British synth makers Novation take their now classic Bass Station Rack to the next level. The A-Station is polyphonic, adding 8 voices of polyphony to their 1-unit rack-mount synth. Unlike the original Bass Station and Super Bass Station which were real analog synths, the A-Station gets its voice architecture from the SuperNova synths, which use analog sound modeling. The A-Station has the layout and shape of the famous Bass Stations, but its guts are basically a slimmed down SuperNova.

It has 25 knobs for real-time control, and all knobs transmit MIDI controller messages. The A-Station has three oscillators which provide sawtooth, triangle, sine and pulse width modulation. There's even a simple FM synth engine which can be dialed in for sharpening the sound. Oscillators may be set to Unison or Sync'd operation and a Noise source is also included in the waveform engine. There is a nice lowpass resonant filter with switchable 12 or 24dB/oct slopes and ADSR controls. A second ADSR envelope is available for the oscillators, as well as two LFOs with sample-and-hold and MIDI sync.

On-board effects include reverb and delay. Their send levels can be controlled by the Mod wheel which is a nice effect. A 12-band vocoder is also on-board for processing external mono sounds such as drum loops or vocals. The A-Station's pads sound great when vocoded with external sounds. External sounds can also be used as an oscillator, run through the filters, envelopes, etc. with much better results than were possible on the original Bass Station. There's even a built-in Arpeggiator whose speed synchronization and sweep range can be stored with the program for instant recall. Unfortunately, some of the older Bass Station's problems still have not been addressed in the A-Station. Namely, the lack of a power switch, a puny 2-digit LCD screen, and it's still not multitimbral. But for clean analog sounding synth bass, punchy leads, pads, filter sweeps and more - the A-Station is certainly a great piece of kit to have around! For a cool compact keyboard version check out the K-Station.

Galaktlan

March 19, 2013 @ 11:20 am

It was my first VA synth and I'm still using it sometimes. In addition to the usual pads, leads and basses, if you tweak it enough, you can get very strange ever evolving soundscapes and noises out of it. It has notably higher LFO range than most synths, together with its arpeggio, delay and chorus it can produce very alien ring modulation like sounds. It does not sound very analog, but it's a decent synth. Recommended.

rob lee

January 18, 2013 @ 11:27 am

Just noticed a silver version of this on Ebay, what's the difference? Is there a newer version to this or is the Blue one the latest?

Thanks

Rob

RichieBlue

July 8, 2012 @ 3:51 am

I have this thing and is a mainstay on my sound I have changed the bass sounds to make it more like a taurus and also used the noise generators to make some good weather sounds, Over the years many other synths have come along and gone, Rolands, and the new novations, but I have not yet explored all the sounds from this unit. One of the best buys of equipment in my life.

Audiophonic wAve

March 19, 2012 @ 9:54 pm

Im selling this monster from greece for 200e* -mail me...

dirtkeys

October 9, 2011 @ 11:34 am

i love programming this thing
hands on
love it
...

<54321>

 

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