John Bowen Synth Design

I tend to agree with regarding Solaris improvement. The idea was just to think if there was an easy and quick way to broaden the Solaris user base. Actually, this would help levering founds for further development. The point was to think about a solution for people either missing the money to buy th...

Easier in some way but remember there are around 1000 parameters so still a lot to do. Rather than inventing a new approach regarding the way to design sounds for Solaris with a software editor, I would rely on the work already done on the keyboard front panel. Maybe it would be possible to re-use s...

MIDI CC is not really a problem as Solaris already use NRPN messages rather than simple MIDI CC. NRPN provide more than 16000 possibility so it should be enough. Transmitting one preset from the Solaris keyboard to an external rack would take 1 second. Is there currently any other MIDI messages tran...

I know you have to include the development, design and marketing cost. And you wouldn't be able to know how to split such costs as long as you do not know how many unit you could sell. :roll: And the number of unit you could sell also depend on the final user price... Vicious circle, or maybe just v...

Personally, I am quite interested by a Solaris expander because: - more affordable because of sparing on keyboard and UI - easier to integrate here as I do not have place for another keyboard - easier to carry when moving around I also thought the software could be translated to Xite plug-in format ...

Regarding what John described as the options to share polyphony among the 4 multi parts, I don't think only one of these options would be available but rather all of them to let you set your multipatch polyphony mapping as you will (with same patch on all notes of one DSP rule: currently 2 notes, ma...

Thanks for the answers John. This help to see things more clearly. The way the Solaris is set up, though currently only mono timbral, reminds me more the way the Noah Ex was working. Fixed predictable voice allocation rather than fuzzy "try it and see what happen" dynamic voice allocation ...

Just Two question, John. Are the IO handled/connected to the "Master FX" DSP or are they connected to the "host" Blackfin MCU ? Is the Master/FX already fully used or would it be possible to have additionnal global FX for each part (at best) ? From what I understood insert FX (of...

Getting a bit off topic now, but ... Quickly: Access Virus have always been based on Freescale 56k/symphony DSP (as were Clavia, Novation, Soundarts, Waldorf ...). Only change on Access side has been DSP model and frequency. TI2 is just faster as TI DSP. I only know to 96 KHz synth engine: Nord modu...

Just one point: the Virus TI uses Freescale DSP, no Sharc. This one is probably not as powerful as Sharc. The Virus TI2 is given for 20 to 90 notes depending on patch complexity (according to access music website). More flexible but less predictable, then. Solaris sound engine running at 96 KHz whil...

Yes, for me, the rack unit should be exactly the same. Sharing the exact same hardware would mean ordering the same board for John, which allow him to get slightly better price on this part to earn some more money which would help further development of both keyboard and rack unit. Besides it would ...

That's just what I meant: as it is now, each of the DSP is statically loaded with modules to perform 2 voices. But the Midi stuff doesn't have to be loaded on the 6th DSP. From what I understood, it is handled by the Blackfin which is the DSP master and tell them what to do. Regarding parameters, ch...

John, just correct me if I am wrong. From what I understood, the Solaris main board include 6 big DSP chip (identical to the 12 big DSP found int the Xite -1: - 1 of them is responsible for audio IO handling and FX - each of 5 remaining DSP is responsible for generating 2 notes with possibly all mod...

Regarding the board size I suspected this as Juergen is really good at clever electronic board design. Just check how much features have been integrated on Xite, A16mk II or B4000+. What about the power switch and CF card then, John ? Are they also on the same board ? Would you mind posting a pictur...

It could be sysex, but as I do not have any Solaris, I cannot check if there are any Sysex already. Only the NRPN are in the documentation...