John Bowen Synth Design

John Bowen wrote:No final decision, but I expect we will have some form of step sequencer in there - it's too important in light of today's method of making sounds.

-john b.

I have to agree with you john, I definitely would like a 16 step sequencer. I sold off some more stuff and ordered a half-filled dot.com porta 22 modular and it would be nice to use the Solaris to run some sequences through hopefully saving me the expense of buying a hardware version.

I am glad with anything, if it does not delay Solaris first delivery

seamonkey wrote:I sold off some more stuff and ordered a half-filled dot.com porta 22 modular and it would be nice to use the Solaris to run some sequences through hopefully saving me the expense of buying a hardware version.

Are you meaning, you would expect the Solaris step sequencer to output control gates and CVs to run the modulars?!?

Hi John, I've never had an onboard sequencer before so my knowledge of it's possibilities are limited. My thought was I would run midi out to the midi in of the modular and trigger the notes much like an arpeggiator would.

Hmm, I wasn't planning to have the internal step sequencer send out MIDI notes! The sequence values are not just notes, but for control signals as well, and I don't know if we could even send those events out MIDI.

The same with the arpeggiator - just for internal use only.

-john b.

Thanks John, that's no problem. It will still be nice to have a basic sequencer to use within the Solaris. It's really just the icing on the cake.

I don't see the point of having an internal sequencer or arpeggiator not able to send out midi notes for further edition with a software sequencer. But that's just my view anyway so I can understand if people want this option.

Could you please post which synths send out MIDI with their arpeggiators or sequncers? I need to investigate...
John b.

Yamaha Motif XS for instance, I love the editor BTW for the synth, I've got the rackmount edition of the XS.

Dave Smiths (Poly) Evolver also, that one has a special destination that can be set to midi out, so you can use even 3 lines for the internal synth and 1 line for the midiout port. The Prophet08 aswell I think as it is based on the Evolver.

SepticStudio wrote:Yamaha Motif XS for instance, I love the editor BTW for the synth, I've got the rackmount edition of the XS.

Dave Smiths (Poly) Evolver also, that one has a special destination that can be set to midi out, so you can use even 3 lines for the internal synth and 1 line for the midiout port. The Prophet08 aswell I think as it is based on the Evolver.

Thanks!
I took a look at the Poly Evolver manual, and I now understand how it can send a sequence track out over MIDI - since the sequencer, when enabled, only plays one voice of the four available voices, it is essentially a monophonic sequence stream, although it says you can have all 4 sequence rows outputting MIDI note-on events. (I guess this means you can feed a polyphonic synth this MIDI stream, and it will play 4 notes of the same timbre at once? Can someone verify?)

However, it seems the Prophet '08 does not share this functionality - at least, I could not find anything in the manual saying it does. Likewise for the Arpeggiator (and of course, the Evolver series do not have arpeggiators).

I did find that the Virus TI has a parameter to send out MIDI notes from the arpeggiator.

Looking at the Motif XS manual, I see the Transmit MIDI channel for each track, and I think for a workstation, of course they do this (I'm sure now that Korg workstations must as well).

I would agree with your point more if the Solaris was designed with that workstation approach, but the step sequencer we are planning is more of an 'event sequencer', for processing internal parameter values, and not so much a full-fledged music composition sequencer (more along the lines of the PolyEvolver). I mean, each sequence is a maximum of 16 notes, unlike the workstation approach where you are transmitting entire MIDI songs (which can run 10 minutes long, or more!).

We can take a look at transmitting a single voice's sequencer output, as the PolyEvolver does, since that makes the voice handling much simpler, but I won't say it can be implemented in the first release, if at all....it's something I have to discuss with the coders.

Thanks for your input,
John B.

Maybe also Arturia Origin (also 4 16-step seq instances)
... and CreamWare NOAH !!!

On the Noah Ex you can choose between the arpeggio or the step sequencer for each of the 4 so called "slots" (multitimbral part actually).


What can be ouput through MIDI is note on/off signal (with note giving some kind of MIDI CV signal and time between Note on/Note off giving some sort of MIDI GATE signal). Then you can also have information sent out as Velocity or any realtime MIDI control signal (expression pedal, modulation wheel, breath control ...)
Some fixed settings could be good for a start. Midi control CC messages capabilities would be better.

My 2 cents

HUROLURA wrote:Maybe also Arturia Origin (also 4 16-step seq instances)...

I had a look into the Origin's Manual - there wasn't anything about being able to send arpeg or sequence data out via MIDI as we've been discussing (though it might do it, I don't know).

-john b.

i wouldn't spend too much time reading manuals of other gear to find out about their workstation capabilities, john. the solaris is not supposed to be a workstation anyway.
an "event sequencer" as planned is fine, however. more is not required, from my point of view.

Agreed. This ain't no Guitar Center Synth....

But I like the idea of sending out MIDI CC's to other synths to automate Filter sweeps, freq.'s & Rez. knobs, etc.
I use my Expressionmate for that live already.

Don't worry guys, John Bowen never sleeps, he will be adding stuff to this just like he does with his other untouchable creations.
This product will never be discontinued as it is an open ended DSP monster.

A few years from now I will set it up at the gig, turn it on, and come back hours later to pack it up and collect my cash. I'll be slamming Jager's at the bar while I do a wireless mix with it. I'll even have Cocktail waitresses twisting knobs while the Barkeep sets 'em up.

I have seen soft Solaris grow over the years, so this ain't no one trick Pony.

It Shall Be The Fattest Bastard Ever Known To Mankind.

scope4live wrote:It Shall Be The Fattest Bastard Ever Known To Mankind.

Are you much too romantic?