John Bowen Synth Design

You can always get another XT, Solaris are a boutique/niche instrument, not found at the corner music store.
I had the Waldorf Q and thought it was a great little rack, but it was too digitally bright and didn't mix with my analog synths well, Solaris and the analog rackmounts (SE-1) and EML-101 are powerful and georgeous together, like a knockout foxy personal trainer.

[quote="Octupole"]I have both the Microwave XT (Rack) and the Solaris - and love them both, and would never sell either of them.[/quote]
I have the XT rack but never got around to really play with it. I also have a Solaris with my name on it, albeit not here right now. Has to be built first... :wink:

My main reason for asking was trying to justify that I should sell the XT to (partially) finance the Solaris. You have just made this rather hard to do as I feel I have not done the thing justice and hence will have to get it up and running and try it out more thoroughly this time. I have unfortunately not the 30-voice expansion in mine, but rather the vanilla version. Still, you have got me intrigued.

Bother.

So what will I then sell, that is the question... Something has to go, if not for the very pathetic reason of making space in the room.

I have both the Microwave XT (Rack) and the Solaris - and love them both, and would never sell either of them. One advantage of the Solaris is that you can use four oscillators per voice and each of them can have its own wavetable (as opposed to one common wavetable for the two oscillators of the MW), and its own filter and VCA. There are more different filter models in the Solaris (although I think both the MW and Solaris filters sound excellent). So, to my opinion, from the point view of sound design possibilities, the Solaris outperforms the MW. On the other hand, an advantage of the MW ist the multimode (if needed) and polyphony (in case of the 30 voice extension).

I was just watching [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86cwGBft58&feature=em-subs_digest]Katsunori Ujiie demonstrating the Waldorf XTk on YouTube[/url] and that got me thinking about the wavetables in the Solaris. Those are Waldorf tables, right? How far does this Waldorfishness of the Solaris go, really?

Would you, who have got your Solarises (how do you make a plural noun of a latin adjective?) already, consider the Solaris equivalent with the Waldorf XT/XTk?

I was thinking about both the wavetables as well as filters and everything. (I know - only 10 voices as opposed to this XTk on steroids with 30 voices. Golly!) Still, the question is if the Solaris, being the mother of all synth chameleons, is a fair substitute for an XT, would you say?


K