Novation Bass Station 2
In 2013, a well-known British company released the single-voice Novation Bass Station 2, reminding fans of synthesizer folklore about the previous model of the same name, with a powerful sound. Novation Bass Station 2 has got two oscillators with sync, sub-oscillator and generator white noise, two LFO and two envelope generators, multi-mode and special filter, analog sound effects, plus the arpeggiator and step sequencer pattern, excellent set of options for any user.
Novation Bass Station 2, can be compared with the first Bass Station in terms of tone tones, although in the updated version, they are more diverse, which is why the sound of the synthesizer as a whole seems quite rich and with a wide range of sound palette. Novation Bass Station 2, has a peculiar timbre that resembles something from the past, but with its own character.
Panel elements of Novation Bass Station 2 are combined into sections that control the synthesis blocks, with symbols on the blue stripe. The normal mode of operation of Novation Bass Station 2 involves selecting one of the patches at any time, while the display shows its number and all changes to the parameters on the panel will relate to this patch, then you need to save the result, otherwise the changes will be lost. In some blocks of Novation Bass Station 2, only a part of the parameters are displayed on the physical switches and controls of the front panel, while the rest are accessed using the keyboard.
Novation Bass Station 2 has a dynamic keyboard with 25 convenient keys, which can be used to synchronize the launch of each LFO, since when synchronization is disabled, the LFO continuously runs in the background, so after pressing the key, the sound constantly changes. Also, Novation Bass Station 2 can switch to MIDI mode, connect the "LFO Slew" parameter, which allows you to change the pulse shape or select other On-Key functions.
Different settings of the MIDI channel, enabling and disabling local control, as well as adjusting the sensitivity of the audio input are located on the right side of the keyboard Novation Bass Station 2. data Transfer to Novation Bass Station 2 can be made via MIDI and USB simultaneously, and in the function settings you can choose whether to transmit the parameters of the current preset, or all 128 options at once, which allows you to create your own patch archives.
All oscillators on Novation Bass Station 2 have an octave range switch, with the ability to fine-tune the pitch by one semitone up or down. In addition, on Novation Bass Station 2, the oscillators have a 4-position switch for standard waveforms, and for the pulse wave, the fill factor modulation is available, in manual and automatic mode. Available on Novation Bass Station 2, the sub-oscillator is linked to the height of the first oscillator and offers a good set of tuning options, where regardless of the waveform of the master oscillator, you can choose a sinusoidal, square or rectangular wave for the sub-oscillator, with a low fill factor, and you can also make it sound one or two octaves lower than the main tone.
In the mixer zone of Novation Bass Station 2, there are four potentiometers where both oscillators and sub-oscillator have dedicated level controls, and the fourth potentiometer is paired with a selector and can adjust the white noise level from a separate generator, the output level from a ring modulator, or the level of an external signal entering the audio input. From the output of the Novation Bass Station 2 mixer, the sound enters the filter section, via a limiter amplifier which reproduces the Overdrive effect.
On Novation Bass Station 2, two filter options are installed: in the first case, a classic filter operating in LPF, HPF or BPF modes, and in the second, a four-pole LPF made according to the old simplified scheme with chains of diode voltage dividers, with the ability to change the cutoff frequency and resonance level. In the special section of Novation Bass Station 2, there is a Distortion control that can be used when closing the filter under the influence of the modulation envelope, when the synthesizer reproduces a dense bass sound, with the addition of an Overdrive function and a slight change in the filter modulation scheme, then you can get a brighter, peculiar "crackling" and punchy bass sound.
The control section for 2 generators envelopes , Novation Bass Station 2, has four sliders for forming a classic ADSR contour, and you can configure the shape in each of the two generators together or separately. The LFO unit has on the front panel separate for each generator push-button selector of wave forms and speed controller, which can change not only the modulation speed, but also smoothly hold the delay from the very beginning. The arpeggiator on Novation Bass Station 2 has great features, it has 32 ready-made patterns, of which only the first is a simple sequence of quarter notes, and the rest have increasing complexity, which opens up new horizons for you.
