John Bowen Synth Design

Been playing with the new sequencer function and am having a ball! It would be great if we could chain sequences that are different in some kind of way, or chain different presets that have different sequences ? Think equinoxe 7 of jean michel jarre What would be great, too, is if we could choose t...

If you haven’t looked at johnbowen.com lately, you will see we have a new look! You can link directly there by clicking on the John Bowen Synth Design logo here in the upper left.

If you are here in the Forum and want to link directly to my new Website, just click on the John Bowen Synth Design logo in the upper left of the screen!

Looking at the list, this is the converter part I see for the new board: PCM3168APAPR

No, the only display that you can adjust contrast would be the central LCD unit, and you have to open up the synth to access it. For the 2x40 text displays, I recommend the OLED versions, as they are directly replaceable, and give a better contrast. I use the following part from Sunlike Display: AL4...

Here is the new information about the changes in v2.1 OS for the Solaris sequencer and arpeggiator.

After almost a year of thinking about how best to change the Solaris sequencer functions, Jim Hewes (minorguy) has completely reworked the sequencer code and produced what I think is a very exciting new way to create and manipulate patterns. He took in many suggestions from myself and others (specia...

Hello Solaris Owners, We are in the final stages of developing the new (retrofittable) Rev 2 motherboard! I am now taking orders for the Rev 2 upgrade and have contacted everyone on my Solaris Owners’ List, however, if you did not receive this, please contact me directly at info@johnbowen.com if you...

Following up on the previous topic about ratcheting - there’s some questions as to how best to implement it, so I’d like to know if you use this, what you would like to have in terms of settings for it. We currently have an overall random ratcheting probability percent, plus the ability to set a ste...

Thanks for posting! Great to see the Solaris in use.

John

Here’s a 14 min video that goes into more detail about the forthcoming 2.1 OS Sequencer functions:
https://youtu.be/6pOpO1ai5wY

Excellent! "record (the keyboard)" alone would be a much valuable addition. Do you mean a real-time recording of whatever you play? I know we aren’t set up for that at the moment. I'm not sure what resources that would require. With the new sequencer, you do load the notes by playing the ...

For a long time I’ve had requests to update the sequencer functions of the Solaris, and it’s been on the list once we got the 4-part multi-timbre v2.x OS done. Jim has been hard at work implementing a number of new features in a major overhaul of the Solaris sequencer and arpeggiator code, and we ar...

You can construct a very basic piano sound from 4 samples mapped across the keyboard. First we have to find the best samples for that, which can sound decent being stretched across the keyboard. Usually the lower samples are longer and higher ones shorter, of course. I will see if I can put together...

Make sure the Tuning in the System page is at zero. If that is correct, then possibly an analog control somehow got reset? You can find the Selftest Menu by pressing 1-3-8 together. From there you can find a calibration for the wheels, ribbon, and joystick (all of which could be offsetting pitch). U...