Novation bass station user manual

Cancel Delete. Delete from my manuals? Sign In OR. Don't have an account? Sign up! Restore password. Upload manual. Upload from disk. Upload from URL. For a start, the coarse and fine tuning controls have a higher resolution than many synths with patch memories. Here, although you'll never hit Minimoog swirliness, the oscillators rub up against each other with more warmth than DCOs typically manage.

Each oscillator's nominal range is 16' to 2', with sine and triangle joining the regular saw and pulse waves. An incurable sync addict, I didn't wait long before assigning oscillator 2's pitch to the mod wheel.

Then, having activated sync, I wallowed in wheel-waggling delusions of Prodigy. Admittedly, the Bass Station 2 along with almost every synth on the planet doesn't threaten the Moog Prodigy's richness of sync, but it's not half bad.

With a few thoughtful filter tweaks, the raw tones can be pushed in many directions, from dark, grungy basses to razor-sharp, piercing leads. Sync is good. The Bass Station 2, like many other monosynths at the moment, only has a two-octave keyboard, but then so did the original.

With a name like Bass Station 2, it's completely reasonable to expect a serious presence in the lower regions, and my subwoofer would not disagree. Extra assistance comes in the form of a sub-oscillator tied to the frequency of oscillator 1. Pitched at either one or two octaves down and with a choice of sine, square or pulse waveforms, this sub is even more versatile than that of a Roland SH I'll quickly mention the small mixer that follows.

It's got knobs for both oscillators and the sub, plus a fourth with selector switch that sets the levels of white noise, ring modulation and any external source. Having dedicated controls is always a bonus. Often, two oscillator levels are combined into a single balance control, which is never as satisfying. Here, it's known as 'Classic', a state-variable creation switchable between 12dB and 24dB slopes.

Fresh for the BS2, a further switch offers low-, band- and high-pass modes, greatly extending the filter's usefulness. In all modes, you're quickly aware of the edgy but sparkly maximum resonance, and also that it takes just a smidgen of overdrive to squash any fear of lack of balls. Winding the overdrive higher turns the Classic filter into a pleasantly mashed-up monster. It follows that varying combinations of cutoff frequency, resonance and overdrive yield everything from humongous bass to sound effects and shrieks that will vibrate your granny's teeth out, assuming you're heartless enough to expose her to them.

Warm, fluffy and Moogy it isn't. If this were the full story of the filter I'd be content, but it isn't. There's a second filter on board; a diode ladder design called Acid.

This 24dB fat boy operates in low-pass mode only and is noticeably darker than the Classic. Its resonance is wetter and smoother, too. I became an instant convert. As both filters react very differently to high levels of overdrive and resonance, you occasionally get the not-unpleasant feeling that two synths are occupying the same space. Bi-polar modulation is rife in the Bass Station 2 and for the filter, its sources are the mod envelope and LFO2.

Ordinarily, with small controls, my preference is for positive modulation only, but here the ranges are so effectively spread over each half of the knob's travel that I forgot my usual prejudice.

For the final splash of sonic mangling, there's an 'Effects' section. It's just possible that Novation's terminology guys got carried away one Friday afternoon because the knobs concerned are: distortion a post-filter overdrive and 'osc filter mod' audio level modulation, the source oscillator being 2.

However, you won't bemoan the creative labelling once you realise how valuable the two are. Distortion is thrashingly excellent and is the ideal stimulant for the curious everywhere. I won't risk the wrath of the Bassline Gods by claiming you can exactly match that fabled silver box, but when you've engaged the Acid filter and spread resonance akimbo, distortion is clearly the last piece of the jigsaw.

There's further dirt, too, thanks to that second effect. Audio-level filter modulation adds its own distinctly toothy bite, and when you begin exercising the mod source's pitch, the currently-selected filter gets an electrifying workout. Filter FM also works wonders when processing external signals. Having examined photos of the panel we all do this, right?

I queried this with Novation and discovered that, regrettably, this was one of the controls that fell by the wayside. I'm told the Classic filter includes built-in percent tracking and the Acid filter has a pre-programmed 50 percent, therefore the former would be the best choice for matching higher notes to increased brightness. Although there's no room for a knob, I'm holding out hope that Novation could include filter tracking as a purely MIDI control in a future update.

Everything else is straightforward. When running freely, both LFOs lurch effortlessly from really slow up to audio frequencies. LFO2's speed can be modulated dynamically by aftertouch, while if you need the LFOs to sync to a clock signal, they're happy whether this comes in from MIDI or the internal clock.

Additionally, having two physical knobs means that the speed of both LFOs can be adjusted independently. There are separate waveform selection buttons too, further reducing the need to keep flipping switches. If you're an inveterate envelope tweaker, the concept of sharing will never feel totally comfortable. Here, you can at least set the basic shape of both envelopes simultaneously, before flipping a switch and controlling the mod envelope alone to make fine adjustments.

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