John Bowen Synth Design

It just occured to me that I have been using a low DSP SDK Reverb for Solaris that is quite good.
I do have hardware reverbs that I could bus into my analog mixer that distributes my sounds to various cabinets including a Rotary live, which I plan on having Solaris use also.
Will there be a way to use a DSP verb in Solaris, or do I need to go into the project window, or bus a hardware verb?

This is a non important issue really, as I have work arounds, but was just curious.


Your Friend & Mine,

Jimmy,

I think this is a question regarding the software plug-in version of Solaris. This topic needs to be moved to that discussion area....

To answer, you can load any DSP reverb into one of the 2 Insert FX slots in the plug-in's Miscellaneous page in the lower right area. (I just checked again - these are Stereo FX Inserts currently.)

John B.

I do that. I also bus into the project a Lexicon using the External Effects Module via AES/EBU.
I was speaking of the options for the hardware synth.
I usually despise reverb on synthesizers of the analog nature, but hardware Solaris seems to be much, much more than a one trick Pony.

Ah, you mean, will the Solaris have an internal reverb as one of the effects?
We don't have it currently for v1, but we have discussed this, and will have one in there for the next v1.1 OS.

-john b.

That is excellent news, and I am sure will make some Cats happy.
I occasionally have dreams about Solaris instead of fine babes, I often wonder just how anazing this will be in a couple of years.
Knowing your infamous customer support and service, it will be downright sick.
If you remember Boris from Messe, he is making some really fine sounding Reverbs that use very little in terms of resources.
I ran Solaris through a new one of his devices using percussive metallic textures and it sounds way cool.

Thanks For Your Replies.

Again, why should solaris be a workstation in first place.
effects are nice and needed to make those overwhelming demo preset sounds for the testing in the shop.
And yes I know that even Andromeda has one.

But as you write yourself, reverbs are not the domain of synths.

If a reverb doesn't make it onto the Solaris it is fine by me . We use a barrage of fx in the studio from Waves right down down to Alesis /Lexicons. I think for all purposes a great sounding deep synth shouldn't be compromised by using valuable resources in reverb. This is a total reversal of a position of mine earlier in the year, but thinking of it it makes more sense. BTW, JB when is the birth date ?

"Birth date" still unknown exactly, but plan is some time in December.

john b.

birth month is also good news

scope4live wrote:That is excellent news, and I am sure will make some Cats happy.

Me being one of them =)

I was just combing through the online videos and that was the one glaring omission from the effects section. I use reverb fairly often, and particularly on pads. I am heavily considering selling my Virus TI to get a Solaris and this was one of the few things really making me second guess.

For those questioning what the need is for reverb? Some of us aren't only planning on using the Solaris in a studio and would like to take the synth, with all those patches we tweaked for hours out to shows, with the luxury of all effects settings being able to be recalled. If you edited a patch for hours and found that it sounded best with a certain reverb setting, why would you not want to be able to have that patch sound the same without having to adjust two devices?

Can't wait to try one of these synths.

That's correct, we will not have reverb as an effect. There were a few choices, but the one I wanted to use is by Sonic Timeworks, and we still have to work on how 3rd party code is incorporated and protected.

-john b.

p.s. I would say if you really love your Virus TI, you should keep it - it has a very strong character to the sound (algorithm design) that I don't hear Solaris doing.

John Bowen wrote:That's correct, we will not have reverb as an effect. There were a few choices, but the one I wanted to use is by Sonic Timeworks, and we still have to work on how 3rd party code is incorporated and protected.

-john b.

Do you think you'll have reverb available in a future OS update then?

John Bowen wrote:p.s. I would say if you really love your Virus TI, you should keep it - it has a very strong character to the sound (algorithm design) that I don't hear Solaris doing.

That's the thing though, I love my Virus's FX section for sure, but the overall character of the sound, the interface, and flexibility I'm not in love with. The Solaris, from what I've been able to see and hear on the internet and from the perspective of flexibility seems like a great fit for the way I program. I really like the character of the Solaris's raw sound from what I've heard thus far.

OK, just to reiterate, will there be an effects section on the Solaris? If so, what effects will be available? Personally, I would like at least a decent, basic set (reverb/chorus/delay).

Yes, the effects have been listed in the specifications for some time: http://www.johnbowen.com/solaris-specifications.html

"Effects - Phaser, chorus/flanger, delay, and 3-band EQ effects are available. The series order of the FX is user-definable. There are also three (3) Insert Effects, which can be pre- or post-filter. These are Decimation, BitChop, and Distortion."

As for reverb - this will definitely be added in a future OS, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

-john b.

Thanks for the confirmation, JB!