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Novation Bass Station II Analogue Monosynth – includes 64 factory patches, pattern-based step sequencer and arpeggiator, two oscillators plus an additional sub oscillator

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This synth can sound as mellow or aggressive as you want. Seek out sweet spots with the filter mod to make it sing. Crank the distortion and it will growl with pent up anger. Push the resonance to self-oscillation to create shrieking leads. Bass Station II can sound however you feel. Easy Controls for Complex Design

Bass Station II ships with 64 factory patches and a further 64 user slots. Patch dump enables you to archive and swap sounds. May 2013 Dance MIDI Samples releases "Zebra 2 Soundset By Mikko L" and "Nutty Traxx V-Station Soundset" So there’s already a lot more happening here than with our first face to face demo those few months ago. The sound designers have clearly put a lot of effort into what goes where and while there aren’t banks of specific sounds together – leads, subs and so on – this means you are constantly surprised and, in the main, impressed. Indeed there are only two presets that didn’t do it for me. The basses are rich, punchy, fat and varied and the leads tear through where they should. Plenty of the sounds have that added arpreggiation so you get rich melodic ideas almost instantly and you are constantly drawn to that big filter knob for even more instant frequency action. It almost becomes a performance pose: left hand playing riff, right hand dramatically nudging the filter knob. As a test i began creating patches on the hardware and then transfering to the plugin. They were never quite right. I thought it might be the transfer process, so I tried to manually create the same patch on the hardware and Plugin. It was never quite right. Static patches with no movement were close enough. Dynamic patches sounded much better on the hardware (I have had my BS for 9 years so am very familiar with the sound and programming). LFO: Two LFOs each selectable between: ♣ Triangle ♣ Sawtooth ♣ Square ♣ Sample and hold ♣ Both LFOs independently adjustable between rate and delay time ♣ Key sync LFO 1 & 2 ♣ LFO slew on LFO 1& 2 (low pass filter on the LFO waveform)Bass Station II is Novation’s pure analogue monosynth. Novation based it on Novation’s classic Bass Station, then enhanced every area to make it even bigger, angrier and more versatile. It has two tuneable oscillators, a sub-oscillator for enormous bass, plus noise and ring modulation. It also gives you two distinct analogue filter types: the classic multi-mode filter and a new acid filter, for a massive variation in sonic possibilities. Much More Than Bass

Those expecting Delay or Chorus might be disappointed but both dials offer an impressive sonic flavour and significantly beef up the Bass Station II's personality. To the left, you can add Portamento, with variable Glide Time, whilst further to the left you can access the Bass Station II's Arpeggiator and Sequencer options. You also get Melodics, a handy desktop app that's a fun and intuitive way to learn how to play MIDI keyboards, pad controllers, and drums. Melodics provides you with challenges, structured learning, and goals to make learning less intimidating and more exciting. Here's what Novation say about the Bass Station II: Novation released the Bass Station 2 in 2013 during a period when analog monosynths were enjoying a resurgence. The original Bass Station was a favorite amongst many thanks to its affordable price and very distinctive timbre. For the updated version, Novation decided to retain what made the original such a hit, but add some new features, such as an arpeggiator, a sequencer, a new keyboard and more. All this means that the Bass Station 2 is more than just a reissue with a new look, but a great instrument in its own right. Because every key in the overlay can hold a different value for every knob or switch, you can go from subtle per‑key variations of a patch, to an entirely different sound on every key. There are just eight preset slots for overlays, and each of the 127 patches can reference one overlay. This means that if you change an overlay that is used in more than one patch, it will change for all patches. Get instant inspiration – record notes, ties, rests and rhythms in real time using the step sequencer and arpeggiator, then store them for use with any patch.

