John Bowen Synth Design

Very nice and impressive.

This sounds like there is also much to expect from Solaris patches if it is in your hands.

thanks for the link.
stardust

Hi stardust,

here is a link of an mp3 that I posted a while back. It's still a work in progress and has two versions, one is non-processed and the other has a Thermonic Culture Vulture to give it some more harmonics.

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/topic-28742.html

This one has the on-board effects of the A6, which are very mediocre. Now I run everything through an Eventide H-8000FW and trust me never in my life have I heard such a 3D sound.

I have to run because I am at the office right now..

Hi Yannis,

now you make me really curious.
I would love to see/hear some of your Andromeda patches.

Actually I agree that the factory prresets were a bit boring.
Either techno or airy pads.

Please pm me when you are wiiling to let me try some Andy patches. I am seriously interested.

and...apologies for the OT

stardust wrote:European I would not use this category.

Andromeda had pretty quickly signature Banks from Sounddesigners all around the world (including Europeans )

Now Solaris is designed in germany (which is in the middle of Europe) and comes from a native american but international mastermind.
It comes with Waldorf wavetables (originally build by Waldorf in Germany, Europe)

So I have no doubt that neither Andromeda nor Solaris is usable everywhere and by any landsmanship.

When I bought the Andromeda I was utterly dissapointed by the majority of the patches despite the fact that I had downloaded all of the signature banks you mentioned to see what these guys came up with. And guess what, they were a disappointment too.

I know of several people who wanted a big mucho synthesizer for their music and loved the Andromeda's appeal. Then when they heard the presets they got disappointed and bought a Virus or a Q+.

So, as always, I programmed my own sounds and man ... am I glad I did. I managed to get sounds that left me with a BIG s smile.

So, for someone who is a hardcore synthesist and likes to tweak and tweak I am sure that the Solaris will pay dividends in the long run. The thing is that half an hour or a couple of sounds here and there is hardly a long run.

Regards,
Yannis

In my brief experience with the hardware, the synth attempts to do what no synth should try: the end-all synthesizer synthesis. The good news is, its actually achieving that! It can sound like a Waldorf, a VS and it can sound like a Prophet-5. And in my (humble) opinion its sounding more like a Prophet-5 than the Prophet '08. I don't mean to kick up dust about that, I'm just being honest.

I understand what the guy is getting at about sounds. Like John says presets have always been a weird area - "You're giving away your sounds for free?". Think of the Solaris as a palette. You'll be able to make Euro-Dance with it if you'd like. I'm not sure how good of a TB-303 or a C64 SID it can do, but I can try.

European I would not use this category.

Andromeda had pretty quickly signature Banks from Sounddesigners all around the world (including Europeans )

Now Solaris is designed in germany (which is in the middle of Europe) and comes from a native american but international mastermind.
It comes with Waldorf wavetables (originally build by Waldorf in Germany, Europe)

So I have no doubt that neither Andromeda nor Solaris is usable everywhere and by any landsmanship.

Personally I always enjoy seeing a wide spectrum of presets to show off the synth's abilities also.
Judging from what I saw when I bought the DSP model the dance/techno stuff was definately covered as well as SciFi, analog emulations, SFX and even then it barely scratched the surface of it's potential.
If it came out with the same programming that the DSP model did I would consider that a great start.
Yiannis, you should check back in a few months to see the Trading Post where I am sure there will be lots of enthusiastic tweakers swapping sounds.
Techno/Dance stuff should be a breeze w/ Solaris and I am sure there will be plenty.
Personally I always like the sick stuff from Benoist Guitton because his approach to creating presets was unique and made Solaris stand out from the average Nord/Virus approach, as I can't tell the difference between those synths when just listening to groove demos.
I can definately see your point of view, but listening to the quality of the sound of the Oscillators isolated is what most programmer/players here were interested in as like you, they will put their own signature sounds together.
We will probably get French and German guys making American presets, and Canadian and American guys making European presets, with a few Chinese guys doing JPop and who knows what those ingenious Japanese guys will come up with..........Isao Tomita sure had some incredible sounds when he was doing those Debussey Tribute albums.
I actually have taken several months off in anticipation of the XITE-1 and Solaris release.
I will start in Las Vegas's mutlitude of Big Neon lights and fast action enviroment, and finish off looking over Lake Tahoe from summer to early Fall.
Only then will I be prepared to wage war and punish the weak...................yepp, just in time to go play a B3 and Honkty Tonk Upright in a Country Western opening act....

Hello,

first of all I need to apologize for my "I *DO* insist" phrase, maybe it was a little too much. However, I did explain why I think it is important to have a wide variety of patches. However, since JB said that he is not so worried about having sounds for dance/techno, then I suppose it's a pretty much clear and respectful decision. I don't demand anything from anyone.

As for me, having "european" patches is not a prerequisite, since I prefer to make my own and this is what I will do if/when I get the Solaris.

Again, I am sorry if I have caused any troubles here.

Regards,
Yannis

John you have ALWAYS been a gentleman and respectful when responding to people in this forum, so, for me it would be quite a stretch to think of you coming across as snobbish or elitist. Furthermore, Solaris is your vision and your creation and I think you've been very flexible taking people's suggestions and implementing them into Solaris whenever possible.
You've also been quite clear you are not producing Solaris to be the next big commercial synth but rather a physical manifestation of those things YOU would like to see in a modern synth. The market will dictate how many people share your vision, I for one am purchasing Solaris BECAUSE it is different than the Rolands, Korgs and Virus synthesizers.

