John Bowen Synth Design

Don't forget about holding the shift button while turning a parameter knob, to swap its acceleration mode, ie slow, precise controllers like LFO frequency become faster. I also find that I rotate the controllers by sliding my finger vertically along the grippy sides, versus 'twirling' them between finger and thumb as you might with a fatter knob. Nice design feature, imho.

Interesting. How much are you using the data wheel? I find myself using it a lot to browse patches, but not as much for patch editing. If I want an exact value for a parameter, I usually use the keypad. (Which, by the way, is an incredibly useful thing to have -- the only other synth I have that has one is a Roland S-750 sampler with the RC-100 remote control.)

I don’t like to use Wrap, but I do find myself double-clicking on the object’s Select button to get to the top menu - and I do that a LOT! (This means, for example, I want to get to the first Main page for Osc 1, so I just double-click the Osc 1 button.)

Another ‘quick’ thing I do is use the keypad to zero out values - first I turn the knob of the desired parameter (to tell Solaris which one I want to edit), then hit 0 and Enter. I’ll also enter values from the keypad when the numbers are too large to get to quickly by turning the knob or scrolling the alpha dial, such as higher frequencies for the EQ.

One of the things I've really been impressed with (now that I've finally got a bit of time to build some patches!) is how quick it is to navigate parameters on the Solaris. It has turned out to be every bit as good as I'd hoped back when we had the discussion here about the page displays and page buttons. The only thing that has taken even a little bit of getting used to is being aware of the MAIN/MOD button setting; at first, I had a few episodes where I couldn't find a parameter because I was looking for a main parameter in the mod pages or vice versa. But it only took a couple of hours to train myself to check this when I go to a screen.

How many people are using the "wrap" page mode? I've got it on. It allows me to fat-finger through pages to get to the parameter I want. I really should learn which parameter is on which page, but fat-fingering through the pages is just too easy. :lol: