NovationBass Station II Analog Monosynth – includes 64 factory patches, pattern-based step sequencer and arpeggiator, two oscillators plus an additional sub oscillator

The media could not be loaded. This might be my most regretted blind spot. I should have tried one of these ages ago. The timing was great though. I just replaced a behringer wasp clone with a Bree6. I was missing the filters on the wasp. Not enough to get another one, but enough to make a mental note about it. So enter a different problem. Hating on the arturia keystep. Wanting full size keys. And not really needing more than 25 keys. I'm playing into a hardware tracker. I can start and stop time at will, and edit notes in post. The closest thing I can find to small with full size keys is either an old oxygen from m-audio that will feel like a toy, or garbage that requires a DAW and a computer. Then someone literally suggested getting a used bass station."They have a great keybed for the price and full sized keys. You can find the first generation one for a few hundred bucks."So I check and surprisingly, the bass station models are slimmer than even the keystep 32. Then I read the description, and find out THE GUY that made my favorite filter of all time, put the filter on this masterpiece. And it was THE GUY that did it. Not Uli. Not wish.com. And I wanted the "new" one. And it was literally as easy as swapping the usb power cable and the MIDI cable over. And for my original purpose, using it as a keyboard, it's absolutely perfect. Head and shoulders above the keystep for note entry. The fact that it basically includes a 3 oscillator Wasp is the greatest kind of amazing. And when you start messing with it, a whole lot of things start jumping out at you. It would already be a great value to me. But you have pre and post filter distortion/overdrive. You can drive the filter with a knob. That's so useful. You can map patches to keys. So you could build a little drum kit on this. And with the wasp filter and patch saving, it's going to sound awesome.This might be the best value in a synth from a reputable maker, with some strong competition from dreadbox.

This synth is changing everything for me. It's my first "real" synth. I've been using software / vst synths for a while now and what really blows me away is how much better this sounds. I try to make my own unique sounds for each new track, normally I spend DAYS searching for and tweaking my bass tone... the very first thought thru my head when I listened to the first few patches was "Oh, this is going to be easy!"This is an analog synth, says it right on the front (lol that was a joke) but there's a lot of 'people' who want to say it's not. Just do your own research, you can start by reading about oscillators, then read about NCOs and DCOs (numerically and digitally controlled oscillators), when I did this I thought I'd actually rather have DCOs anyhow.There were some cool little things I didn't expect too, they took the black and blue theme all the way, the underneath of the BS2 is completely blue and it comes with a blue USB cord, this is actually kinda handy when you have a bazillion cables connected to your computer. It even comes with a full size (8.5x11 inch) manual with a cover printed in color. I felt like I was buying music gear from the 80's.All the knobs feel great with a nice amount of drag and the switches don't stick when you want to slide them (if you know what I mean). You can see the threaded nuts under the pots. The Pitch and Modulation wheels are rubberized and have good action.I love this synth so much I'll probably buy the carrying bag that I don't need for it.Not a total fan, there's some things I wish were different. The keys are pretty cheap, my M-Audio Axiom controllers have much better action (they are also synth weighted). The case of the keyboard is at the same level height as the keys, what makes this bad is that if you have long fingernails, and you play the keys (I use my Push2 to play it) you are bound to break them on the case like I did.I really (really) wish there were a desktop version of this, I would snap that up in an heartbeat!This came out a few years ago, I'm late to the game, but I did a lot of reading and shopping, I can tell that a lot of the reviews are from before the firmware update. Novation really provided some awesome support on this update, here's some info:- Implemented new patch format (version 2) with support for patch name- Improved output jitter, jittery pots/faders, phantom data- Improved tempo detection and lock on- Fixed MIDI DIN SysEx output issue- Arp Rhythm, Arp Pattern and Arp Octaves/Seq now light "value changed" arrows- Added text for Arp Pattern modes- Added new mode for Arp->MIDI ("Out"), MIDI->Arp ("In ") using Function+Arp Latch button- Added ability to send MIDI CLOCK/START/STOP using Function+Arp On buttonOne last thing if you have Ableton/Max for Live, be sure to check out the Max for Live Library, there's some good devices there for controlling and automating your BS2.♥