John Bowen Solaris - New Presets and Demo

Published on Mar 2, 2017 Stephen Hummel

"Volume 8 of the 'Circuits and Strings' series of studio jam videos from subtractiveLAD aka: Stephen Hummel.

My usual musical meanderings were pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of John Bowen's Solaris synthesizer in my studio.

I made some of the factory preset patches for when the synth was originally released years ago. Having it around again has been great and I've pretty much been lost in patch-making heaven since it got here. I thought it would be fun to show you the patches that I have made so far, with short little musical pieces to help demonstrate each preset. Some of the modulation stuff is more exaggerated than what I would normally do in a track but it is to show some of what the synth is capable of. Most of the preset demos feature music that I recorded as MIDI data which is then sent back into the synth from Reaper - just wanted my hands free for the joystick and ribbon, etc.

All sounds are from the Solaris only, no other effects or processing, with the exception of a little Verbzilla on the Blade Runner patch...

I feel like I've only scratched the surface on this thing and new ideas keep crowding my brain.

PS: The wooden end cheeks are taken off of this unit as it was being used for programming updates before coming to me."

John Bowen Solaris - More Presets and Demo 2

Published on Mar 8, 2017

"Volume 9 of the 'Circuits and Strings' series of studio jam videos from subtractiveLAD aka: Stephen Hummel.

With this set of presets I wanted to explore some more classic timbres, along with sounds that only the Solaris could do. These presets are created using only the Solaris sound / effects engine (no samples or external effects besides the occasional touch of reverb).

I have made Wavetable-based patches that, in some cases, lean more towards a Waldorf Wave in character, while others lean towards a PPG Wave 2.3...

Some patches are decidedly Moog in flavor, with some exploring a more hybrid Memorymoog-style character (CEM oscillators with Moog filter) and others a more pure Moog sound (Moog oscillators and filters).

There are patches that are FM-based and some that come close to modeling acoustic instruments. I also think I got very close to the original Oberheim "Jump" timbre...

I will be delivering all of the presets that I make to John Bowen and he will send them out to the Solaris users."