Novation K-Station

Version 1.0.
The presets show the potential of what the instrument can do. They tend to lean towards the 80's polysynth, which is not a bad thing at all. I was eyeing the K-Station as a live substitute for my Moog Rogue and Mini, and it didn't take very long to get in the ballpark. The layout of the knobs is very good, and I also applaud the decision to include sliders for envelope control. They also give you some interesting tools to work with within the editing menus, such as a controllable amount of "oscillator drift", modulation routings, fx, etc. The LCD screen is handy, and very easy to read onstage. That said, I find it slightly mind-boggling that you CAN'T NAME PROGRAMS. There's plenty of space on the screen, but all you get is "Prog Number xxx" etc. The space taken up by those words could be EASILY and much more effectively used by user-defined program names. This may sound nit-picky, but it's already come to haunt me in live performance, when I wanted to change sounds on the fly. "hmm, this would sound better if I used 419!.....um, which one was 419 again?"
The manual looks good, but I must admit I've barely cracked it open. That is a good thing.

With 8-note polyphony, the K-Station definitely gets extra points in the bang-for-the-buck category. If they could make it multitimbral in a future software update, that would be excellent. Not a major gripe, just something for the wish list.
The keyboard action is adequate. I found myself wishing for just ONE more key on the bottom. Had the keyboard been equipped with aftertouch, I would have cried tears of geek joy. Sadly, it is not the case. The synth engine will respond to incoming MIDI aftertouch messages though, which is nice.

The sound is very good and very clean, but you can dirty it up if you want to. ONE MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT: Zipper noise("stepping") while adjusting filter cutoff frequency. This might have been an acceptable compromise in the early days of digital filter control, but I don't think any manufacturer should let a synth leave the design table without a smooth sweeping filter. I believe that the problem is in the resolution of the knob itself rather than the filter. When the filter cutoff is controlled by the envelope, it appears to be a smooth sweep. Can this be fixed in a software update? I've got my fingers crossed. Another curious quirk occured when I adjusted filter frequnecy on a sound that uses tempo delay. Moving of the filter knob cause the delay to disappear, as if the knob I was turning reduced the delay time to zero. There could be a routing that I'm not aware of, but it seemed odd. Speaking of the delays, they, along with the other compliment of effects, are decent, workmanlike, and a nice bonus.

Within one hour of taking the K-Station out of the box, I heard some fragments sliding around inside the chassis. While the instrument worked fine, I exchanged it for another unit. The replacement unit began exhibiting the same problem in two days. I was gigging without a backup, and the unit performed perfectly, but I was concerned about it's reliability.

I have yet to get in touch with Novation, as it appears they have no US distributor. Guitar Center received the K-Stations direct from the UK, and I was lucky that they had a replacement unit in stock. I'll reserve rating the customer service until I actually reach them.

I think Novation is very close to having a serious hit on their hands with the K-Station. At first glance, one may think it could even be cheaper. Then consider the current crop of virtual-analog synths and it becomes apparent that it's a solid value. My open letter to Novation: Make it solid, address the filter-knob issue, incorporate program names (easy) and aftertouch (not so easy), and give us Yanks someone to talk to when we need product support. Only a few steps away from a new British Invasion.

Paid $650 tax free for this baby at guitar center in Austin, TX!

Presets are pretty damn tasty, nice bass, leads, arps and pads plus several squeeks and electronic haywire patches....
Editing patches couldn't be any easier, just twist the knobs, hit the "write" button three times and wa-la, you've got yourself and new patch! Very user friendly manual and explained everything you need to know about being up and running with creating new patches and going through all the menu's. A+ on the manual, even though it's b & w and printed and bound pretty cheaply, it packs the information needed in solid english!

8 voice polyphony, good enough for me, hasn't cut out when I'm recording anything yet. Keys are a bit plastic feeling, but you can adjust that with some ingenuity, a heavy bar of zinc cut into strips to fit insid the underside of the keys and epoxy...hehe. Responds really well to pressure sensitivity, I could get random sounds with other keyboards by using the same pressure, but using the K station, the level of pressure is put in a good zone to where you can replicate the same results every time using close to the same pressure (ok i just used the word 'pressure' enough for this week, sorry)...

Built in effects are sweet, delay, reverb, chorus, phaser, eq, distortion, vocoder (nice preset vocoder on patch 259, 269 and 279 to check out and hit a key while you're running something in through the external input jack after you've set it up to run through)... easy to run through the menu's and save on your patches with a simple three pushes of the "write" button.
Midi In, Out, and Thru, sends everything to midi, every knob, every wheel. OH OH OH,,, almost forgot, on the effects, the menu lets you place each amount of effect into the modulation wheel, nice and easy to have delay on the top half of the mod wheel, and distortion on the bottom half,,, or any combination,,, very nice indeed!

