John Bowen Solaris video Messe 2010

[seamonkey]

After years of waiting and numerous delays, the wait is proving to be well worth it. The ability to add new features via software updates will allow the Solaris to get even better.
Enjoy
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2010/03/ ... -on-video/

[rharris07]

damn it looks and sounds great!

any idea on the retail unit price?

[seamonkey]

Once all the pre-order sales are filled, then they will go into the retail stores.
I'm not quite sure on the finalized price and would feel uncomfortable speaking until the price is officially determined.
Features are being added as we speak and this could affect the final price.

I've had mine on pre-order for over 2 years, so it's nice to see it finally coming to fruition for us as well as John.

[SubliminalEffect]

WOW, that new formant filter type totally blows me away!

my head is spinning with the possibilities... let's see, that means five vowel positions that can be cross-faded and modulated, multiplied by up to four such formant filters (each fed by separate sources or four channel mixes of sources) then work in the ribbon controller, joystick and step sequencers? this thing is going to be absolutely outrageous!

[ronP]

oo




WoW! Give me a SOLARIS and a tin of THC tablets and I could easily suffer the two-year round trip to Mars without claustrophobia, boredom, or insanity!




oo

[SubliminalEffect]

I regret my prepaid order more and more with every new feature.

i spoke at length with John Bowen at NAMM two months ago and i was definitely under the impression that the feature list was locked for the version 1.0 release.

he was still tweaking details like how turning the knobs would accelerate through the parameter values and whether knob twirling reaches the end of a list of sources/destinations or wraps around to the start of the list again or make it user selectable according to personal preference, etc.

i certainly didn't think that there would suddenly be a whole new formant filter type implemented and especially, not such a well appointed one! actually, i think the various filter types and the modes available within each type, hadn't changed from NAMM the previous year (if i recall correctly).

on the upside, come June, we'll have an even more powerful and capable synthesizer than we were expecting (or had paid for). in whatever synthesizer buying demographic that i fall in, Solaris has me totally salivating! plastic Korg M50s in camouflage paint jobs (or whatever designer color it is this year), not so much...

[boxed]

Wow great demo looks and sounds awesome. Hopefully Virtual analogues will finally get the respect they deserve. Which Korg Synths did John Bowen design?

[urgetoplay]

I regret my prepaid order more and more with every new feature.

Why?

[SubliminalEffect]

Wow great demo looks and sounds awesome. Hopefully Virtual analogues will finally get the respect they deserve. Which Korg Synths did John Bowen design?

if i recall correctly, John Bowen was the product manager for the Korg Wavestation and then the original Korg OASYS (productized as the PCI card which served as the research prototype for what eventually became the technology in the OASYS keyboard). i think it was the OASYS synthesizer as software architecture that led him to Native Instruments for the Pro-52 and then onto Creamware/SonicCore.

[polardark]

I don't regret not placing a preorder. I've had enough of waiting for my chimera synthesizers and they only cost about 10% of what the Solaris does.

Just like the Chimera Syntesis bC16 synthesizer, the John Bowen Solaris appears to have become a slightly different product by now for those who placed preorders once.

I don't doubt Mr Bowen's integrity and professionalism but the facts speak for themselves: Nobody who placed a preorder received an actual product yet. Who knows if they ever will?

[Max Websta]

Believe it! Those who made preorders will be getting our Solaris by summer. John personally brought a prototype over to my place to check out. It made me realize how lucky I was to be an early adopter. I don't think people will understand what Solaris is truly capable of until several of us have had them and start making demos.

We got so much more than we bargained for. That's something that never happens with the big synth makers anymore. So thank you to John and his crew for making this synth the best that it can be! Even if that meant a longer waiting period. Things happened that were out of JB's control and he's always communicated everything directly to those of us who jumped on board early. Now we're almost at the finished line. Don't know about your Chimera, but I'll have my Solaris this summer!

[3rdConstruction]

Oh Solaris is most definitely coming. The formant filters & big ribbon are nice surprises, but mostly JBowen has stuck pretty firm to just perfecting the synth according to his original vision. With the ribbon, vector control, & tons of knobs, it'll be a true pleasure for programming & for performance. Plus it sounds pretty damn beefy. I like what I hear from the Messe & NAMM videos way more than the audio demos on his site. I think it was the rotors & the feedback that got me hooked.

[SubliminalEffect]

Plus it sounds pretty damn beefy. I like what I hear from the Messe & NAMM videos way more than the audio demos on his site. I think it was the rotors & the feedback that got me hooked.

as you can imagine, the NAMM acoustic environment can be a difficult place within which to judge the quality of the output from a synthesizer. my ears really perk up when i hear a synthesizer that can cut through the din of noise at NAMM.

as an example, the new Moog Taurus pedal definitely cuts through the NAMM noise barrage - it has a solid, physicality to the sound that is tangible. on the other hand, when i went to check out the Arturia Origin, given it's claim to incorporating models of Yamaha CS-80 and Roland Jupiter 8 components (among other notable classic analog synthesizers) - i was so entirely underwhelmed. i asked their demonstrator to hit me with their best CS-80 and Jupiter 8 sounds... and the Origin cut through the background noise like cardboard that has been soaking in a rain downpour for a week. from what i heard, Origin's emulations/models/whatever just don't cut, they crumble.

i write this because, happily, the Solaris definitely cuts through the noise. depending on what sound you're going for, Solaris can give you solid thumping or extra girth roundness or razor sharp bite. yes, Solaris is built upon software emulations/models too but it's programmers are doing something very right because whatever they are doing differently than Arturia, comes out as a solid, physical sound and not the aural equivalent of soggy cardboard.

my descriptions may be coming out overly vague and metaphorical now. the same thought troubled me at NAMM then, so the last day of the show, i took a portable DAT recorder with me and John Bowen let me spend the last few minutes of the day plugging into the send bus of his tiny Behringer mixer and directly recording some of the Solaris' sounds (but especially concentrating on features like the rotors, the feedback and audio rate modulation).

recorded dry in this manner, the sounds are kind of raw (i.e., unpolished with effects or doctored with dynamics) but it's possible to hear the quality of the modelled components and the pristine internal processing. i'll post these recordings for everyone to listen if i can get John Bowen's permission to do so (after Messe and after i've chopped out the dead space).

[boxed]

Wow great demo looks and sounds awesome. Hopefully Virtual analogues will finally get the respect they deserve. Which Korg Synths did John Bowen design?

if i recall correctly, John Bowen was the product manager for the Korg Wavestation and then the original Korg OASYS (productized as the PCI card which served as the research prototype for what eventually became the technology in the OASYS keyboard). i think it was the OASYS synthesizer as software architecture that led him to Native Instruments for the Pro-52 and then onto Creamware/SonicCore.

Oh cool. I understand from the video he also designed the SC Prophet 5. If he made the Oasys - I guess he must have also designed its spin-offs the Z1 and Prophecy. That's quite a legacy of classic synths to his name.

[pricklyrobot]

There's a pretty thorough bio/resume right there on his site: http://www.johnbowen.com/about.html