by John Bowen » Fri Sep 25, 2015 4:15 pm
I realize that I needed to update my initial post from 2012, as 5 more banks have been added since then. Here’s a brief explanation of the factory presets. You can download several files that list all of them here:
The Solaris ships with 10 banks (0 to 9) of presets, as follows:
Bank 0 - John Bowen bank...I have a number of pads, leads, basses, and a few others, plus some templates. 61 presets.
Bank 1 - Marco Paris bank - a very nice selection of synth sounds - pads, leads, chordal, arpeggiation. 128 presets.
Bank 2 - Carl Lofgren bank - Carl wanted to address the 'Berlin school' of techno and more current sound design. 91 presets.
Bank 3 - combined set by Howard Scarr (22 presets), Kurt Ader (27 presets), Stephen Hummel (12 presets), and Paul Kuchar (10 presets). Various sounds for film soundtrack work, with a few 'gigging' sounds.
Bank 4 - Ken Elhardt bank...I recently contracted Ken Elhardt to make a number of presets that were more in the acoustic realm. He said that most weren't interested in synthetic version of acoustic or orchestral instruments, since sampling now satisfies that space, but I wanted to see how he would do with the Solaris. With 52 presets representing strings, brass, organs, flutes/recorders, guitars, tympani, etc. Ken also produced over 25 audio examples using his presets (none of which use samples of any kind - all synthesized). you can browse through these on line at the Solaris Sound Cloud page:
http://soundcloud.com/solaris-synth/sets
Bank 5 - Jimmy V. bank - classic analog - thick and powerful! Jimmy V. is a full-time performing musician with years of experience. He has created extensive performance notes for his presets, with some very creative uses of the ribbon, joystick, and wheels.
Bank 6 - Robert Wittek - Robert produced a set of 51 presets highlighting the Waldorf waveshapes. Well documented. He also has posted an extensive review (in German):
http://www.synthesizer.at and created the 36 minute Audio Workshop demo that has impressed so many! (You can find the review here:
http://synthesizer.at/synthesizer/Solaris/solaris.htm)
Bank 7 - Toby Emerson - Toby’s first bank of sounds for Black Octopus, called Event Horizon 1. He now has a second set (Event Horizon 2) for sale at:
http://blackoctopus-sound.com/product/e ... n-solaris/
Bank 8 - Christopher Eckert Collection - Christopher has been posting a number of files for users, and here I’ve collected all of his work into one bank. Well documented.
Bank 9 - François N. (Kalaspace) - 90 presets from a French contributor known online as kalaspace. Lots of pad sounds, his favorite.
I didn't focus necessarily on the 'gigging' preset approach, as these areas are covered extremely well by all of the 'rompler' boards on the market (currently dominated by Nord, Korg, and Yamaha). Without a lot of sample playback memory or ROM samples, the Solaris is probably not going to compete in that area. (We have 32 MB of sample RAM.)
I realize that I needed to update my initial post from 2012, as 5 more banks have been added since then. Here’s a brief explanation of the factory presets. You can download several files that list all of them here:
The Solaris ships with 10 banks (0 to 9) of presets, as follows:
Bank 0 - John Bowen bank...I have a number of pads, leads, basses, and a few others, plus some templates. 61 presets.
Bank 1 - Marco Paris bank - a very nice selection of synth sounds - pads, leads, chordal, arpeggiation. 128 presets.
Bank 2 - Carl Lofgren bank - Carl wanted to address the 'Berlin school' of techno and more current sound design. 91 presets.
Bank 3 - combined set by Howard Scarr (22 presets), Kurt Ader (27 presets), Stephen Hummel (12 presets), and Paul Kuchar (10 presets). Various sounds for film soundtrack work, with a few 'gigging' sounds.
Bank 4 - Ken Elhardt bank...I recently contracted Ken Elhardt to make a number of presets that were more in the acoustic realm. He said that most weren't interested in synthetic version of acoustic or orchestral instruments, since sampling now satisfies that space, but I wanted to see how he would do with the Solaris. With 52 presets representing strings, brass, organs, flutes/recorders, guitars, tympani, etc. Ken also produced over 25 audio examples using his presets (none of which use samples of any kind - all synthesized). you can browse through these on line at the Solaris Sound Cloud page:
http://soundcloud.com/solaris-synth/sets
Bank 5 - Jimmy V. bank - classic analog - thick and powerful! Jimmy V. is a full-time performing musician with years of experience. He has created extensive performance notes for his presets, with some very creative uses of the ribbon, joystick, and wheels.
Bank 6 - Robert Wittek - Robert produced a set of 51 presets highlighting the Waldorf waveshapes. Well documented. He also has posted an extensive review (in German): http://www.synthesizer.at and created the 36 minute Audio Workshop demo that has impressed so many! (You can find the review here: http://synthesizer.at/synthesizer/Solaris/solaris.htm)
Bank 7 - Toby Emerson - Toby’s first bank of sounds for Black Octopus, called Event Horizon 1. He now has a second set (Event Horizon 2) for sale at: http://blackoctopus-sound.com/product/event-horizon-2-128-patches-john-bowen-solaris/
Bank 8 - Christopher Eckert Collection - Christopher has been posting a number of files for users, and here I’ve collected all of his work into one bank. Well documented.
Bank 9 - François N. (Kalaspace) - 90 presets from a French contributor known online as kalaspace. Lots of pad sounds, his favorite.
I didn't focus necessarily on the 'gigging' preset approach, as these areas are covered extremely well by all of the 'rompler' boards on the market (currently dominated by Nord, Korg, and Yamaha). Without a lot of sample playback memory or ROM samples, the Solaris is probably not going to compete in that area. (We have 32 MB of sample RAM.)