John Bowen Solaris, User Manual

RIBBON CONTROLLER | 15

PERFORMANCE CONTROLS

Octave (Transpose) Up/Down

These buttons should be self explanatory. They change 

the range of the keyboard, but must be pressed before you 

play to get the transposed values. They will not transpose 

keys currently held.

Unison

Activates Unison mode, which is configured in the Home 

menu, page 4.

Seq On

Activates the Sequencer, which is configured in the four 

sequencer tabs (SeqA, SeqB, SeqC, and SeqD) on the 

graphic display.

Arp On

Activates the Arpeggiator, which is configured on the Arp 

tab on the graphic display.

Hold

Has the function of a sustain switch. It does not work with 

the sequencer, as this is a ‘gated’ sequencer, which only 

works when keys are held down. This control can be used 

to “latch” the arpeggiator on.

Tempo

This button is actually a Tap Tempo button as well. Holding 

it down will allow a pop-up on the screen to show the cur-

rent BPM, and allow you to change it with either left most 

knob of the Graphic Display. Tapping the Tempo button will 

determine an average BPM after 2 taps, and will continue 

to average the tempo for subsequent taps. Tempo is stored 

with the preset, but can be overridden (ignored) by setting 

this in the System page. Select ‘Load BPM - ON’ if you 

want the presets to load their programmed tempos.

Enable Part Buttons

Figure 15. 

Enable Part

Enable Part Buttons

These buttons allow you to disable, or mute, the signal 

coming from each of the four mixers. A lit LED above any of 

the buttons means that mixer’s output will be heard. Enable 

Part settings are stored with presets. 

A number of Solaris’s presets have been pro-

grammed to take advantage of the Enable Part 

buttons to alter the preset in a desirable way. When 

creating your own presets, experiment with using 

the Enable Part buttons to allow you to alter your 

sounds on the fly, without having to select a differ

-

ent preset.

Assignable Performance Knobs

Even though you have five text screens to edit parameters, 

doing so will immediately take you out of Preset Mode. 

Also, there are parameters in the graphic display for many 

different functional groups, and you might want to have ac-

cess to these. To give you quick access to any parameter in 

the system, the bottom five knobs below the graphic display 

can be assigned. You use the 

Shift

 button (to the left side 

of the lower row of knobs) to assign these knobs.

Figure 16. Performance Knob Assignment

1.  Holding down the 

Shift

 button, select which of the 5 

Performance Knobs you want to assign by giving it a 

turn.

2.  Continue to hold down 

Shift

, and select the parameter 

you wish to associate with the Performance Knob.

3.  Release the 

Shift

 button. You should see a descriptive 

text string for the assigned knob at the bottom of the 

screen.

As shown in Figure 16, you will also see a +/- % value. The 

Performance Knobs are relative to the programmed value. 

They can add or subtract from the parameter value. Only 

a one-to-one assignment is allowed (one parameter per 

knob). Since the parameters in the text displays are fairly 

easy to reach, usually these Performance Knobs will be 

selected from one of the many soft key pages, but they can 

be any stored Preset parameter you want, to provide quick 

access, and keep the synth in Preset Mode. Performance 

Knob assignments are stored with presets.

Pitch and Modulation Wheels

These function as you might expect. The range of the pitch 

wheel--both up and down--can be set independently using 

the parameters 

PW Up

 and 

PW Down

 in the Home sec-

tion, page 3. Note that since these parameters are bipolar, 

the pitch ranges for up and down movement can be inde-

pendently adjusted and reversed.

Joystick

The 

Joystick

 is a springless controller designed to be used 

with vector synthesis types of sounds. Its X and Y position 

are available in most modulation source lists, so it can be 

used as a real-time controller for most of Solaris’s param-

eters.

Ribbon Controller

The 

Ribbon Controller

 outputs 2 separate control signals. 

If you use a single finger, the output signal for 

Rib1

 and 

Rib2

 are the same. If you use two fingers, the control signal 

associated with the right most finger is output as 

Rib2

.