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John Bowen Solaris Limited Edition User Manual Download Page 16

John Bowen Solaris – a life’s work

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John Bowen Solaris Synthesizer

The four ENABLE PART buttons are also worth mentioning. Since the Solaris is permanently in Multi-Mode (meaning
up to four sounds make one “sound”), you can disable or mute each individual sound component “on the run”, while
you’re actually playing. It’s a system of musical building blocks: pile sounds on, pull sounds off — until you’ve got the
building you want.

A little hint concerning knob acceleration: Press SHIFT to speed-control movements. This can be a real help when
you’re programming LFO frequencies, for example. If you want rapid changes, you can supersede the fine
adjustment by simultaneously pressing SHIFT.

It’s not just about programming with Solaris. Programming and Performance go hand in hand!

Summary of Contents for Solaris Limited Edition

Page 1: ...developed vector synthesis the actual concept for VS came from Chris Meyer and due to his decades of experience in playing instruments and programming factory sounds Bowen has been able to contribute his vast knowledge to the development of the Solaris Above all Bowen is a real musician All this is reflected in many details and in the user friendly Solaris concept Third The king is dead long live ...

Page 2: ...g about Roland Yamaha was to try to compensate for the lack of programming options by offering an even larger contingent of sounds thousands of sounds which is a horror when one thinks about it Many digital synthesizers are miles away from being musician s instruments a situation little changed today with exceptions few and far between Keep in mind we re talking about polyphonic synthesizers Altho...

Page 3: ...eaks when he had to refinance the instrument But Bowen s persistence has paid off The sophisticated and versatile Solaris will be a momentous success A couple of impressions The first contact with my Solaris brought some surprises The instrument was easily unpacked solid cardboard foil to protect the instrument as should be It initially felt good stable and robust But there was this additional lit...

Page 4: ...tion that the production still has potential for improvement As John Bowen and his team are on their toes such shortcomings should be remedied soon Let s continue with the hardware There s a huge choice of rear panel connections 8 individual outputs four independent inputs although only monophonic and USB S PDIF MIDI plus two pedal inputs and a Compact Flash card slot Due to what John Bowen calls ...

Page 5: ...or performance the power plant inside the Solaris consists of six state of the art third generation SHARC DSP processors Even with a complex program utilizing all four oscillators four filters four mixers and healthy doses of modulation you can still expect 10 note polyphony www johnbowen com You will probably have little reason to fully realise the Solaris potential at hand A two or three part so...

Page 6: ... may sound brilliant but at the cost of reduced dynamic flexibility They always sound a little flat The dynamic flexibility of a single analog voice from say a Minimoog or a Pro One is capable of bringing any digital sound to its knees A musician friend recently reported from Munich that a brand new Roland Fantom keyboard used at a rock concert had no chance in the mix whereas the little antique M...

Page 7: ...is creativity knows no limits Now one highlight must be mentioned that could easily be overlooked Octave Up Down Well a keyboard up down switch wouldn t seem to be that spectacular But keep in mind Solaris is synonymous for unlimited sound potential Four parallel synthesizers in one package classic waveforms a wealth of wavetables rotors numerous filters 6 LFOs 6 envelopes and all that within the ...

Page 8: ...are not very attractive but they put things into orderly perspective The following is a detailed list with some explanations of components of the Solaris sound architecture 4 Oscillators For each oscillator there is a choice between MultiMode Oscillator sine triangle ascending sawtooth descending sawtooth pulse noise sample hold morphing sawtooth morphing pulse jaws 7 stacked sawtooth waves Waveta...

Page 9: ...ronize the frequency of the oscillators to divisions of the MIDI clock signal 2 Rotors Rotor is a term generally associated with helicopters As there so here something turns The Solaris rotors represent sound sources additional to the oscillators To put it simply a rotor generates a 4 step waveform sequence in circular rotation The sources of the rotor sounds are completely user definable Oscillat...

Page 10: ...u could have for example all 4 Rotor inputs being the LFOs 1 4 and each at a different rate and shape then use the output to modulate things and setting the Rotor to a very slow rate you can have subtle variations of modulation going on but that would still be cyclical over the long run John Bowen Back to the rotor being used for audio purposes When the rotor is in the NO TRACK mode it behaves lik...

Page 11: ...time of retirement should that impress you and beyond We re thinking in terms of perfect health for the next 100 years 4 Filters Solaris has four filters routable in parallel or series Each of these filters can be set to one of the following filter types MultiMode Filter 23 filter variations LP4 LP3 LP2 LP1 HP4 HP3 HP2 HP1 BP4 BP2 BP2 LP1 BP2 LP2 BP2 HP1 BP2 HP2 BR4 BR2 BR2 LP1 BR2 LP2 BR2 HP1 BR2...

