Awesome!! Love that he is not a marketing guy, this guy actually had been designing and using the thing!!!

So much better than the other videos, the bloke that did the other videos and the launch key videos seemed like such a salesman which is really off putting. This demo was a lot more clear and concise and the notation rep is a lot more

Hooray!!! Finally a demo with someone who actually knows the synth they are talking about. Well I'm sold...

i love how he keeps making him drop an octave for us. bravo. everybody demoing this synth on youtube seems keen on not going low with it and that sketches me out a bit.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT! Thanks Nick and thank you Nick from Novation! Fantastic sequencer implementation! Really excited by this - a must buy I think!

This synth is one great bass synth. I love the idea that there is patch memory unlike the Minibrute and a few other new low cost synths. Great demo, this one is a winner. Great work Novation.

21:09 Ah, Nick seeing six years into the future now that the BSII is paraphonic!

Great coverage. Great spokesperson, and as usual great job Nick. Can't wait to see the final product.

+1 to novation for listening to what people have to say and creating a product for the customer that they care about.

"Let's go right down." Thank you Nick, for showing the stuff we're really interested in! Great video and presentation - I'll get that for sure!

We still do that, but this is not available yet so this was what we got.

Thanks both Nicks for making this vid showing it off to its potential

Awesome review Nick..Thanks!

Very cleverly conceived machine and matching price.

pretty psyched to pick this up.

That looks like a lot of fun. It's affordable. It does stuff that I wasn't expecting, especially the arpeggiator implementation. Thanks for the vid!

Nick Bookman sounds like the prototype is gonna explode at any given moment.

Yep this is so important on analogue for me, all the manufacturers should be including this.

Here it comes! Thanks Nick! :)

I was sold after the first demo, but hearing the raw oscillators is much appreciated

this video is really well done Nick, questions were spot on and really allowed your guest to show the synth properly, loved the ms20 review too. Think you may have created a few features for novation with your suggestions, I wouldnt be surprised if they implement them.

Great Demo!!

Man.. You're good doing these videos!!!!!!!

The original MESSE demo did not do this instrument justice, this demo the unit sounds 100% better and you can actually hear the analog quality. Prior to this I wasn't considering one, now I am. Great job.

Bloody good. I felt like I was completing a synth nerd triangle by watching this!

Cheers Nick! Good overview, looking pretty tasty. As for the comment on variable pulse-width on all waves in analogue, the A4 does this FWIW.

That depends on what you're planning to do with the synth. If you have vintage or other equipment that uses cv you're better off with the MB. If you're using the synth in a MIDI environment or as a standalone instrument, the BS II is the machine for you. The BS II is very versatile and the classic filter can sound very close to a moog. If you want a moog style sound and don't mind the plastic casing - which seems pretty sturdy btw you should get the BS II.

Wow, this looks really user-friendly and sounds gorgeous. The aftertouch is a really cool feature, and the price is pretty reasonable. I've got an Alesis Ion I like, but this would be a lot of fun as well.

Yes, according to the guys at GAK, they are. I'm yet to test it, but I believe you can sync to an external clock.

Well, the Bass Station is really great. It does have an all analogue signal path. The Oscillatorsare DCOs which mean that their frequency is controlled by a digital processor, so they won't go out of tune and the unit doesn't need to warm up until it is stable. The minibrute's single VCO requires a few minutes of warm up time. Having two independently tunable oscillators and sub oscillator gives the BS a little more punch in the bass sector and the pre filter overdrive is more subtle.

We love Nick and we love the Bass Station... ;-]

Thanks Richard, i think you're right. Thanks for your reply. It surely helped. Regards.

That was the first really good demonstration

Sounds great. Put me down for one!

Nick also has a penchant for Pulse wave mod :) I preordered mine, you are going to be able to get some rude bass stabs on this thing, infact I'm totally sold. As long as they get the firmware right, this is a very good deal and an ideal Bus powered controller too. Thanks for taking the time to give us more detail Novation. As usual Nick manages to prise all the information ppl want to know out of the manufacturers...nice one!

The TB 303 part fell a bit flat or short, didn't it? They had the sound right, but the way the notes were being played wasn't quite there yet.

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with one of these yesterday (this exact one actually). I have to say, I sounds great and is lots of fun to play around with. For the asking price, it's a bargain. I'll be ordering one come payday.

Very nice! I 'd like to see a rack or tabletop version of this.

Hi... great video as always with sonic state... a little question... no Keyboard Tracking for the filter?

Hi, thnks. I'm looking for something i could use as stan alone with a drum machine but tha could also have all the analogue featura capabilities. I'm more inclined to BS2. So you think it is much better as a stand alone? Regards.

LOL, Nick stoked on the aftertouch as usual :)

absolutely Clear ... finally :D

works for me!

