 Macro Curves Beyond simple scaling you can customize a curve that determines how each parameter under the Macro s control proceeds from its minimum to maximum value and back when y...

Page 35: ...because doing so will load a new Preset and overwrite your changes The Tutorials also take over the Side Panel space when in use Now that we ve figured out what all the controls around the edges do you re probably eager to get to the main event the controls we use for sound creation on Solina V both original and modern Before we do that though it s worth our time to understand Arturia s powerful P...

Page 36: ...lick the X that appears in its place The browser has four main areas Number Area Description 1 Search and Results p 32 Search Presets with text strings and by tags for Type and Style 2 Sidebar p 37 Manage Banks Favorites and Playlists 3 Preset Info p 40 Summary of Bank and Tags Designer name and description info for current Preset 4 Macro Knobs p 43 Large size duplicates of Macro knobs in Lower To...

Page 37: ...letters in the Preset name Then if your search term is close to that of a Type or Style p 33 it will include results fitting those tags as well The Results list beneath shows all Presets that fit your search Click the X icon at right to clear your search terms Filter by typing text in the Search field Arturia User Manual Solina V The Preset Browser 32 ...

Page 38: ...ton to bring up a list of types Notice that each type also has several sub types Click any one of them and the results will show only Presets that match that tag You can also select multiple Types using Cmd click macOS or Ctrl click Windows For example if you aren t sure whether the Preset you re looking for was tagged with Keys or Pad select both to broaden the search Results columns can be inver...

Page 39: ...ry Rise etc Click on any tag to select it Click again or right click on any selected tag to de select it Notice that when you select a tag several other tags usually disappear This is because the browser is narrowing your search by a process of elimination De select any tag to remove that criterion and widen the search without having to start all over again 4 2 3 Banks Next to the Types and Styles...

Page 40: ... the left of TYPE to bring factory featured Presets to the top of the list These will appear just under any Presets you have liked p 36 The third column has two header options DESIGNER and BANK Click the icon with three lines to choose between the two Then click either header name as with the other two columns to switch the alphabetical order 4 3 2 Clearing Tags Just above the Types Styles and Ban...

Page 41: ...king the heart next to their names later click on the heart icon to put all of your favorites at the top of the Results list Use as many of the sorting and filtering features as you need and you will find the exact sound you want every time Arturia User Manual Solina V The Preset Browser 36 ...

Page 42: ...tting you search the current bank of Presets loaded into Solina V as we did in the previous section 4 4 1 My Sound Banks Clicking My Sound Banks brings up a window with all of the currently available Sound Banks starting with the Factory bank User banks appear next to it and can be deleted renamed or exported by right clicking them 37 Arturia User Manual Solina V The Preset Browser ...

Page 43: ...ike to display hover over My Favorites and click Edit Then use the buttons to select which colors you d like to see or hide and then click Done Please note that you can also rename these favorites into Bass Leads et cetera Just right click on the favorite and enter a new name To add Presets to a particular set of Favorites simply drag and drop them over the appropriate color Then click on the colo...

Page 44: ...he sidebar displays any Playlists you have created or imported Playlists are a very powerful management tool for set lists for gigs Learn more about them in the Playlists section p 44 below 39 Arturia User Manual Solina V The Preset Browser ...

Page 45: ...fields use one of the pull down menus to change the Bank or Type and click the sign to add or delete Styles Types and Styles changes you make here are reflected in searches For example if you remove the Funky Style tag and then save that Preset it will not show up in future searches for Funky sounds Clicking on the three dots icon at the top right pops up a menu with organizational options for the...

Page 46: ...g for a performance or enter a single comment for several Presets at the same time it s easy to do Simply hold command macOS or ctrl Windows and click the names of the Presets you want to change in the Results list Then enter the comments change the Bank or Type etc and save the Preset If you want to alter the information for a Factory Preset you must first use the Save As command to re save it as...

Page 47: ... correspond to the Type tags Each of these brings up a submenu of all Presets of its Type If you have an active search by Type and or Style the up down arrows to the right of the Preset name will step through only the results that conform to your search However All Presets in the drop down menu always ignores those criteria Likewise for the Type choices below the line they always include all Prese...

Page 48: ... larger duplicates of the Macro knobs in the Lower Toolbar Move one and its partner moves with it Assigning parameters to Macros is covered in the Macro Tab p 28 section of Chapter 3 43 Arturia User Manual Solina V The Preset Browser ...

Page 49: ... Sidebar However when you first start using Solina V you ll have no Playlists yet and My Playlists won t be there yet To make it appear you ll have to create your first Playlist 4 8 1 Create your first Playlist To get started drag any Preset to the Sidebar The My Playlists heading will appear along with a New icon Drop the Preset onto the New icon and you will then be given a pop up to name your f...

