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A little Solaris update...


carbon111

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I love the fact that stuff like this is still being made. Sadly, the price of the item is damn high. I hope they sell a ton of them so that I can get one second hand at a later date if I find that I need one, but in this economic climate, with things SURELY having to get a lot worse before they get better, I'm not so sure. That instrument is not something with mass appeal.

 

Props to John Bowen, though. He rocks for doing something like this.

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Even though I applaud what appears to be an excellent synth, I don't think I'll be seeing one in my stable any time soon. For that amount of coin, I'd really need to have a hands-on demo to decide if it would be worth divesting myself of some gear for it to replace.

 

 

I saw it the year before at NAMM, but it was in such a pre-pre-pre prototype stage that I really couldn't get a solid listen to it- I thought "why is someone trying to make another VA, and so expensive?" and barely gave it a second glance....

 

This year, I checked it out on the way to seeing the VAX77 just down the row in the NAMM basement. I came in with a "meh" attitude and came out blown away. There is a "solidness" to the sound that I have never heard on a digital synth or VA except for maybe recordings of the NED Synclavier. Aside from the amazing interface, it is a very solid piece of gear and most importantly, it sounds just great- digital yet organic. I was able to do very nice analog emulations, and there was the "weight" to the sound that has been missing from all the VA synths I have ever played, including the Q and the Virus.

 

By all means, don't listen to me or Carbon, etc., actually sit down and play one!

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2. Minimoog oscillators (Creamware ABS-12) +

3. Prophet (Creamware ABS Pro 12)+

4. Wavestation+

5. Waldorf Wavetables (PPG Wave)

 

 

How does that actually work with the Wavestation and Waldorf things? Did John license that technology or get some kind of agreement to be able to use/say the Solaris can do Waldorf Wavetables?

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How does that actually work with the Wavestation and Waldorf things? Did John license that technology or get some kind of agreement to be able to use/say the Solaris can do Waldorf Wavetables?

 

 

I'm sure that's what it is. Creamware Modular III came with a Waldorf Ocsillator which was basically a licensed MWII/XT oscillator with 64 (I think) Waldorf tables. The knobs on it were even rendered/drawn to look like XT knobs. Since John also worked on the Scope platform, I'd imagine this was facilitated in some way.

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How does that actually work with the Wavestation and Waldorf things? Did John license that technology or get some kind of agreement to be able to use/say the Solaris can do Waldorf Wavetables?

 

I should have corrected the "Wavestation" thing - it's actually Prophet VS oscillators (i.e. no Korg wavesequencing). John was one of the people who created and built the VS wave set. The VS oscillators can be driven from dedicated vector EGs via the vector mixer (and joystick) for actual "VS style" vector synthesis. I'm dieing to try these through the SSM filter. :eek:

 

As far as the Waldorf thing goes, the oscillators use the same wavetables though they're not completely identical. John and the guys at Sonic Core go way back with the Waldorf guys, so there's a lot of goodwill there. I'm thrilled that my familiar wavetables will all be there and I'm looking forward to building quite a few of my own. :thu:

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When they would have done the 8 voice dual oscillator thing I might would have been interested. But I do not buy 4 voices for over $3k. Sorry.

 

:lol:

 

Last I heard, the polyphony of the Solaris will be no less than 15 voices - and that's when using every single feature.

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Not just the oscillators, practically everything can be used multiple times, all over the place. Just for fun, at NAMM I started setting up a CS-80 structure, with two completely parallel synths with multiple filters, one oscillator each with multiple wave forms, and a sine wave fed back in post filter. It was no problemo!

 

Oh, and I specifically asked JB about the polyphony, and with everything going all at once, they expect around 18-20 voices. With that kind of complexity, I would be more than satisfied with 8....!

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i expect awave in melbourne oz will have em

pity i'm not in the country now!!!

 

this could be the synth a lot of people have been waiting for

killer sound

exceptional synthesis level

fast/easy/fun interface

 

gonna give hard gas if it turns out that way for me.

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That was the best feature on the SH-32 next to the great pads.

 

 

What is the difference algorithmically in the Solaris between this (noise tracking with keyboard) and passing white noise through a band pass filter with key tracking on the resonant frequency? One way to generate band limited (wide sense stationary Gaussian) noise is to generate a random FFT by taking a deviate from a (zero mean) Gaussian distribution with standard deviation equal to the magnitude of the power spectrum for each frequency frequency bin (FFT point), enforce that the FFT be Hermitian so that the inverse FFT is real, and then inverse FFT. I do this all the time in 2D for generating realizations of random surfaces with various properties (for optical modeling). I am curious if this is the algorithm used in the Solaris. Is the advantage that the pitched noise is generated by some dedicated DSP unit so you don't have to use a filter slot to generate pitched noise?

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