Thanks guys, the lfo's, are they midi syncable? Thanks

As the guy said, adding CV would have pushed the price up, and most of the new young enthusiasts are coming from a Midi rather than a CV background. I'm hoping that this will be a great success for Novation and they will be inspired to add more true analogue models. This looks perfect for its intended users.

I wonder if this little gem can recreate a "lately bass" ;-) great review guys.

At 19:00 I don't understand the question with pulse waves (or pulse width)... Can anybody enlight me?

Single env section is fine, didnt the original have only one to access at a time...jeez it's only 400 squids. I'm so glad I preordered. It is going to have such a nice sub.

Hopefully I'm going to add this to my humble hardware setup when it comes out! It looks awesome, and the only analog synth I own is the monotribe. And after I sell my micron, my setup will be all korg until I get this. I normally don't do comments like these, but I'd like some opinions. I was originally going to sell my MS2000BR, but decided to keep it instead, and sell the micron. Does this seem like a good call? If I do, my setup would be: MS2000BR, Monotribe, and EMX (&bassstation2)

Nick I mentioned on another blog I'd love to see you Make Mark Doty a regular guest on sonic talk! He's just a wonderful guy with so much knowledge and insight to share! About Novation they should take the best of bass station 2 and UltraNova and create a big beautiful high-end synth with the history of the supernova 2 platinum edition!

256bits of resolution is 2 to power 256 which would lead you an astronomical number of steps (1 with 77 zeros on it's right). Divide the 270deg by that and you would get an infinitesimally small step, like a bacteria cell. I don't think that any one has done that yet.

Great demo! another fine monosynth contendor, bit miffed about the lack of CV to gate but some of the other features are fantastic - especially the sequencer. if only a sequencer like that could be advanced via a clock pulse rather than midi! RE: variable pulse width waves - another synth that accomplishes this in the analog domain is the Alpha Juno.

much better demo than the ones before

The arpeggiator of this synth is mazing. for a monosynth i think this is awesome, mini ms.20 low qualtiy built. I'm wondering about this and minibrute. This thing has a step sequencer, and it seems to be very good at a reasonble price.

How do you factory reset? Mine changes patches on it's own in the middle of a song.

Mine comes tomorrow yay! Interestingly he says he doesn't know a way PWM can be put on other waves in the analogue realm. But the Analog 4 from Elektron does just that doesn't it ?

Please, pleeeeeaasseee! Implement VCO Phase re-trigger (ala Minitaur) for them steady transient dance basslines. Can it be done?

how can i recreate the patch at 20:10? seems that they didn't include in the final version

nice vid man!

Could someone help me- The minibrute is awesome but this bass station seems to be amazing, step sequencer is amazing to have. Minibrute has cv in/out. Want to buy one of this 2. Can someone help? Thanks.

LFO sync to MIDI clock and arp? Are MIDI CCs assigned to the the knobs and sliders or to the parameters? i.e. Can we send 4 CC values from the envelope sliders and 1 from the envelope switch or 8 CC (4 with the switch to AMP ENV and 4 with the switch to MOD ENV)?

Again sonicstate come to the rescue!............Another informative demo with descent sound. Thankyou Nick. Now the dilemma! I was gonna get a Korg MS20 mini which sounds awesome and then Novation come along out of the blue with this little master piece..................Damn I feel GAS!

Seems to strike a great balance between easy of use, features and price, and I was impressed by the sound too. I've had the original Bass Station and it was a great little synth, especially for the price - this seems to be every bit its better. Good times !

I WANT NICK BOOKMAN'S JOB!! at 11:00.. I'm sold on owning one

does the Arpeggiator understand Start/Stop via MIDI like the Minibrute does ?

so glad it doesn't sound like it did at messe! incredible offer, incredible price :)

There is a used market in that segment where you can get analog polys a lot cheaper though.

Can we assign any CC numbers to any controller or it's hardwired? For example I want to control AMP and Filter envelopes of the Blofeld with the sliders of the Bass Station. Can I assign sliders in AMP mode to output CC 101,102,103,106 and in MOD mode CC 95,96,97,100 or they have their own hardwired CC numbers?

Question: Can you trigger the arpeggiator/sequencer with external sources (TR drum machines for example)?

Is there a modulation INPUT for LFO frequency on this? (e.g., have the envelope control the VCF cutoff wobble).

Im buying one for sure. Hoping it had fine tuning as this from what i can see might be the only thing the minibrute has over it. And its v handy whem jamming with a dj

Double Nicks on a BS2!

That element shirt...

Addendum: about 2 hours after my last posting about the reliability of the minibrute my BS 2 developed a problem although it was not the synth itself but the AC adaptor. It broke down. Fortunately the synth still has usb bus power and -courtesy of the best customer sevice in the world- my favourite internet shop send me a spare part the next morning.

