John Bowen Synth Design

The 3 band eq is really useful to add some color to the patches.
The way the knob are calibrated to edit the frequency is ok for the bass range (40hz-200hz) but is really too slow to go to the mid & hi frequency range quickly.
Could we have for freq 2 & 3 a calibration more based on step changes by 100hz or 500hz than 10hz ? And keep the freq 1 like that, that's the one which is mostly used for bass eq.

Another option, would be to make the acceleration much more fast when pressing shift or turning the big knob ?

Don’t forget you can enter the frequencies of each range directly from the keypad.

jb

Thats what I do, twist and enter numerically. Much better than trying to set an exact number with a small knob.

I have to agree with alexg that the EQs are indeed quite tedious to use. Yes, it's true that one could just enter the required frequency via the keypad, but in my opinion that is a somewhat flawed argument. The whole point about the SOLARIS as a hardware instrument is, that all those knobs and displays allow the user to approach sound design in a much more intuitive way than almost any other modern synth (or software for that matter). In case of the EQ, the SOLARIS falls a bit short of that aspiration.

Here is what's wrong in my opinion:
Our ears perceive frequency in an exponential fashion. One octave means double the frequency. However the EQ frequency on the SOLARIS maps linearly to the encoders. One turn always gives you the same amount of Hertz (which seems to be ca. 85Hz/turn). So if you deal with bass, a single turn can get you from 25 Hz to 110 Hz which makes a huge difference. But if you are trying to adjust the top end, you need almost 12 turns (or thereabouts) just to get from 10 kHz to 11 kHz. This is neither intuitive nor musical.

The solution I think is quite obvious: Just like other frequency related parameters (OSC Pitch, Filter Cutoff etc.), the encoders need to map to the EQ frequency exponentially rather than linearly. For instance there could be a '1 octave per turn' relationship.
I believe this would be a significant improvement.

Christopher wrote:...The solution I think is quite obvious: Just like other frequency related parameters (OSC Pitch, Filter Cutoff etc.), the encoders need to map to the EQ frequency exponentially rather than linearly. For instance there could be a '1 octave per turn' relationship.
I believe this would be a significant improvement.

Yes, you are right.
I'll mention this to Julian as well....

John Bowen wrote:Yes, you are right.
I'll mention this to Julian as well....

Great, thanks!

Great !
Thanks Christopher & John !
And Julian !