Solaris - Should I get it or not

medusa13 · Post by **medusa13** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:29 pm

I just wanted to know something before spending some money:
I have a pulsar II (6dsps) and I wanted to know if that would be enough for a device that seems to be, besides amazing, a little bit dsp hungry.
At the moment, I can’t afford another card, so I just wanted to know this before I buy something I won't be able to use.

Thanks

interloper · Post by **interloper** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:39 pm

Buy it. You can always do multiple takes as you record, or use it in a project that is relatively light.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: interloper on 2004-07-20 12:21 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:39 pm

I've used Solaris for some time on a 4 DSP board and found that still usable.

When trying presets it was best to set the Solaris to single voice, load the preset, see how heavy it was on the DSP meter and add voices as needed (3-4 voices poly was possible on many patches).
This way was more convenient than ansering the 'DSP overload' boxes.

For me it was no big deal sacrificing some (poly) voices - in fact a single Solaris voice can be built from 9 different oscillators (8 of which appear as pairs), which means the max # is 17 osc per voice and 4 different filter types, let alone the modular stuff, FX slots, envelopes and lfos

Imho it's the best bang-for-the-buck Pulsar synth and the most complete, now even contains a kind of Vectron.

You can't go wrong on this one - just pick your preferred synth components from the Solaris menu and don't try to use all at once. Even Ganools (most recent) great (!)presets use only a few components each.
John Bowen did a great job on optimizing the load and unload of parts of the synth engine.

cheers, Tom

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:36 am

Email John Bowen directly and he'll send you a demo - the easy way to find out.

medusa13 · Post by **medusa13** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:15 pm

Thank's very much all of you for your replys.
I guess you're right about mailing John Bowen.

Bye

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: medusa13 on 2004-07-20 13:16 ]</font>

DJ Mosley · Post by **DJ Mosley** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 7:54 pm

I want to get Solaris too. I have a scope professional card. On the most complex patch with 4 voices, how much DSP gets used up?

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:00 pm

For a 15-DSP card, probably about a third to a half. For a 6-DSP card, you'd probably just about fill up your card. Of course, if you want one oscillator and one filter only, that probably wouldn't take up much DSP.

Yes; I'd love new DSP chips from CWA, but that isn't going to happen any time soon.

Shayne