Page 12: ...Level volume and InitPan panorama position There are also two modulation inputs Source 1 modulates the amplifier s level Source 2 modulates the pan position Many of the attached Solaris demos make extensive use of the VCA s panorama modulation 5 LFOs Solaris has 4 main LFOs and a special vibrato LFO Each LFO supports the common waveforms sine triangle ramp etc plus sample hold of course Frequency ...

Page 13: ...espect As we know from Oberheims Xpander Matrix 12 all envelope parameters are voltage controllable Very nice Well the ideal Solaris would probably feature real hardware envelopes and true VCAs Nevertheless these digital envelopes are absolutely OK Envelope segment values range from 0 0 ms to 20 0 seconds Good for snappy electronic sounds and excellent for all types of pads evolving string sounds ...

Page 14: ...ription is clearly beyond the scope of the report Arpeggiator 4 Track Step Sequencer 4 Effect Channels Loopable EG Vector Synthesis Amplitude Modulation Key Tables 4 Lag Processors Envelope Follower Excellent grooves ring modulation effects individual key tables synchronization of effects delay and MIDI clock are among the additional features we re talking about ...

Page 15: ... carry on on the waves of your musical inspiration tweaking a knob now and then This goes for the ASSIGN buttons too I first came across this fine feature while working with the Ensoniq TS 12 The two ASSIGN buttons allow variation of the sound in progress at the press of a finger Here choices include Keyboard Glide on off Oscillator Glide on off Seq start stop Arp start stop and Arp transpose When...

Page 16: ...le you re actually playing It s a system of musical building blocks pile sounds on pull sounds off until you ve got the building you want A little hint concerning knob acceleration Press SHIFT to speed control movements This can be a real help when you re programming LFO frequencies for example If you want rapid changes you can supersede the fine adjustment by simultaneously pressing SHIFT It s no...

Page 17: ...ce LFO 1 4 Vibrato LFO Envelopes 1 6 Looping EG s X axis Looping EG s Y axis Velocity Aftertouch Note MIDI note number Modulation Wheel AT ModWheel sum of the two Ribbon 1 Ribbon 2 Joystick X axis Joystick Y axis CC1 CC5 user defined controllers Sequencer tracks A to D Pedals 1 2 Assign Buttons 1 2 Envelope Follower Key Tables 1 4 Poly Aftertouch via MIDI unfortunately the keyboard s AT is only mo...

Page 18: ... Please note Unlike most other synthesizers on the market the Solaris has no internal memory All sound sample and sequencer data and the OS is saved on the supplied Compact Flash CF card So the importance of this Compact Flash card is obvious The bad news the loss of the card would be a minor catastrophy its consequences difficult to estimate The good news storing back ups of that vital CF card on...

Page 19: ...ard with you John Bowen Solaris and the local heavy weight JD 800 20 sounds On the first night with my Solaris I created 20 sounds of my own It s always a good sign if you can quickly and easily create sounds on a synthesizer of this complexity It clearly speaks for the musical instrument Straightaway the Solaris had replaced my favourite polyphonic of 20 years the Roland JD 800 Even tho the JD 80...

Page 20: ...ultaneous real time control of multiple filter frequencies LFO speeds oscillator tunings etc Since the JD 800 has already served as a comparison I would like to proceed with comparisons based on the Alesis Andromeda a high quality analog instrument state of the art In contrast to the Andromeda however the Solaris is a hand and a foot ahead The instrument is completely navigable from the very first...

Page 21: ...anaged to this point of perfection with the Andromeda Conclusion The Solaris is a synthesizer in the best sense of the word Minimal conceptual shortcomings such as the external power supply and the tedious process required for saving and naming new memory locations can be overlooked The crucial point is the musical potential A multitude of sound options intuitive user interface and superb performa...

Page 22: ...musical instrument In connection with the audio files please note These contain 50 minutes of music Everything is Solaris pure no external effects no additional sequencer not even MIDI with the necessary exception of a recording tool freeware Audacity which served for basic recording and sound mixing ...

Page 23: ...nce 1 13 Mad Sequence 2 with PWM 14 Mad Sequence 3 15 Vocal Filter Step Sequ 16 Unison HPF with Ribbon 17 LFO mod by EG 6 1 18 LFO mod by EG 6 2 19 CEM3340 Mini24dbVCF SampleHold Mod 20 RingMod Obie BP Filter 21 Parallel Fifths 22 Bright Strings 23 Arpeggio 1 24 Arpeggio 2 25 Almost Groovy 26 Phaser 27 Polyphonic Aftertouch Elka MK88 28 Polyphonic Aftertouch to LFO Speed Elka MK88 29 John Bowen So...

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