Before the famous Novation Bass Station Rack module came the small and portable Bass Station keyboard! This synthesizer uses digitally synchronized analog oscillators (DCO's) to reproduce the sounds of a monophonic dual-osc analog synthesizer with simple and intuitive controls via 17 knobs, 10 switches and 2 Moog-style pitch/mod wheels. Think EDP Wasp and ARP Odyssey.

The Bass Station can faithfully reproduce analog bass sounds similar to a TB-303, Micromoog or Pro One synthesizer. The small keyboard and monophonic architecture set this keyboard up for strict bassline, lead synth lines, and synth fx. It also transmits MIDI continuous controller data from its pitch/mod wheels, frequency cutoff, resonance, filter modulation depth, env1 attack, decay and env2 attack and decay.

Unlike the Rack version, however, the keyboard lacks basic patch storage features. There are only 7 memory patches and 1 manual patch (what the knobs are doing right now). The memory can be stored externally using MIDI SysEx dumps. But for the low price (under $500) this makes a great and compact analog bass synth for any user with simple but tasteful bass needs. It is used by Apollo 440, RZA, and Lo Fidelity AllStars.

thegrizard

May 23, 2013 @ 2:30 am

Just got one yesterday, absolutely love it! Was going to go for a mopho or rocket or another modern analogue module and so glad i opted for this. The keyboard addition is great. Sounds brilliant and dead easy to use. Managed to make a sort of early Warp lead sound out of it, bit of delay and reverb really brings it to life.

phonicUK

May 9, 2013 @ 8:48 am

Just got one of these about a week ago. First time I ever owned one of these, and I regret not getting one of these back in the 90's. This thing can create some soft lead sounds, to industrial 303-like sounds. Great for a synth around it's price. :)

Matt (D) Miller

March 14, 2013 @ 10:21 am

The Novation Bass Station was one of the Synths used in Need For Speed II: SE by Jeff van Dyck, and all of his tracks from that game were amazing!

I love this so much; great price, and awesome synth!

Ashley

March 13, 2013 @ 3:17 pm

I am surprised Leftfield aren't listed in the 'Bands that used this' part as I had believed that it was heavily used on Leftism.

I had a play with the keyboard version, small adequate and twiddly. With the brief go I had I created some interesting noises, which was more than the owner was able to do. So it takes a little knowledge/work to get some sounds out of it.

Prismatic Spray

February 6, 2013 @ 10:32 pm

ps - the linked demo video is TERRIBLE and should be replaced by one that better represents this fantastic little synthesizer. Just sayin.

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