Novation KS-4

not only is it easy to use, it is also rewarding and amazingly responsive.
after using a prophecy, the ks4 is an absolute god-send.

the effects are'nt the best but i have found that most syth effects suck. hook it up to a lexicon unit, cubase or whatever else, use any outboard effects and you won`t care.
the lfo`s are great, my favorites to date. using a virus, supernova and a prophecy just dont cut it for ease of use and immediate gratification.
the set out is easy as pie to understand and get around. i havnt even looked at the manual since i got it over 6 months ago. i`m still learning new stuff just by having fun. arpegg is super cool too.

for dance, techno, electronica, bleeps etc this is all you need to make some out of this world sounds.
presets are okay but once you start twisting those knobs something wild happens.
nice keyboard, for the price you cannot lose.

never had a problem with it.

support isnt the best from novation uk. they simply give you a phone number for a synth repair outfit called panic music.

i would buy it again guaranteed. i wouldnt have bought the prophecy for sure, not cos of its sound or features, just too slow getting around the menu and understanding the damn thing.
theres nothing about the ks4 that i hate.
for the price and the customer that it is aimed at, its simply the best.
loads of realtime knob control is what sythesis is all about for me. i dont want to look through layers of menus to have fun, i just want to tweek.

Absolutely easy to use. You need some menu diving to access some advanced features, but create your own patches is a matter of seconds. Right out of the box, the presets sound too much techie and trancy, not too good to my taste because I?m more in electro-rock and wild electronica, but as you know, a synth is to synthesize so please make it! Tweak some parameters and start tripping, it really has loads of potential waiting to be discovered...

Well, you know the specs. I, sincerely, find them amazing for a cheap synth like this. Especially, the 4-octave semiweighted keyboard and the FX that are simply incredible! It?s totally impossible that you can offer more at this price.

Holy mother... as I said, fuck the presets and tweak them to the limit and you?ll see what an amazing beast this little baby is. My only question is: this is really a digital synth? Don?t judge by the presets, I?m making my own collection of patches which is a pshychotropic mixture of all kind of very, very, very analog sounds, weird noises and FX, pretty sparkling polysynths, cosmic EP?s, it?s really a beast. Especially I love that you can use overdrive on the filter output and distortion as an overall patch effect. Really nasty!

Reading other reviews, i think i?m lucky. My KS4 is in pretty well condition. Not software glitches, nor hardware problems. The only thing i noticed it for now is that if you turn the mod wheel too energetically, certain parameter appears briefly on screen, but it doesn?t affect the sound at all. I haven?t got any problems yet, but it?s true that it?s a cheap synth not very well constructed. I?m going to use it live, after all and see what happens. Yes, i?m suicidal. :-)

No deal with them. For best I?m sure, because everybody say they?re really ugly in this aspect.

Build quality is not good as it could be, but for the price i can?t demand more. It?s really a great keyboard synth and it?s a pity Novation discontinued it. I can?t understand it because it?s one of the best VA?s in history. I know that, in the future, my only options when buying another synth with keyboard will be Roland SH-201 or Nord Lead 2x. The NL2X it?s too expensive for me and I?m not convinced about the SH-201. That?s why I love my KS4, because as long as it lasts, it fills the gap and make a perfect couple with my other most beloved synth, the Alesis Ion.

This keyboard is very easy to use, and is laid out logically. The presets sound very good right out of the chute.

It is very flexible and has all the features you would want in a dance synth keyboard. Good polyphony, key action is unweighted but feels quite good. No complaints here.

As stated before, the sounds are really very musical and good. This is really a shame, because my synth has suffered every problem previous reviewers have sited, and more.

1. Phantom parameter changing. On mine it comes and goes from one day to the next. But recently has gotten worse - and does make the synth unusable when it is acting up.

