Novation Nova II Keyboard

[jksuperstar]

I have an opportunity to get a Novation Nova II keyboard for fairly cheap.

Anyone have one, and what's your opinion of it? What do you see are its strong points, weak points, etc.

Since I got into SCOPE, the only other synth in my studio right now is a Korg DSS-1...which has plenty of Menu diving, OR lots of MIDI programming for knob turning, etc. The Nova would add an all-in-one box that is just for knob tweaking bliss.

[fra77x]

I really like the novation synthesizer series. I like the sound.

[jhulk]

its ok the sound is ok standard fatar type keyboard a bit spongy for me

i had one got rid of it the korg z1 was better so i kept that instead

and the vsti version has the same engine and is cheap

now the korg dss1 have you got the 24mb upgrade

thats a power machine fat 16 osc unison

the dsm1 rack is having the upgrade done to

toms a friend of mine and im his uk service center

what is nice about them is that all knobs output midi cc but they suffer from dsp chips going bad and cost as much to fix as buying a second hand one

there controller keyboards are ok and much cheaper nova II they sell from £350-500 depending on how many poly it has

[Bud Weiser]

now the korg dss1 have you got the 24mb upgrade

thats a power machine fat 16 osc unison

the dsm1 rack is having the upgrade done to

toms a friend of mine and im his uk service center

what is nice about them is that all knobs output midi cc but they suffer from dsp chips going bad and cost as much to fix as buying a second hand one

That DSS-1 upgrade thing is one of the coolest stories I´ve read since month.
http://www.straylightengineering.com/pr ... ade-story/

Bud

[jhulk]

yep tom and i worked on a few things

the dsm1 is getting the next treatment

and i designed the matrix12 pole mixing part

the dsm1 is going to have 15 filter types and the res pin with cv as korg tied the res pin to ground

same filters as the dss1 but 16 of them

and 4 channel multitimbral

it has 16 audio outs makes a very good 12bit drum machine

[Bud Weiser]

yep tom and i worked on a few things

the dsm1 is getting the next treatment

and i designed the matrix12 pole mixing part

the dsm1 is going to have 15 filter types and the res pin with cv as korg tied the res pin to ground

same filters as the dss1 but 16 of them

and 4 channel multitimbral

it has 16 audio outs makes a very good 12bit drum machine

Not bad !
Makes the rack interesting because originally and in opposite to the keyboard version, the DSM-1´s filter lacks the resonance parameter.

I bookmarked the site to be informed.

You guys are insane ...

Bud

[fra77x]

Nova has one of the best virtual analogue filters. I don't know about the vst version but i doubt that it is similar.

Nova is true synthesis, no samples, no ram upgrading. Pure dsp digital synthesis at it's best.
Sync, Fm (Fm the supernova, don't know about nova II), basses, leads.
It's best point is the filters and for me it does not have a weak point for what it is made for.

Pattern programmable arpeggiator, 2 modes glide, 16 voices polyphony. Unison, powerful effects. Knobs transmit midi.

[jksuperstar]

Thanks, I was early in ordering the latest upgrade, and now have the DSS-1 with 24MB upgrade, along with USB/SD cards instead of Floppies Do you recommend a good editor? I think I asked this before but couldn't find the thread again. I need something to convert down to 12bit, and for once I didn't find anything in Cool Edit Pro!

I also like the fact that the Nova 2 has overdrive in the filter, and separate effects for each part. And the Nova II does FM as well...and can use multiple parts to achieve old-school DX5 tones, if need be.

$400 US is the price.

[Marco]

Hi guys, I just bought a Novation Bass station, the old one from 1995. A real analog monophon rack synthesizer. Cost only 170 euros. It is compromiseless real analog sound. All parameters can be controlled by midi back and forth, has 99 presets.
This little 19" beast has the right sound, and can be integrated very easy into scopes environment.

If you want it compromiseless, take that!

[ehasting]

I have the supernova II keyboard, and i love the sound. The it would have been cool to have two filters with different filter configuration, however the filter that is on the supernova II is great, with good range of characteristics with the overdrive and normalization knobs.

I don't use synth fxs that much, BUT the chorus is wonderful.

