toonelind wrote:the whole novation line shares the same engine with little differencies: a-station, k-station, ks and x station.
Not quite.
While they share many features, the KS synths had several enhancements significant enhancements.
ks line had trouble with noise, which was solved with last os update. you still have to take care that to total sum of all the asc values is less than 127.
Digital clipping. I rarely find this a problem (the OS update mentioned by Toonelind here took care of that). While I find I rarely have to 'take care', it is something you need to be aware of.
it's possible to make a perfomance patch, wich can have up to 4 sounds and I think you can have different zones for all 4 sounds or you can use them in layers. outgoing midi data doesn't see the zones.
Yes.
You can split the keyboard into ranges, and so theoretically you could play all 4 parts seperately on the same keyboard. Typically what I do is have two parts on the bottom half of the keys, and two on the top (for bass/pads).
But I digress.
I've had a KS4 for many years, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I've managed to get passable electric pianos, ambient pads, drum'n'bass bass lines, techno leads, a Spanish guitar, a brass section, organs, and even the mellotron flute out of the Beatles'
Let it Be.
I've never even played an A or K-Station, so I can't really compare it. I'll list the features of the KS anyway:
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16 note polyphony
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4 part multitimbrality. You can create multitimbral (performance) patches out of monotimbral patches, but they're stored in a seperate area, so if you change the original monotimbral patches it won't affect the performance patch.
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24 waveforms (could be more). Beyond the standard sawtooth, square etc., there's a whole load of extra wave shapes to use. Very handy to achieve sounds a VA is not usually capable of.
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Aftertouch. This for me really brings the synth alive. Like the modulation wheel, I can route aftertouch to the filter, pitch, pitch LFO, volume. Coupling the two together works well.
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Oscillator drift. Nicely fattens up the sound, by simulating VCO pitch drift.
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6 simultaneous effects. Reverb, delay, chorus/phaser, distortion, vocoder, panning. While certainly usable, I find myself switching the reverb off and using a better-quality external reverb. Nonetheless, it's useful in reminding me how a patch should sound. In multitimbral mode, the mix level for each effect on each part is seperate (this is quite damned handy).
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Octave up/down switches. These are located just above the keyboard on the left side. As a right handed player, this means I can very quickly switch up or down an octave or two, in real time. It also transposes the transmitted MIDI notes. I have come to appreciate this feature quite a bit.
The only bad I can think of is the aliasing. If I have a sawtooth patch, and play around a lowpass cutoff with high resonance in the C4-C5 range, I can hear it.
This is the only thing I can think of, however.
Things to watch for
After years of use, some of the knobs may become jumpy. I suspect this is due to dust which a good contact cleaner should fix. There's a web page about this, but I forget where.
OS issues. You can get the latest OS, 2.1 (I think) for free from Novation's website. The version of the OS is displayed when you switch the keyboard on; if it's not OS 2.1 I strongly recommend that you update it.
Cheers,
Clubbed.
im even more curious now!