2. Grounding buzzing noise. This is so bad that I have to strap an eq on anything I record to notch it out.

3. Pops and clicks on certain patches (mostly bass) that I have to work around.

4. And now, the final straw, it has strted to drift out of tune (a few cents flat) which makes it completely unusable unless I detune all other instruments or try to manually tune the patch.

This last ailment will make me sadly retire this board. I counldn't even re-sell it on e-bay with piece of mind. It's too messed up. So maybe I'll make a lamp out of it!

See above.

I am a full time composer - and have gotten a couple of years use out of this fantastic sounding keyboard. Unfortunately the quality controll engineers who designed this thing should be shot. I have NEVER purchased a piece of electronic equipment so fraught with problems. Unbelievable... No wonder it was discontinued.

Well I certainly got my money out of it, but I'm sorry its usable life has ended. I don't have the time, patience or confidence that it could be effectively repaired.

So because this keyboard, when working, really does shine, I'll have to give it a 7.

I'm using software version 2.0. The presets are okay, but some are mysteriously set to monophonic mode for no particular reason as far as i can tell, but it's easily fixed. I don't find the presets that useful but I have modified them to make them more useful. 'My Mighty Organ' and 'Rodywhirl' are pretty cool, but basically I should get a more general purpose keyboard for keyboard sounds. This is a synthesizer and is fun for messing around and creating new sounds.
It's incredibly easy to program with over 30 knobs and there's plenty of cool things to unearth in the menus, though they aren't particularly great sometimes. The manual is quite badly written and doesn't explain synthesis too well. I'm still baffled by FM.

The polyphony is sixteen notes I believe and you can use it for stacking oscillators in mono mode, which must sound pretty fat, though I haven't tried as I'm a bit of a chord addict. The effects are great, simply controlled by one knob but capable of much more in depth editing in the manual, top stuff. The distortion is a bit digital sounding though, prefer using filter overdrive to make sounds dirtier. This brings us to the awesome filters, which have additional controls over the K-Station and three different filter types though you'll most likely use lowpass in most situations. The LFO's have loads of waveforms to create cool sci-fi wobbles and there are also plenty of oscillator waveforms though i'm not too keen on most of them, I prefer the more basic analog waveforms. Good noise capabilites, you can add additional noise, k-station style outside of the basic oscs. I don't generally play with the envelopes but they are there. There's quite a flexbile arp but I don't really use it, as it's such a stereotyped sound. The vocoder doesn't seem to work with dynamic mics, coming out as a whisper, so I've never used it. The K-Station is not expandable but there's no point, it's not a workstation. There's no sequencer but I don't want one thanks!

This isn't designed to make realistic instrument sounds though organ and ep sounds are actually very cool. It's designed obviously for dance music and being that I don't like that kind of music, It's become more of a toy for me, but I wouldn't sell it, it's too much fun. The keyboard is velocity sensitive with aftertouch, which can do some cool stuff. It's a sounding board if you like dance or just want to create monster synth sounds. The LFO's and filters can create some incredibly weird noises which drive my parents nuts!

I can't really depend on this board. It's built a little shoddily but it doesn't really concern me cos I take care of my gear. What I'm more concerned about is the fact that it sometimes holds notes, often after a gliss, which is kinda annoying. The other problem is that the mod wheel seem to randomly allocate itself to controlling the envelopes, producing a horrible sound when I lift the wheel up, when I want it to control the vibrato effect, though I've just thought maybe that's the what the modulation knobs mean on top of each envelope control! It's okay for general home messing around though, and for as long as I can't afford a more suitable performance board (I play in a funk band)

Haven't dealt with Novation.