I had a Virus Indigo that I loved, I used it mostly to create unique and otherworldly sounds(a perfect example of this use is Richard Baberari from Porcupine Tree), so most of the dance/techno stuff was overwritten because that's not my thing. I'm not a sound designer but it seems it would be relatively easy to create dance/techno type sounds on the Solaris, especially with the rich pallette of tools to choose from. I also believe it offers a third party sound designer a great opportunity to create they types of sounds Yanni is requesting.

It's my belief as the creator of Solaris who's worked long and hard on getting software Solaris into hardware form, it's John's choice to decide what type of presets best represent the full potential of Solaris.

I can't speak for Yanni but his use of the words "do" and "insist" seem to me his saying in order for him to justify making the plunge on Solaris he would have to hear European type presets first. I also think he respects you enough to want to see you sell as many units as you can but feels you will miss a part of the marketshare by excluding the type of presets we have been discussing...
my thoughts anyway.

Hmmmm, re-reading this page - I want Yannis and others to know that I really hope my post does not come off sounding like a 'snobbish' or 'elitist' person....of course, I would love to see the Solaris used in as many different ways as it can work for people....after all, as a synth designer, what one hopes for is to create a tool that helps the artist get his creative ideas out from inside the head into reality. I just am trying to be very conservative about what kinds of sounds Solaris will excel at, since there's so much yet to be done. Certainly there will be some who can coax dance/electronic/etc., sounds out of their Solaris.....actually, I'm just as curious to hear what people end up doing with it as anybody else!

peace,
john b.

ThreeFingersOfLove wrote: I *DO* insist that the Solaris needs to have modern sounding patches that could be used in dance/electronica/you-name-it genre.

an "interesting" attitude...

how about a virus / nord lead / microkorg / ion with their 7000 zillions of dance presets? it's all there for you, you don't even need to program it.

maybe the solaris is not the right synth for you?

Yannis,
Howard has not yet started on any presets....certainly I will post examples once we have them, from him (or anyone else). (As many know, Howard was involved with the Virus presets in a big way.) I've also planned for 4 other European programmers to do sounds - actually, more than I've planned for the U.S. side....and I appreciate your concern and commentary regarding this - it's always been a classic area of focus for most synth manufacturers. Also, I need to say, good sound programming does not come cheap! The "vast amount of presets" comment reminds me of the state of things when the DX7 was popular. Hundreds and hundreds of sounds, but not many were very good - there sure were lots of them, though!

But also let me say this - I'm really not so worried about having sounds for dance/techno (not dissing those categories - I just don't really expect the Solaris to 'shine' in those areas). The Virus has those sounds covered quite well. Certainly, if Solaris customers are willing to publish their presets freely, we will provide a way to do that online, and I plan to have that function available for factory preset updates here as well.

I'm not sure how to interpret your statement that you "*DO* insist that the Solaris needs to have modern sounding patches...", except if you are saying that as a prerequisite for you to buy one. As I've said elsewhere, the Solaris will not be for everyone. Also, it's quite true that it is a very 'deep' machine in some respects, and that it will take time for preset development to thoroughly show off all that it is capable of. Hopefully over time the Solaris will gain a reputation for specific sound categories, as has the Virus.

cheers,
john b.

Well,

I am sorry but I think this thread I started needs a bump.

From the few examples I have heard here and there on the Internet and without having any vis-a-vis experience with the Solaris, I think that it sounds American... Not that this is a bad thing, but up till now I haven't heard any "modern" sounding patches.

I think John B is right in that the Solaris sounds quite different from the Virus.

I think I have read somewhere that Howard Scarr (?) is doing some presets for the Solaris. I was wondering whether it is possible to hear any of them once they becaome available.

I *DO* insist that the Solaris needs to have modern sounding patches that could be used in dance/electronica/you-name-it genre. I really can't emphasize how important it is to have good and varied patches from the start. From what I have read in this forum so far, it will be a very deep instrument and it will be very difficult even for experienced programmers to coax good sounds in a noisy environment, in some shop (if it ever gets to the point where the Solaris can actually be demo-ed somewhere). I personally think that it will lure more buyers and thus have a greater commercial success.

Exchanging patches among users and free sets of sounds (offered here... ) is another important factor as well. I base my opinion on the HUGE amount of patches that is available for the Virus. I only hope that the very notion of what a synthesizer is supposed to be doesn't turn against itself.

Regards,
Yannis

Hi all,

John I wanted to suggest that once the Solaris is released, you might want to hire some European programmers to make a couple of banks for it. When the Andromeda was released it had all kinds of American patches and when people went to a store to try it, they didn't have the chance to find what they were after (given that the time was very limited).

This is not to start a flame war and of course it has nothing to do with any racism (about European programmers being better than American ones and so on). It's just that certain styles of music that flourish in Europe demand certain patches and it would be nice to have them in some bank.

Another thing that comes to my mind here (and I will argue that it is one of the main reasons of success for Access synths) is that
there is actually a forum where thousands of patches come and go and Access actually asks from their users what kind of patches they would like to see.

Ironically this same idea (I mean the vast amount of patches) is contrary to very notion of a synthesizer (and one that has plagued electronic music for so many years - but that's another matter). . I guess that very experienced users will delve into the Solaris once it released but there will always be users who just want very good patches to speed up the production process.

Feel free to discuss my ideas.

Regards,
Yannis