Eclipsed Sounds
- 3 days ago

SOLARIA Indiegogo Page Update Archive

An archive containing all of the updates posted to SOLARIA's Indiegogo crowdfund page.

Indiegogo Page | SOLARIA Main Page | Other SOLARIA Articles

All Indiegogo updates were written by Taylor Hennessy.

Note: SOLARIA's name was changed during the development process - this change happens in the 8th update, so updates prior refer to the project as "SOLARIS".

May 16, 2021 | First Guest Artist Reward Revealed! Edlinklover Button Badge

We've revealed the first of our guest artist rewards: the button badge by artist Edlinklover! Remember: the guest artist rewards are exclusive to this crowdfund, and there will be no way to get them after it ends!

Edlinklover is a Japanese-American hafu artist, honing their craft since 2011. Their works often feature warm colors in an anime-inspired textured art style. They discovered vocal synths in 2012 and have been passionate about them ever since, making them the prime focus of their work. They have been active in the vocal synth community not only as an artist, but as a writer and hobbyist game developer as well.

https://twitter.com/Edlinklover

https://edlinklover.tumblr.com/

https://www.instagram.com/edlinklover/?hl=en

We were very excited to work with Eddie for this project! Check out the rest of our reveals schedule below!

Thank you for supporting the Virtual Singer SOLARIS campaign! Please be sure to share our campaign to help SOLARIS get fully funded!

May 19, 2021 | Next Guest Artist Reward Revealed! MystSaphyr Acrylic Charm

May 27, 2021 | Next Guest Artist Reward Revealed! staySOCKY Acrylic Charm

Jun 12, 2021 | Q&A Livestream 2! Fan-art spotlight, DVD Case reveal, & more

Jun 20, 2021 | PayPal Contribution Link, Package Reveal, & Contest!

Jun 22, 2021 | Funding Update: Private Investment & PayPal Update

Jun 26, 2021 | SOLARIS is Funded! + Final Stream

Jun 28, 2021 | Development Schedule, Name Change: "SOLARIA", Design Contest

Thank you all for your overwhelming support of the SOLARIA (SOLARIS) Synthesizer V Project! In this update we'll go over the final funding breakdown, current timeline for development, another contest we will be running in the meantime as we focus on creating the voice library, and details on the shift from the name "SOLARIS" to "SOLARIA" for the project. Final Funding Breakdown Our final funds are as follows: $42,941 (107%) on Indiegogo, $1,476.93 (3.7%) through PayPal, and $6,000 (15%) from a private investor. Overall, this is a total fund of $50,417.93, or 126% of our goal! Thank you so much for your overwhelming amount of support! Extra funds will go towards completing as much of our stretch goal as possible: we will have more data gathered from our singer, and additional key art illustrations of SOLARIA for software users to use at their leisure. (Please see the "Design Contest" section of this update for more information) Development Timeline

Based on our more than complete funding for the project, we will be able to follow the original project timeline closely!

Over the next 2 weeks, Indiegogo will be processing the funds for distribution to our team, and so for the time being we will be compiling final numbers and working with our manufacturer for the small merchandise to complete the first phase of physical rewards distribution. (Scheduled to be completed in December) We will also be completing the Concept Art PDF and Production Diary PDF digital rewards with behind-the-scenes snapshots from throughout the campaign in order to begin digital rewards distribution. (Scheduled to complete in August).

Once the funds are received from Indiegogo, we can move forward with data creation and processing from our voice provider Emma Rowley, which will lead into creation of the AI library. The procedure of collecting all of the necessary singing samples and processing them for the voice creation should take 2-3 months, meaning that we will be on course for the software voice being tested and ready for distribution scheduled in January 2022. The physical package version likewise will be ready for distribution as scheduled. (February of 2022)

We will post updates at least bi-weekly on the crowdfund page as a check-in, and more frequently on social media. When there is visible progress to be announced, we will post special updates here and on all platforms as done so thus far.

Project Name Change: "SOLARIS" to "SOLARIA"

We're sure you've noticed, but we are undergoing a slight change of name for the project.

Over the course of the crowdfunding campaign, we made the difficult decision to announce a slight change of product name: from "Synthesizer V SOLARIS" to "Synthesizer V SOLARIA." We could not announce this before the end of the crowdfunding campaign, as many things on the crowdfunding page, but this minor change was a necessary one that we feel suits the project much better as a whole.

This change was decided on for a variety of reasons, but the primary reasons were to avoid the abundance of other characters, IPs, and products named SOLARIS, and to more quickly evoke the idea of a singer on name alone ("SOLARIA" being a portmanteau of "solar" and "aria"). This change will not affect much regarding the project as a whole, just a letter here and there. We are in the process of updating everything that can be changed to the new name, so please bear with us as we make this shift over the course of the next week as we move into the production phase!

SOLARIA Alternative "Eclipsed Design" Contest

As the software and audio side of our project progresses behind the scenes over the next few months, we will be holding a second, bigger contest for supporters interested in the character mascot side of the project: a contest for the creation of an alternative design!

Prompt: Create an alternative design for Synthesizer V SOLARIA based on the theme of an Eclipse, and the meaning of the company name “Eclipsed Sounds” as described thusly: "The name “Eclipsed Sounds” refers to the idea that when a songwriter uses a virtual singer, their own “voice” as the songwriter eclipses, or becomes more important than, the software vocal they are using, and in that way we hope that using singing synthesizers can help to center & achieve the exact artistic vision of the songwriter." Prizes: One winner will be chosen as the official alternate “Eclipsed” design for SOLARIA. This winner’s design will be illustrated by Superstellar for a special edition of her physical software, given only to the winner, along with one set of SOLARIA Superfan level rewards from the crowdfunding campaign.

Guidelines & How To Enter:

Illustrate both a front and back view of your design
Maintain official characteristics of “SOLARIA” (skin tone, hair color/length)
Submit your final entry to eclipsedsounds@gmail.com before midnight eastern time on August 1st.
Include contact information such as social media accounts & artist alias for attribution in your email
You may enter up to 2 designs.

Design Usage:

The winner’s design will be illustrated as a new key art piece for SOLARIA and will be distributed, with attribution, for free usage by SOLARIA Synthesizer V library users. The winning design will, after being chosen, belong to Eclipsed Sounds for any and all purposes of reproduction, with appropriate attribution.

For those primarily interested in the music software & production side of the SOLARIA project, please stay tuned for later in our development schedule!

Thank you for your support thus far, we hope that you will continue to support SOLARIS into the future, now as SOLARIA!

Jul 29, 2021 | July Update: Contest ending, Current status, Reference Sheet

Thank you for your patience waiting for this update - we have quite a few small milestones to report! Before that, just a reminder that our alternative "Eclipsed Design" contest for SOLARIA is still accepting entries for the next 2 days! So, if you are interested in the character mascot side of this production, be sure to check it out in our previous update! Current Status: Indiegogo Funds & Final Backer Totals Indiegogo has released the funds to us, so we have been able to make our final payments to guest artists, our first payments to producers, and move forward with the recording stage with Emma Rowley and make steps forward in the small merchandise production process. This means that a lot of our current work is "behind the scenes" as it stands now, but there will be progress to be shown soon! Here are the final backer counts for each tier, including PayPal contributions! There was one instance of a supporter "upgrading" their digital SOLARIA tier to a physical reward tier through PayPal, so there will be just one difference compared to the Indiegogo page.

Non-software digital rewards will be distributed in mid to late August to all supporters. In addition, we will be verifying shipping addresses, and collecting preferred display names for our "thank you video" which will be posted upon SOLARIA's software release! SOLARIA Character Mascot Reference Sheet As part of this project, we created a unique character mascot to represent the vocal to bring some more personality and an optional visual aspect to the virtual singer software. We have received many requests for a full reference sheet for the SOLARIA character, and thanks to our artist Superstellar, we now have a full reference image to show you!

Thank you for your support. We have been busy behind the scenes here at Eclipsed Sounds working to make SOLARIA as good as she can be! While it will be some time before the SOLARIA AI voice can be demonstrated publicly, our next update in mid-late August will announce the winner of the design contest, notify our backers that non-software digital rewards have been distributed, and update the production status of our wave 1 physical rewards!

Aug 29, 2021 | Design Contest Winner & Digital Supporter Rewards!