Novation A-Station
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.
- Demos & Media
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Audio Clip 1 - Hear the A-Station here. Hear its on-board arpeggiator, followed by an FM ringing bell-type sound, followed by some vocoder examples and some Juno pads.
Manual - Download the original owner's manual from SoundProgramming.net.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 8 voices
- Oscillators - 3 osc with Square / Saw / Variable Pulse / Tri / Sine / Double Saw / Double Tri / Double Sine waveforms. Osc 1-2 sync, FM, external audio in (mono)
- LFO - 2 LFOs: triangle, saw, square, sample-and-hold; with panning, speed and delay parameters
- Filter - 12dB / 24dB switchable resonant low-pass filter with programmable output EQ
- Envelopes - 2 ADSR envelope generators plus FM attack/decay
- Keyboard - None
- Effects - distortion, stereo chorus/flanger/phaser, stereo panning, delay and reverb, 12-band vocoder
- Arpeggiator - up, down, up/down, up to 4 octaves, latchable
- Memory - 400 in 4 banks, (200 factory sounds)
- Control - MIDI IN/OUT/THRU
- Date Produced - 2001
- Resources & Credits
Images from Novation - U.K.
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I hate to see descriptions about subtractive synths which have one FM parameter and people are immediately praising it as FM synth implanted to it. Users have said it about Viruses, Waldorfs etc..
Having capability to modulater oscillator with another hardly makes it FM-synthesis. Real full blown FM-synths have HUGE amount of parameters!
But what the heck. It's not perfect world. I've seen even worse descriptions out there.
Like EBAY sellers who sell almost any synth with "ANALOG SYNTHESIZER" headlines (DX7, Blofeld etc.).
Very impressive indeed!
The display hides a multitude of features, though. If there were a software editor available, I would give the A-Station 5 stars.
There's simply no way to program this baby without a manual. Sure, you can tweak away from the front panel knobs, but you need to access all the many "hidden" menus to coax great sounds out of this. And as others have said, it IS capable of great sounds.
BUT Mine will often boot-up setting itself to "Local Off" meaning ALL the front panel knobs are disabled. You can tweak away, and nothing will happen...which can be very frsutrating to say the least.
You have to know which menu page + 2 digit LCD code will swith "Local on".
Bottom line - a cool synth, if you have the time to learn all the (unmarked) menu pages + display codes.
Amazing analogue-like sounds. Spectacular and performing arpeggios for electronic and dance music, better than any Korg or Roland that I've ever heard (and I owned a Radias!)
Absolute tweaking pleasure, with real analogue feelings and a lot of power coming out of this little beast!
Really love it!!!