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In-depth Feature:
Novation Bass Station Plugin
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...continued
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Ease Of Use
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 60%
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Those knobs are still a bit fiddly.
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Sound Quality
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70%
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Its tough, but its still pretty basic.
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Value For Money
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50%
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Some freeware synths offer more.
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Stability
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90%
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Very solid, even with multiple instances.
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Versatility
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60%
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Would have been nice to see the Super Bass Station Features.
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Overall:
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66%
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It's OK.
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Conclusion
The original Bass Station had some very famous fans and its familiar tones can be heard on the work of Massive Attack, The Prodigy and Orbital to name but a few, it was a clone of the TB-303s sound but allowed a much greater level of control. The plug-in is true to its predecessor in many ways and certainly sounds very authentic, and gives good CPU performance, but I feel it lacks features for this day and age.
The Super Bass Station was an updated version of the original and brought some life back to a product, which was losing sales as the market became increasingly competitive. The inclusion of ring modulation, a noise generator, an arpeggiator, a second LFO and stereo outs with chorus and distortion effects was not for no reason and I feel that a plug-in version of this synth may have made a more marketable product.
This is not to say that the plug-in Bass Station is not a good product, but when you take away its almost classic interface and consider just the features on offer it has once again joined an already over crowded market that includes many freeware alternatives.
I also feel that the lack of Mac OS9 compatible VST support and/or Protools RTAS support is a bit of a mistake as it limits potential customers and may cause this product to be overlooked by many.
Novation Comment
The main reason for the Bass Station is that it provides the classic Bass Station sound with very low CPU overhead. If a more complete solution is needed, the V-Station is our more advanced plug-in which goes way beyond what the Super Bass can do, being polyphonic and having noise, ring mod,and FM together with descrete fx per instance and for only £50 ($75) more.
Novation Bass Station Plugin: RRP £99/$199
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1 Comments...
Sean Said...
http://phatsobrown.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/2000-a-synth-odyssey-novation-bass-station/
Nice article on the Bass Station with great audio examples.
02-Dec-09 06:01 PM
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