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Oscillator error introduces a small and adjustable random detune on each note-on event. This can be used to generate some very beautiful, subtle (or not) musical dissonance, very much in the same way that vintage synths do (because of the looser tolerance of their electronic components). Paraphonic mode makes it as dramatic as possible. Microtuning editing &New presets Novation have teamed up with IDM legend Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, to produce a special edition of their modern classic monosynth, the Bass Station 2. Bass Station II is now a paraphonic monosynth, because you can control the pitches of each of the two oscillators separately in its single-voice architecture. Play two notes at a time rather than just one and get interesting interactions through the Ring and Filter Mod. The Bass Station Plug-In is shipped with the classic originals along with many more totaling 100 sounds for immediate gratification. The patches cover a huge sonic range from screaming leads to phatt funky basses. The Pulse Width rotary comes into its own when either of the primary oscillators is set to square or pulse waves and controls the width of that cycle. Again this can be modulated by the Mod Envelope, manually or with the second LFO. Experimenting with this you can get some great edgy and very big sounds, with the Mod Envelope especially taking a dramatic role. Indeed, by exploring this section I found I’d created a pretty impressive hoover like sound from scratch. Press save and that’s preset number 70 in the clip!

Firstly you have a choice of Classic and Acid filter. The former is variable so the slope can be adjusted between 12 and 24dB and the type adjusted between low, band or high pass. The Acid filter, however, is a fixed 4-pole low pass based on diode ladder types ‘found in various synths popular in the 1980s’ according to the manual. We’re pretty sure they mean the aforementioned Roland TB- 303 as you get splashes of its acid like squealing across presets, but more on these later. Finally, an Effects section is included, which features just two controls - a post-filter Distortion and an 'Osc(illator) Filter Mod' dial, which toys with level, using Oscillator 2 as its source. Features : Cutoff ♣ Resonance ♣ Overdrive ♣ Filter frequency to Mod Envelope depth ♣ Filter frequency to LFO 2 depth Low Frequency Oscillation which can directly control the harmonic content of the sound by pulse width modulation or filter cut-off. The original front panel has been 3D modelled and additional controls have been added for ease of use. The Filter envelope has its own set of ADSR controls and OSC1 and OSC2 have their own section for pitch modulation and PWM control.major firmware update released by Novation 5 years after initial release with a ton of new features, including duo mode, which turns this mono synth into a paraphonic weapon. If you have an UltraNova, you can install MiniNova patches to it - and if you have a MiniNova, you can install UltraNova patches to it. Bass Station II's secret sound-design weapon is envelope retriggering. It’s now possible to configure envelopes to retrigger once the decay stage has ended, opening up a whole range of new possibilities.

Novation loaded Bass Station II with 64 diverse patches that showcase its huge sonic variation. Novation also left 64 slots free, so you can easily save and load your own patches on the unit, or in the free librarian software. Instant Inspiration When recording a sequence, it's worth keeping an eye on the display, because this is the only visual cue to which sequence you're about to overwrite. This is one of just a few anomalies; it arises because the selected sequence is stored in each patch and its number might conflict with the sequence-selector switch's actual position. Notes are entered in step time, along with rests and ties. As an extra bonus, the sequencer faithfully captures note velocity and transmits the patterns out into the world over MIDI/USB. It's therefore very practical to send the results into your DAW. Turning the large cutoff frequency knob is a smoothly satisfying experience, and the display gives a hint as to why this might be. Instead of the 128 possible values of a 7-bit MIDI controller, filter cutoff insists on twice that amount for itself. An extra bit is gained (rather neatly) by reserving two CC numbers instead of one, and this doubled resolution pops up in several other parameters, making a worthwhile contribution in each case. Apr 2010 Daniel Stawczyk (Status) announces Christmas Sale on Discovery Pro and V-Station Soundsets (20% Off)

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To celebrate 25 years of Bass Station and thank you for your support, we're releasing the Bass Station II v2.5 firmware update and giving away a Bass Station II 25th Anniversary Edition – one of only five units off the production line! These functions are usefully sub-labelled into separate areas; Mod Wheel and Aftertouch assignments, for instance, as well as 'further' options for the synth engine, including sync'ing oscillators 1 and 2 and setting a Swing value for the Arpeggiator engine, to name but a couple of examples.

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