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Monday, February 08, 2010

NOVATION A-STATION Virtual Analog Synth

via this auction
"The strength of this synth is all of the easy assessable knobs on the front panel that allow you to "tune in" your own unique sounds in a very intuitive manner. The A-Station has three powerful oscillators, a low-pass filter, two ADSR envelopes, two LFOs and a well-specified effects section. Add to this a ring modulator, noise generator, an external signal input and an arpeggiator -- and then wonder at how they managed to fit it all in the tiny case!

At the rear, a stereo output pair connects the sound engine to an expectant world and the single input awaits any external audio you care to process through the filter and effects (Vocals, Guitars, etc.). MIDI In, Out and Thru are provided and the external power supply is a standard 9V type and comfortably small.

Ample tweaking control is on hand, in the form of 10 switches and no less than 25 stylish Nova-type knobs for real time control. All knobs transmit MIDI controller messages. A rubber numeric keypad is used to select patches or to navigate through various menus. A headphone socket is placed on the front panel but there is no on/off switch (once plugged in you are ready to go). You can achieve almost any synthetic sound you can imagine.

The A-Station powers up in Program mode -- that is, ready for you to play any of the 400 onboard patches. These are arranged in four banks of 100, and the first 200 are already filled with factory patches. The remaining 200 are blank, awaiting your own creations.

Following are some of its Features:
There are seven effects in total: stereo delay, reverb, chorus/phaser, distortion, auto-pan, EQ and a 12-band vocoder.
The A-Station can operate in monophonic or polyphonic modes.
The Unison mode allows (up to) eight voices to be stacked for some monster monophonic patches.
The MIDI implementation includes extensive MIDI clock sync options, incorporated at strategic points and in divisions ranging from 32nd triplets to 12 bars.
The A-Station's arpeggiator has enough modes to keep you interested -- but not so many that you'll get lost. Along with random, up, down and two up-and-down modes, there's also a 'last note played' mode, which replays notes in the order they are played.

Following are some of its Specifications:
* Polyphony - 8 voices
* Oscillators - 3 osc with Square / Saw / Variable Pulse / Tri / Sine / Double Saw / Double Tri / Double Sine waveforms. Osc 1-2 sync, FM, external audio in (mono)
* LFO - 2 LFOs: triangle, saw, square, sample-and-hold; with panning, speed and delay parameters
* Filter - 12dB / 24dB switchable resonant low-pass filter with programmable output EQ
* Envelopes - 2 ADSR envelope generators plus FM attack/decay
* Effects - distortion, stereo chorus/flanger/phaser, stereo panning, delay and reverb, 12-band vocoder
* Arpeggiator - up, down, up/down, up to 4 octaves, latchable
* Memory - 400 in 4 banks, (200 factory sounds)
* Control - MIDI IN/OUT/THRU"



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