John Bowen Synth Design

It's all about sound quality --- and this reviewer used the word "EXQUISITE" to describe sound quality :)

I'm used to high-end sound and, in the end, after you do a few generations, mixes, bounces etc... etc... etc... then you'll really see the value of great sound quality - so I am really excited and looking forward to my SOLARIS arriving to my studio.

[quote="HUROLURA"]As a monotimbral synth I guess the SOLARIS would have met the 16 notes polyphony max from the scope synths ...
And by the way most of us only have 10 fingers, no ? :mrgreen:
[/quote]

Well, if you use your arm... :lol:

yes that will be perfect for the much ignored Chiropteran audience :mrgreen:

Oops! Guess I missed that in the preview copy they sent me....oh my!

Yes, currently it’s a 500 Hz upper limit for the LFOs. (Maybe we should change that to be 500kHz? :-) )

500kHz LFOs?
I think that might be a typo.

[quote="synthwalker"][quote="John Bowen"]I don’t know what the engineers have in mind.[/quote]
Nobody ever knows what engineers have in mind, that's why you have to decide for them :wink:[/quote]

Then, they'll listen carefully to what YOU tell them ...
... and in the end do what THEY want ... :wink:

[quote="John Bowen"]I don’t know what the engineers have in mind.[/quote]
Nobody ever knows what engineers have in mind, that's why you have to decide for them :wink:

I’m not sure about the voice allocation. I would prefer to have it assignable in MultiMode, but I don’t know what the engineers have in mind.

john b.

So this means each of the 5 DSP fires 2 voices (or more in the future) with static voice allocation ? If so will multimode have full dynamic allocation between parts ? Anyway 4 parts multimode should be enough to me.

Yeah, the polyphony has to be a multiple of 5, so, 10, 15, or possibly 20 notes of polyphony would be the thing.

Understood, so this would mean the polyphony could finally be in the minimum 10 voices up to 20 (or any to be determined figure) depending on the preset used for each instrument ... similar to what is possible on scope or on other competitor devices.

[quote="HUROLURA"]Are some of the 6 DSP unused for now John ?[/quote]
They are all being used, 5 for the voice production, and 1 for the Master Effects and other housekeeping issues.

Having a Mulltitimbre Mode doesn’t have anything to do with an increase of polyphony. The plan was there all along to have a 4-part Multimode, but we had to finish the other synth parts first, and this just would have added another long delay, because it’s a bit more complicated to code.
Increasing the polyphony has to do with optimizing the DSP allocation, which is why there is an OFF position in the Oscillator Type. All my plug-ins do this - if an object is not being used, then it is not included in the DSP calculation. This has not been implemented in the current OS yet, and so it’s something that needs to be reviewed, to see if doing so would gain us more polyphony in those presets that don’t use all 4 oscs, for example. (This means the polyphony would be a variable, not a fixed number).

john b.

As a monotimbral synth I guess the SOLARIS would have met the 16 notes polyphony max from the scope synths ...
And by the way most of us only have 10 fingers, no ? :mrgreen:

The multipart should be the main next update feature, espaecially if it allow raising the max polyphony from 10 to 20 notes ...

Are some of the 6 DSP unused for now John ?

Great review, and the few "cons" the reviewer mentioned are all due to be corrected in time. Double polyphony via OS update? "Kewl!"

Congratulations JB, on an absolutely glowing review. Well deserved.