[jhulk]

no you dont the korg excepts 16bit data it just make the last 4 bits 0

i use awave studio

now you have to remember the frequencies have to be correct

the korg dss1 excepts several and they have maximum sample times

48khz =5sec per multisample the dss1 allows 15 multisamples per multisound that 4mb

32khz = 8seconds per sample max thats mellotron size

24khz = 10 seconds this is the frequency i use as they are not a lot of sounds that go over 12khz

and not many that go above 16khz so 32khz is very good and is what the

dss1 additive engine creates at well not quite its 31 something but saved as 32khz data

all the samples in the m1 t1 01w x range are done at this frequency

most of roland expansion cards are done at this frequency

now record every thing at 44.1khz



i use sample robot its a good multisample program and i mostly do 11 multisamples from c1 to c6 every 6th key
and because the the transpose playback engine is 64khz a 24khz sample will uptranspose 1 octave and 6 semitones above root which gives you f7 if sampled at c6 i set the loop to 50% and set it to internediate looping this will find the best points and crossfade the sample i then go to edit and normalize set it to -5db to allow when playing many keys that it does not distort

i then save them as sf2 make sure you tick the truncate after loop as it will remove any excess samples after the loop end but leaves several samples after which are needed for emu sample engines and load them into awave studio i then
edit each one and do the resample function resample them to 24khz they will become smaller in size

THEY HAVE TO BE NO BIGGER THAN 256000 SAMPLES AS THATS THE BIGGEST SIZE POSSIBLE

SO IF YOU DOING SAMPLE SIZES YOU NEED TO REMEMBER 256K IS MAX SAMPLE TIME PER SAMPLE
SO IF YOU DOING 32KHZ 8 SECONDS MAX AT 44.1 WHEN RESAMPLED THE 8 SECONDS WILL STILL BE 8 SECONDS IN TIME AT 32KHZ THE MEMORY AMOUNT WILL BE LESS

same for 24khz if you know max sample time is 10 seconds just sample for 10 seconds the sample will be 10 seconds no matter what frequency you resample it to

once you have changed all the samples by resampling to the frequencies you want you then have to save them to the usb stick now first you need to go into the LOOP EDITOR AND WRITE DOWN THE LOOPSTART AND LOOP LENGTH FOR EACH SAMPLE

NOW SAVE THE SAMPLE IN A FOLDER WITH THE NAME OF THE MULTISAMPLE AND SAVE THE SAMPLES WITH THERE ROOT NOTE C1 F1 C2 F2 C3 F3 C4 F4 C5 F5 C6

now you can open the folder in the dss1 and load the wave files from c1 first you set root note and hi note

then you go into the loop mode set it to the loop start you wrote down and the loop size you wrote down the sample will loop as it was looped to in sample robot then do each sample the same until you have the multisound created then save

but that is for the maximum settings you can do any size in seconds sample looped or not at all

i use a mixture of long loop samples short percussive samples and noise spectra multiloops and single cycle samples

if you want to do hard sync then you can only achieve that with single cycle samples either created with the additive engine the dss1 has a 128 partial osc engine sin additive no phase and the quickest waveforms to create are b3 drawbars settings as you only need to set 9 partials to the same partials as the b3 and if you use a external leslie boy does it sound good

and on top of that you can split the 2 osc over the keyboard to get upper and lower sounds like on the continental or even mix them in the mixer and use the data control to morph between the 2

if you need any example samples to help you get going so you can see how todo them let me know

im also converting the fairlight library at the moment so they only use 1 sample but i generate the extra octaves for the other samplers

[Shamk]

I brought nova desktop maybe around 2005 for 230€ from uk. I still own this synth, and i could not ever sell it even if i had to repair some knobs myself.
I enjoy this unique sound, this feel like "liquids sound", filter are so great, this is a must have for synth lovers !

[jhulk]

$400 for a novaII is cheap thats about £230

there nearly double that over here

i would get it as the normal controllers are that much in cost

[jksuperstar]

Good point about the controller...I hadn't thought of it that way. It'd make a damn nice controller for many of the S|C and Zarg synths

[sharc]

Hi guys, I just bought a Novation Bass station, the old one from 1995. A real analog monophon rack synthesizer. Cost only 170 euros. It is compromiseless real analog sound. All parameters can be controlled by midi back and forth, has 99 presets.
This little 19" beast has the right sound, and can be integrated very easy into scopes environment.

If you want it compromiseless, take that!

I bought one of the first batch of BassStation's. It had a bug with it's power distribution which caused the unit to die within 6 months. What a sound it had though !. I also had a Pro-One and Minimoog at the time and the BassStation easily stood up to the pair of them. The bug fixed replacement I received was sadly a little bit neutered by comparison. I still have a Super Bass Station and KS4.

The reason why Novation synths sound so good imo - Chris Huggett

[Marco]

my bass station rack was from. 1995 still working fine, and it is NOT an analog SIMULATION, no it is what you hear, an analog sound!

[braincell]

Got an old Novation from before they had a synthesizer in it. It still works. Very smooth sliders.

[sharc]

Got an old Novation from before they had a synthesizer in it. It still works. Very smooth sliders.

MM10? I picked up one of those about 10 years ago because I really liked the feel of the 'spongy' BassStation keyboard for hammering out bass parts. I can''t say I had any problems. It just turned out to be one of those surplus bits of studio gear which found a new home.

In terms of build quality I wouldn't give Novation top marks. I definitely wouldn't recommend their gear for gigging. If it's treated with respect it should last well though.