Page 50: ... pop up a set of options you can Rename Delete or Export the Playlist to your computer as a file with the aplst extension 4 8 3 Add a Preset You can use all of the options in the Explore window to locate Presets for your Playlist When you find a desired Preset click drag it onto the Playlist name To view the contents of a playlist click on the playlist name Click and drag from the Search Results l...

Page 51: ...ocation of the Preset you just moved A bright yellow line will briefly appear at the insert point 4 8 5 Remove a Preset To delete a Preset from a playlist right click on its name to bring up a pop up menu This menu also includes Rename Copy Paste and Duplicate options More management options are described below The yellow line indicates the final destination of the Preset you re dragging Arturia U...

Page 52: ...n next to the New Song button This brings up a pull down menu Rename Playlist Renames the current Playlist without making a copy Save Playlist As Creates a duplicate of the playlist with Copy appended to the name You can change the name before saving Export Playlist Exports your Playlist to a location on your computer with the filename extension aplst Delete Playlist Deletes the current Playlist b...

Page 53: ...you click on the Advanced button in the Upper Toolbar or just click the lid of the Solina V case it will flip open to reveal the Advanced Panel This is where you ll find all of the special additions that make Solina V a 21st Century update to a 20th Century classic We ll discuss those in the next chapter To close the lid click the Advanced button again or click the top edge of the lid above the co...

Page 54: ... to 100 full effect Pitch Bend This spring loaded wheel will snap back to center after being released It is dedicated to MIDI Pitch Bend data and it s the only onscreen control that can t be reassigned to another MIDI Control Change number Mod wheel Used to introduce programmable amounts of vibrato and or tremolo to the sound This wheel responds to MIDI CC 1 by default but can be reassigned to any...

Page 55: ...seconds This would be equivalent to a conventional synthesizer s VCA envelope Release Time The Bass instrument has a separate Sustain control which we ll discuss when we get to the Advanced Panel Volume Upper Adjusts the volume of the Upper instrument independently of the Bass instrument s volume Viola Violin Trumpet Horn and Humana Enable and disable the five available sounds for the Upper Instru...

Page 56: ...onic analog synthesizer that could be played like an electric piano and it garnered a lot of interest when it came out However its sound was subject to some disappointing paraphonic limitations and it was incredibly expensive and failure prone it had and has its fans but it was a disaster for Moog In 1978 Moog Music shipped a simplified version called the Polymoog Keyboard which gave the user 14 p...

Page 57: ...gnal is passed from one component to the next like a bucket brigade carrying water to a fire In the Solina there are three such delay lines each with a slightly different delay time that s varied a tiny bit by its own LFO When you bring them together the result is a constantly shifting harmonic structure that lends some of the richness of a real string section to the Solina s sound It s interestin...

Page 58: ...al sections from left to right The sections are Master Section These knobs set the amount of velocity and aftertouch response for Level and Brightness LFO A Low Frequency Oscillator a common means of adding movement to sounds in various ways Bass Section These controls turn the Bass instrument into a more full featured monophonic synthesizer complete with its own arpeggiator Upper Resonator A set ...

Page 59: ...ng velocity and or aftertouch brings them up to their programmed settings For example if Vel Level is set to 0 then the programmed level will be heard no matter how hard you strike the keys However if you turn up Vel Level to 50 then you ll only hear the programmed level if you hit the keys hard and you ll hear a reduced level if you play softly Similarly Aftertouch Brightness reduces the brightne...

Page 60: ...portant ones at the center so we ll jump around a little bit in introducing them Rate This slider controls the LFO speed Its range of values will depend on whether or not you ve turned on Sync If Sync is off then the rate is displayed in Hz cycles per second and ranges from 0 010 Hz one cycle every 100 seconds to 13 0 Hz 13 cycles per second almost but not quite fast enough to be heard as a tone I...

Page 61: ... produce the desired effect of gradually increasing modulation Experiment with their interactions so their behavior works as you think it should When in doubt start by setting Delay and Fade to the same time Retrig This switch determines whether the LFO runs free cycling without regard to pressing keys or if the LFO retriggers starts its waveform cycle over again every time a key is pressed To hea...

Page 62: ... very high Resonance the filter can start to self oscillate meaning it generates its own tonality in addition to the other sound sources Watch your output levels when you set Resonance to its highest values Env Amount This knob sets how much the Attack and Release will affect the Cutoff Their effect will be most audible if the Cutoff is set fairly low Attack When a key is pressed the filter freque...