Very easy to pick up everything on this board. The three oscilators kick ass and you can be hackin' out new patches pretty effortlessly by twiddling around with the knobs and then saving to one of the 200 extra spaces or over writing the 200 preset patches. (make sure to leave patch 299 or at least a couple as a pass through for your external input jack, read the manual about this, it'll help you understand)

Presets are pretty useful, easily tweaked into something else if you'd like to use them. Works well for any type of music looking for deep bass, pads, tweaky quirky sounds, rough organs, just nothing real or acoustic.... Onboard effects are VERY good. The delay is able to be timed, but not as easily to bpm as it could be (micro Q had the best submenu'd delay I've worked with, used bpm and quantized) it just has quantize (unless I'm missing something) but it still works like a champ. Placing the modulation with the effects and making it so easy to program and use that way makes this definately a good live gig machine (although the clicks could be a problem as previously mentioned, but unless you're playing one song and switching between patches all through out the song, this wouldn't be an issue.).... Not static at all, very responsive with every slight turn of each knob. Has velocity sensitivity, but I'm not sure about aftertouch.

Not much under the hood. I had to take it apart as soon as I got it to remove a peice of the internal cover plastic that seprated the knobs from the actual motherboard, but everything you need is right there in front of you inside this horse. I was scared that once I took off the knobs and slider covers that my keyboard would be pretty much screwed and loose, but not so, it's still as tight as it was, and everything that I took apart fit right back, tightly into place, so I'm really damn confident in it's build quality. The soft buttons are alot nicer than the micro q's plastic clicking ones and the knobs on this are very tight and pretty precise (at times, it'll take an extra second to turn the effects just one point higher (from say, 66, to 67 in the value, it'll go to 68 and you'll have to be gentle to get that value to 67) but it's not that bad as it may sound....).

I would definatly gig with out a back up, although I don't like the power supply, it's a 9v plug with a straight insert into the rear of the kb, pretty easily pulled out. But hey, can't complain, I paid 350 less than I did for my micro Q kb and I'm not missing my micro Q at all in my studio. Actually easier by a long shot to create your own patches with the k station's 3 oscilators than using the micro's modulation process. More knobs as well makes this easier to gig with than the micro q. (don't give me wrong, the micro q kb's great! I just think this is a less costly version that gives you about 4/5ths of the options that the micro does)

7 for a weak power supply and no way to make sure it's hooked in place (like roland's have) but a 10 for the quality build of this machine!

Never dealth with customer support, but their site seems to have a bit of work to be totally customer friendly.

LOST!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I WOULD be so ticked if anything happened to this. I would buy it again easily before I even started to wipe my tears from it's theft or damages. I've been playing for about 4 years now making various electronic and this will cover it all, no problems. I've owned jx 305, nord lead 2, kawaii k5000s, Waldorf Micro Q kb and now this, I've enjoyed and learned this little sucker the fastest out of all the above. I think the single part complaint that people have is bull, cuz you have 3 oscilators to work with, so once you get the hang of that, you have 3 parts to work with, use your imagination! I love all the knobs, sliders, smooth layout is a 10+! and makes it easy to work and get into the menu's quickly. I don't like the weak power supply, and the keys are 7/10, but hell if that will cut down on your creativity with this machine! Don't like the clicking, but it's bad enough to be noticable when you're in the studio after you're used to it. The clicking won't hurt your ears, don't worry, it's pretty faint after you've used it for a bit. I wish it had some type of gain effect for this, it can be quiet at times(at least some of the patches are)...

25 keys don't hinder me at all. Covers the entire range from the deeeeeeep to the high pitched dog squeel, so dont worry about the 2 octaves, just innovate...

It helps me be more creative, and I've never been one for patch creation, more of a tweaker, but this has me wanting to get home from work and make patches! knobs + sliders + easy layout and menus = one classic synth soon to be proclaimed a winner!

650 for this BRAND NEW!!!???? IT'S THE BEST VALUE I'VE EVER SEEN FOR A SYNTH. I made a quick 6 minute demo running through the first 60 patches or so at http://www.ampcast.com/nurf Look at the bottom for "K station demo" it's sweet sound can be heard even with the 128kb/sec bitrate

never used novation products before, but hell if I won't in the future!

I bought the K-station as soon as it came out...the sounds are amazing... I have a several amazing digital and analog synths but I bought this one because it's a small little package which would make gigging easier and still deliver some of those awesome sounds. HOWEVER, when you page up or down to go through the patchs there's a LOUD clicking sound which pops your amp. Also the volume makes annoying crackling sounds when you turn it. After checking all of my cables, amps, etc. I decided to go to Sam Ash and try out there demo to see if mine was defective. Their demo did the EXACT same thing!!! I would NEVER gig with this professionally and am returning mine.

I called and emailed novation to no avail. Sad really.