Nothing punches like the Novation Bass Station, the UK company’s 1993 analog original. GForce Software makes a pretty good argument for making this a plug-in: emulate all the powerful sound of the synth and its filter, but add awesome modulation, effects, and sequencer/arp, unison mode, up to 16-voice polyphony, and make it mega-affordable (or free with a keyboard controller).
It’s arguably one of the synths most overlooked in synth history. You have Chris Huggett as designer, with the classic Wasp Filter and VCA – in a cute little package. It’s an acid synth if you want it to be, but unlike the TB-303, you aren’t stuck with just one oscillator and one filter flavor. So it’s about time the Bass Station gets a proper software remake and expansion. They’re excited about it, obviously, as they have this epic video with music by Reverb Machine, animated by Çağatay Çetin:
GForce is getting scary good with their emulations. Their Oberheim recreations, produced in collaboration with the (authentic) Tom Oberheim, are a personal addiction for me. They sound so damned good. Have I ever touched an OB-1? No. So I choose this software version not as some kind of throwback, but because it stands up with modern synths.
Now, a lot of the Oberheim stuff does have some competing emulations. Not so the Bass Station. Novation did its version, but years ago, back when CPU compromises restricted what was possible and the art of digital modeling just wasn’t as decceloped as it is now. In a way, I hope most people forget that version. It was passable as a virtual analog synth in a pinch, but it lacked any character, let alone coming close to the analog Bass Station hardware.
For their part, Novation also did a quite-nice Bass Station II hardware keyboard in 2013 – check the happy Sound on Sound review by Paul Nagle. But I don’t want yet another keyboard around so much as I want the sound. So, a great software emulation? Sign me up.
The new GForce plug-in has all that thumpingly aggressive Bass Station goodness, totally nails the filter, includes Bass Station II features like the welcome sub-oscillator, and adds all these extras. And talk about a nice gift: register a Novation Launchkey 4, FLkey, or SL Mk3 keyboard, and you get the plug-in for free. For the rest of us, it’s got a reasonable introductory price of £49.99 + VAT until the end of February, then 99.99 after.
I know there are one or two manufacturers fond of talking about democratizing synths, but this sort of thing bests even the most cut-rate hardware out there by a significant margin.
The new GForce plug-in has all that thumpingly aggressive Bass Station goodness, totally nails the filter, includes Bass Station II features like the welcome sub-oscillator, and adds all these extras.
New features in software:
- 16-voice polyphony, unison mode
- X-Modifier for freely assignable LFO and envelope modulation
- High pass filter
- Sequencer/arpeggiator
- Pan spread
- Distortion, chorus, reverb (each with multiple modes)
- Scalable UI
- Patch browser
Here’s where GForce is at – you just hit one note on one preset and it starts to sound excellent and organic. It has that body-sound connection that my favorite physical hardware does, which you don’t always get from a plug-in. This is not a full video review, but just to demonstrate the point – each section of this sounds perfect, from the filter to details of the chorus, reverb, and distortion:
Actually in bringing over all that analog-modeled processing, you can very quickly turn this into a sort of late 70s monster. Novaberheim? Obervation? You might want to turn off a lot of those sections for the classic 90s rave synth and the sound of Radiohead’s “Climbing up the walls” bassline. But it’s great to have the versatility.
The X-Modifier system is also reasonably approachable once you get the hang of it. Click any parameter, and then adjust AMT (amount) for the envelope (XADSR) or LFO (XLFO) to add modulation of that parameter. You only get a single LFO and single envelope (I mean, it’s a Bass Station, come on), but you can assign that arbitrarily to as many parameters as you wish. There’s a copy/paste feature, and subtle glowing indications around the knob to show you amount, plus an oscilloscope to visualize the LFO:
For simple mod wheel assignment, there’s an additional panel tucked behind the “MOD” oscilloscope on the right:
And while I just plugged in a 303 pattern I generated in Imaginando TV3, yeah, there’s also an arp/sequencer:
It’s possibly more cumbersome than a mod matrix, but it works, and keeps you from breaking focus with the knob layout. Some of the UI features, like those LED segment displays, may seem overly skeuomorphic but don’t complain too fast – just right-click for pop-up menus.
You also get assignable macro knobs and polyphonic pitch bend / MPE support. (That also means tuning support in Ableton Live will work, provided you set the tuning range and enable poly pitch bend.)
AU / AAX / VST / VST3, macOS Intel/Apple Silicon and Windows.
Details:
gforcesoftware.com/products/bass-station
novationmusic.com/gforce-bass-station
If you’re curious about Bass Station history, there’s a great read on Novation’s site – I’ll admit I had forgotten about its predecessor, the battery-powered MM10 sequencer:
That original hardware looked like this (courtesy Novation):
I mean…
Now that I did say I don’t want the hardware, a cute little remake might be nice oh no I’ve done it again… back to the plug-in!
You know, I’ve spent now I think almost 20 years referencing the VH1 show “I Love the 90s” and its siblings, so long that there’s a generation of readers who have no idea what I’m talking about, even if “no one has any idea what I’m talking about” is the slogan of this site. So here you go. And it’s even 1993.
You see all those brontosauruses, and I don’t know any of the other sauruses…
Bass Station – life finds a way.