If it were lost or stolen I would probably not buy it again, but rest assured I'd be annoyed. I might get a Nord Modular cos they are going cheap, though they have no pitch or mod wheels!
This board was pretty cheap, considering I bought a K-Station first but traded it up for a twenty quid more when I saw it advertised for so cheap, but I miss the small size and simplicity of the K-station. I don't really need the extra waveforms, though i suppose it's good to have it at your fingertips, and there's more keys, good for a piano player like me.
I've been playing for about ten years I guess, I'm grade eight on piano and this board just seemed like fun when I bought it and it has been a good toy to play around with. For the dance enthusiast, it's a right bargain compared to the offerings from Nord, Access etc. It does everything it should do, apart from the holding notes thing which it shouldn't, so I can find no problems with it. I think it'll be more use as an added extra to my more basic keyboards, to allow me to have a varied pallette live, like Joe Zawinul or Chick Corea. I might look into the software update.

I've updated the os and I didn't really notice any difference
and the presets sound pretty nice, I wish I could find a
editor for my computer though and I've looked everywhere.
I started making my own in cakewalk but that is taking forever.

The only problems I'm having with this keyboard is the pot's keep
messing up. First it was the portamento knob (wich sucked cause notes would start sliding when i was playing) and after 2 months of waiting for the part to arrive (I had to fix myself because the stores around here never saw that keyboard before and wanted to charge me like $150 to change a pot, for a $4 pot... unbelievable) and now tonight another pot is acting funky. It's a sweet keyboard for what it is but you would have thought they would have made the knobs a little tougher.

IMPORTANT: GO TO THE NOVATION SITE AND DOWNLOAD THE 2.1 O.S. !!! It solves all the clicks and pops and add a lot of features !!

The presets are good and some of them are very inspiring. They showcase the range of sounds that the KS4 can do.

Editing patches is a breeze since you have 28 knobs to twist and turn as you like. There's no need of a patch editor. Really, believe me ! It would just make things harder.

The manual is pretty thin (no more than 40 pages) and it will tell you the basics about sound synthesis. You'll need some experience with synths to understand some of the functions.

The polyphony is 16 notes, but it can get lower if you create unyson patches, and it will be more scarce if you use all the four parts at once. If you don't have the adequate O.S. you'll hear clicks and pops as note stealing happens. However that is all solved with O.S. 2.1. Be sure to download it and install it first than anything !

It has seven simultaneous effects for EACH part. Yeah, that's right. There's reverb, delay, distortion, chorus (phaser), panning, EQ and a vocoder. You can add different ammounts of the effects for every one of the four available parts. And yes, they are pretty easy to use.

You cannot expand this synth or add more memory. You won't need to, either.

The keyboard is velocity sensitive + aftertouch, sends and receives midi clock, CC and all the midi messages available.

It doesn't have an onboard sequencer but it haves several arpeggiator modes. The arps aren't editable, but you can choose from 32 different patterns over the typical up-down-random-chord arps. There is also a drum pattern arp, so you can add drum rythms to your perfomances. Fast and easy.

The instruments aren't realistic since this is a synthetizer, and a very good one. The KS can sound very delicate or harshly gruesome, and it can imitate some of the classic synths very easily given the three oscillators plus noise. There are HPF, LPF and BPF (24 and 12 dB) filters, and there are PWM and FM synthesis options. That's pretty good ! I don't know too many synths that offer these options.

You can do instantaneous trance with this synth (if you are lazy) or some elaborate, whimsical and ever evolving patches with it (if you put some work on it). The organ sounds are good and will keep rockers happy. The strings are very reallistic (being synthetic)and they will fit in any mix.

The onboard effects add a lot to the sounds and since they can be fully synchronized to midi clock, they will save you a lot of work. The hypersync feature is very time saving.

This synth reacts very well to playing, it isn't static at all, and the keyboard action is very nice and responsive.

Yes, you candepende on it, it never crashes. Use it in a gig ? You'll need some sequencer, but if you dare you could play a whole song using just one perfomance.

Novation is always upgrading their synths O.S., and every new upgrade adds a lot of functions. I bought this one with the 2.0 O.S. running and it had some upsetting quirks (the sound stopped when you pressed the octave buttons, it clicked if the polyphony was full, there was no pot pickup function), and all those problems were solved with O.S. 2.1. That's the best customer support i'd like to see: a company that keeps taking care of their products a long after they were released.