Page 63: ... where the arpeggio plays up and down but the highest and lowest notes are only played once rather than twice they are excluded from repeating Great wars have been fought over whether repeating the top and bottom notes in an Up Down arpeggiation is the proper way to do things Many famous synths throughout history have been on both sides of this great battle and now we ve chosen a side as well Rate...

Page 64: ... playing high notes while the right hand pad plays in a lower range You can also set each instrument to its own MIDI channel for independent controls Remember the Arpeggiator s status including whether it s set On Off Hold can be stored as part of a preset You can call up a preset start playing and the Arpeggiator will do its thing even if the Advanced Panel is closed 59 Arturia User Manual Solina...

Page 65: ... synthesizer filters and a 3 band parametric equalizer Each band has its own parameters for frequency bandwidth and boost cut like a parametric EQ however the bandwidth control produces resonance like a synth filter would Deceptively simple the Upper Resonator packs a lot of power into ten sliders First there s the Mode switch This determines if the three resonators work as Lowpass Bandpass or Hig...

Page 66: ...st or cut at the Cutoff The control s default value is 0dB no gain change but can range from a 6dB boost to a 72 dB cut effectively silence Don t forget each of these parameters is MIDI assignable which opens up a lot of possibilities For example three adjacent sliders on your controller assigned to the Upper Resonator s Cutoff frequencies will allow for very direct and intuitive play The Upper Re...

Page 67: ...on Reverb places your sound in a virtual space to give it a sense of dimension and depth The wet dry mix of each effect is set by the three knobs to the right of the keyboard FX1 FX2 and Rev The order of the processors can t be changed from FX1 to FX2 to Reverb but turning any effect all the way down will bypass it Don t forget Ensemble p 51 on the Main Panel It also thickens the sound but with a ...

Page 68: ... Analog Chorus sounds If you haven t saved the preset yet switching to the Analog Chorus and back again will have replaced your edits with the saved values and you ve lost your great Phaser sound So make it a point to save often By the way this applies to FX2 as well Note if you save your preset with one effect type active the settings for the other type will not be saved If you can t decide which...

Page 69: ...Michel Jarre created the famous pad sound for his earliest albums The Phaser on Solina V is actually two separate phasers each with its own controls Rate Controls the speed of the sweep If the MIDI Sync button is pressed the Rate amount is expressed in fractions of the tempo from Tempo 15 to Tempo 2 or note values 1 8 or 1 4 Both kinds of settings are accessed with the same knob turn to the left f...

Page 70: ...eft and right channels are offset and a choice of three distinct sonic characters as well as the usual chorus controls Type Selects one of three chorus types Play with them to find the one that best suits your preset Stereo Width Controls the width of the stereo effect from 0 mono to 100 hard panned Left Right stereo Stereo Rate Sets the speed of the stereo effect from O 00Hz to 1 50 Hz When set t...

Page 71: ...ering Sometimes it s nice to alter the tonality of the echoes over time so this knob controls a filter patched into the feedback loop If the knob is set to 50 no filtering occurs if turned to the left lowpass filtering is applied so subsequent echoes become warmer and darker if turned to the right highpass filtering is applied so subsequent echoes become brighter and thinner Feedback Amount Adjust...

Page 72: ... Adjusts the Feedback amount for that side Unlike the Analog Delay the Digital Delay s Feedback can be set to run away with each successive echo getting louder and more distorted Use with care The rest of the controls work on both sides of the delay at once Link Makes the delay mono Time and Feedback are set for both sides at once it doesn t matter which knobs you turn the corresponding knobs on t...

Page 73: ...be recorded in phone booths stairwells tunnels studio echo chambers and even by putting an impulse through an algorithmic reverb box or analog plate reverb to recreate one of its settings Solina V provides 24 different convolution reverbs modeled after the presets of five different reverb devices a couple of which are the actual reverb units that were paired with string machines in the 1970s Using...

Page 74: ...tions of this Agreement You may not lease loan or sub license the software The use of the software within a network where there is a possibility of simultaneous multiple use of the program is illegal You are entitled to make a backup copy of the software to be used for none other than storage purposes You do not have a right to use the software further than within the limited rights as specified i...

Page 75: ...t in itself follow a right to use the software The right for support on a previous or inferior version of the software expires upon the installation of an upgrade or update 8 Limited Warranty Arturia warrants that the disks on which the software is provided on is free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of thirty 30 days from the date of purchase Your receipt se...

Page 76: ...iness profits business interruption loss of business information and the like even if Arturia was previously advised of the possibility of such damages Some states do not allow limitations on the length of an implied warranty or the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages so the above limitation or exclusions may not apply to you This warranty gives you specific legal rights...

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