John Bowen Synth Design

That's Anne Hathaway. You know, Mrs. William Shakespeare.

Still a nice dream to wake up to.
Use to wake up thinking I just told Ann Hathaway I'm breaking up with her, now I wake up with sounds in my head to go capture and I have the finest tools to use thanks to yuze guys.

Ankyu.....

dawman wrote:...Would love to see a half length Full Height PCI-e card for Solaris, it's a great idea.

Ain't going to happen, Mr. V.

That looks great. I built similar 4U designs using Scope DSP cards for Solaris plug ins.
Now I use the XITE-1 and a 1U with the ribbon extender and riser card like you use above.
Would love to see a half length Full Height PCI-e card for Solaris, it's a great idea.

Fuckin' A...............

I see two ways of developing expander/rack version if it ever happens. One is in the re-architecture of the instrument, developing new control surface optimized for the size, exactly as John mentioned. This, of course, costs another efforts and budget. Or there is another option - I'll call it "Clavia's way" Like they did with Nord Lead series. NL shares all common parts including control panel between Nord Lead keyboard and Nord Rack. You may easily convert rack to keyboard and back by just connecting the keyboard. Suppose similar story with Prophet 08/12 instruments. It makes common BOM possible. I'm not justifying the needs of rack version, for me personally, the priority is bellow than zero.
But if Solaris keyboard version is a real issue for tomoe97, why not to develop the cabinet on his own or ordering that developing at third party? Metallic parts only. Everything rest re-use from existing instrument. Just as idea...
I had similar feelings in the past,- the product is great, but not comfortable to use for me About 10 years ago I was upset with Korg Oasis keyboard at launch, I expected to see it similar to my Oasis PCI, which I couldn't use anymore due to legacy OS requirements. I could not afford Oasis PCI anymore either as separate noisy PC in the room. I finally came into the idea of fanless Oasis PCI rack design. The system is controlled remotely over LAN (including MIDI) and acts as remote PC without monitor and controls connected. Only audio out P) System boots from CF card to minimize the noise and fans starts spinning only if temperature threshold reached. That was my approach to keep Oasis PCI in the environment even there is no room for it...
See here:

The only thought we have given is we think we won't do a rack version now. There's no one available to work on the project at the moment...

Has any more thought been given to the feasibility of a rack version of Solaris? If the Solaris keyboard were reduced to a rack mount similar in size and implementation to DSI's Prophet-12 rack, I would buy it in a heartbeat. As impressive as the Solaris keyboard is, I simply don't have the space for it.

Yes !!! Then I could check what would be possible...

It is possible to request sysex dumps. I can send you the details in a Private message.

Maybe...

Provided everything would be available for external control from a MIDI message (either CC, NRPN, or SySex...). And a lot is already in the NRPN list... That was the reason why I ask if there was any Sysex beside the huge NRPN list ...

matocaster wrote:What I would'nt mind is an Ipad app that is an editor for the Solaris!

I agree! Can you write one for us?

What I would'nt mind is an Ipad app that is an editor for the Solaris!

I tend to agree with regarding Solaris improvement. The idea was just to think if there was an easy and quick way to broaden the Solaris user base. Actually, this would help levering founds for further development.
The point was to think about a solution for people either missing the money to buy the Solaris as it is now, or missing space to host big synth, or just needing something more compact.

As already discussed on another topic, when the first units were released, a desktop Solaris is quite difficult to achieve and probably wouldn't cost much less than the keyboard. Redesigning the user interface to achieve something more compact would require a lot of work and would spoil the concept of the Solaris itself.

To avoid designing a new hardware, using the same board as the keyboard would be a good idea. Same board would mean same OS, higher figures when manufacturing the boards so more founds to John Bowen to push forward the Solaris development. The blind 1 U rack unit would be the easiest: limited development cost, so limited risk on that, leaving most of the time and money focused on the Solaris OS.

I am still wondering if the control software should be provided with the blind unit.
Obviously, this makes sense but would also make such a unit less future proof (requiring update to support new host OS update).
Launching a 12 months software editor design project is probably too much. Maybe an open source editor would be a better idea. Or something different ...

But I completely agree that such a 1U rack unit should be designed only if it helps the keyboard to go further rather than spending too much time and energy for something that doesn't bring back much to the main product. All the other feature regarding multimode support are more OS improvement and would also be something good for the keyboard.

The idea behind the mockup and price estimate was more to bring something to the discussion. You cannot ask people if they would be ready to buy something like this without a few pictures and price idea. Personally, I would be ready to buy such a unit for such a price even though I would also have to find a solution for sound edition as one of the thing I also like is the fact the Solaris can be used without any computer ...

i personally would prefer if john would continue developing the OS of the solaris instead of doing a rack version. no interest in a rack and the related, substantial work.

if any hardware development at all, then rather a completely different device (twisted sampler? FX unit?) instead of repackaging the solaris and spending time on that.

proposing john how much a rack unit should cost (even to the detail of considering the VAT etc.) seems completely over the top at the moment. i believe john knows best how much such a unit would cost if he would decide to build it, right...?

Easier in some way but remember there are around 1000 parameters so still a lot to do.
Rather than inventing a new approach regarding the way to design sounds for Solaris with a software editor, I would rely on the work already done on the keyboard front panel. Maybe it would be possible to re-use some part of the Blackfin code with just a kind of LCD emulation module to display values. Just as if you had a "virtual control panel".

My question regarding Sysex was more to know wether the few missing parameters would be already available on the current Solaris (oscillator and filter type for example, then preset storing/loading commands).