Dear SonicState. Can you suggest to Novation to give a MIDI CC on the synth the virtual CV output of the filter envelope and LFOs? Since they can probably do that with the firmware they should, that way you could buy a MIDI-to-CV converter and then use the synth in a modular setup.

I'm glad they're still tweaking it The MESSE presentations were bad. I thought they were trying to make another Minibrute.

This looks a lot better for live us than most other synths out there, not sure why the display is a problem looks very clear to me. Knobs are far better than using a screen, that is sort of the whole point.

I am new to the analog synth world even though I am old enough not to have an excuse for my ignorance. I have genuine - non-troll questions that I think are being avoided by the industry. So here we go. The same problem I keep seeing and hearing with analogue synths is that there is no clear path to get record-able and musical sounds out of them. I understand waves and how they scope out. I understand the hardware being used in the box. Even so I have no idea how to get a complex sound out of it that is meaningful to me. These videos are clearly aimed at people who know and love synths... so the questions must be put to you who know. I would love to use one, but how in the world can they sell more or widen their use, if most performers/non-professionals/home studios - like myself, can't use an analogue synth? based on the videos I have consumed, the instruments sound as if the amount of time it would take to master even the one device and its usable range, would be years. An industry question that must have been posed before me is: How in the world do synth producers expect anyone new to come in happy and ready to invest all their time building sounds instead of performing and producing music? And to follow that up, wasn't DSP initially an attempt to engineer a usable recording and performance tool for a wider user base? Is there a fast track teaching/learning tool for promoting getting more out of synths for beginners? To be absolutely clear, I am not anti-synth, I am pro music and pro knowledge. I support using the tool for the job. I have not found an instrument yet that I do not like. Well that isn't exactly true I used a metal spring board which ate up my fingertips. So, lots of questions that I have no doubt Sonicstate can answer, your videos prove you have the knowledge.

you won't do a feature about this synth again I suppose? or what about the Analog 4?

I'd take this over the MiniBrute any day of the week

Cool

i already have a minibrute AND a Sub Phatty...I need a poly synth

I used to think that those running their mouth that analog was the only true option was full of it. But i must admit, once i tried (and subsequently bought) a MiniBrute, i finally got what they were on about. Analog has something, biggest difference in my opinion lies with the deep frequencies and the filter. That said, with a good VA or plugin, it is seriously close. And some sounds i will outright prefer digital to analog. Some of the best pad-sounds i've ever conjured, came from a SH-201.

They were talking about polychain possibility at the end. How about creating so called "expander" with MIDI in and audio outs only? Power knob off course but no knobs or buttons. That could be made as small, easily portable unit to hook up with BS2. How many voices would be ok? I guess six would be enough. Which means 5 if keyboards voice is counted as one. Those should then be combined in mixer... I guess that external sound input would not work in that kind of setup. Or would it?

BIG thumb up for Novation! Looks to me, the brands recognized: let's do some cool analog stuff! Korg and Novation is the first on Messe. VAS and VST is enough. Musician's need real resonant oscillated tone. That's why everybody looking old gears on ebay. Including me :) So I just wait until summer and then... BOIIUUUbobowraaaa on this price? I will buy two! One for studio, one for modding :)))

at 19:00 "it can't be done" ... I'm not familiar enough with variable pulsewidth as the term applies to the oscillators on the K series, etc, how different is it from a "variable slope" triangle oscillator? Which of course is considered unusual but definitely has been done in analog. I mean off the top of my head, just AC-couple then integrate your already-modulated pulse-wave ... narrow pulse becomes a (crappy) sawtooth and a square wave becomes a triangle.

Tell that to Korg, who are releasing a 3 voice analog VCO synth this summer, for $139. It can be done - it just requires excellent engineering skills.

Those previous videos sounded so awful, but this...I'm sold!!!

Linking several units should be easy since all parameters send/receive midi...?

He says that pulsewidth on all waveforms isn't possible, but the AnalogFour claims it can do this. Although, the A4 manual mentions "waveshape," so maybe it's not truly pulsewidth modulation.

i want one

I want to compare this with the minibrute.

i really, really hope they make a desktop version. would save me space and money. who needs a 2 octave keyboard anyways?

hello I'll like to hear more bass sound.Im a bass player looking for a good board to use

7:05 Oh yes

Not bad at all. Good demo too :)

sure pulse width can be done on waves other than square in analog , the rsf polykobol had it , analogue systems rs95e has it and countless others , and since this bass2 is a dco synth -- missed opportunity , good video though and a nice synth

this seals it, those other videos were pretty bad. This synth looks like it's going to be everything I thought it would be and then some.

external clock to arpeggiator? not midi, not internal ... external clock. i want to step the arp from a trigger sequencer.

Between this and the Volca Bass, there is no excuse for anyone who wants the 303 sound to not have it.