The Novation Bass Station II is an analogue mono-synth perfectly suited to massive bass lines as well as leads and arpeggios.
Building on the original and much loved Bassstation, the Bass Station II utilises an all-analogue signal path, including the effects section. Bringing the synth up to date, you can now store and recall patches with spaces for 64 user presets alongside 64 killer on-board presets. Intuitively laid out, there are plenty of knobs and sliders for all the major synth functions meaning dynamic performance is at the very heart of the keyboard and to further this there are 25 velocity sensitive, full size keys with assignable aftertouch. Also included is MIDI over USB or 5 pin din.
The synth architecture of the Bass Station II is based around three oscillators and a noise generator which makes it just as good at snappy percussion as it is for musical notes. The third oscillator is a sub oscillator, perfect for adding depth to basses and kick drums, and is in addition to the other two, fully independent oscillators which include sine, sawtooth, square and variable pulse width.
The filter section is switchable between two different types – ‘acid’ and ‘classic’ and can be overdriven for warm analogue tones through to screaming, saturated leads. The Classic filter can be low-pass, hi-pass or band-pass with 12 or 24dB slopes. The Acid filter has been designed to deliver those resonant, squelchy, ‘303’ style sounds. The modulation section includes two envelope generators and two LFOs which can be set to control amp and filter envelopes as well as oscillator pulse width.
Now included on the Bass Station II are two analogue effects; the first being a distortion to add harmonics to the signal, adding subtle sparkle and brightness through to grinding destruction. The second effect is the Osc Filter Mod which uses the second oscillator to modulate the filter frequency very fast and add metallic or crunchy sounding effects. Also included on the Bass Station are the arpeggiator and step sequencer which can be locked to MIDI over USB for integration into your existing DAW tracks.
I'm a bass guitar player and I was looking at a small synth to accommodate my bass playing in a more modern way. This synth has all the features needed to make great bass lines and the factory sounds are a good start to get going.
By upgrading to the latest firmware it is possible to use two keys at the same time so somewhat poly with two tones. See youtube for how to set it up. I can highly recommend this synth for bass players.
I have had a K-Station for years and love it so when i came to look for a bass orientated synth it made sense to look at this. And I love it, it sounds amazing and has applications beyond bass lines, it being very suited to high leads as well. Great value for money