I'd buy it again. I have the V-station, it's amazing, but i want this baby in hardware, not software. It's worth every buck i paid. I play electronica since 1998 and i've had owned some six synths before this one. I have the KS since ten months ago and the novelty feeling doesn't wear out yet. It's a pity that Novation was bought by focusrite.... So get your KS while they are cheap and they are trying to get rid of it.

It's ppretty straight forward, Novation have done a good job getting the most used parameters onto the front panel with a dedicated control. Deeper access is pretty striaght forward too with the menu system.

8-voice polyphony is adequate as a polysynth - though perhaps not as a multi-timbral sequnecer workhorse. Having said that the most fun can be had when programming sounds to play from the keyboard. Effects are good and easy to control - the distortion is pretty useful for making nasty sounds and dirtying up the otherwise fairly crispy sound.

No sequencer but a pretty good arpegiator - anothe nifty feature is the way you can use the LFO as a single-cyle envelop modulator effectivley adding more envelopes

IHMO, sounds pretty good. I used one to program up a bands synth sounds as they were unable to take the various synths on the road - MS-20, PoliVoks, JP6 and it managed pretty well as a sound-a-lik on specific sounds - not all mind you but an indication of it's flexability I hope

Seems pretty well constructed to me, although I think there were a few problems with some early models - some screws came loose during shipping

Never had top deal with Novation - however, I don't think they have a US office so tech support from timeszones other than GMT might be an issue - email may be alrigth though

I'd recommend this synth to someone who wants to get some hands-on analogue action - I would think that it could be pretty good as an educational tool to show the prinicples of subtractive synthesis. But don't get me wrong - if you need an sound, the chances are that reaching for the KS will give you what you want, after a little tweaking.

Fairly easy to use. Your basic synth setup. Reminds me of a JP8000 a little with the setup.

I personally like the effect onboard. And also like that Novation K series has 4 part multi-timbre. MIDI with all 4 parts going at once???You'll be lucky not to get any annoying clicks!! I thought it was the synth but learned that the clicks were normal...Bad!! ALSO the noise in this thing in high volume sucks!

I like the sounds. but hate the clicks. It seems i can only get a way with 2 parts going at once not to get clicks. Bad design on their parts.

No! If you call that it powers up. than ya it's reliable. Look above for pros and cons

Good

I like the sounds, hate the noise and clicks with multi midi parts running and like the effects. That's about it. I'll prbably sell it
;-(

It's pretty easy to program when the parameters aren't adjusting themselves. It sounds great and I made my own patches from all my favorite 80's songs very quickly...when the parameters were not adjusting themselves.

This thing is loaded with features and it's very flexible. The hypersync features are cool and I haven't even figured out how to write my own yet.

Clickity, click, click. I thought it was my monitors but behold the power of clicks! You can get around it somewhat by decreasing the attack and EQing out some of the high end. It sounds so nice and the clicks are just a bummer. Screw the organ presets but with a little tweaking you can get them to sound nice.

I can depend on it to suck. My KS4 started doing the phatom knob thing a few months after I got it. It just got worse and worse until it became almost unplayable. So it's been sitting at the repair shop for about 2 1/2 months waiting for a part. You would think that they would have caught on to the problem by now but instead they are discontinuing it.

Trying to contact the blokes in England is a joke. They probably received so many complaints they just don't deal with it anymore. The people at Von Audio are very nice and helpful and they're in the same boat, waiting for parts for everybody's busted KS4. I tried reloading the software but it still kept ghost knobbing. If you own one of these and it's working great, consider yourself lucky.

This is a great sounding synth with tons of features and a good interface. I am very much into analog synths and I wanted a VA so I wouldn't have to bring my priceless analogs to gigs. I just think it's hilarious that my 22 year old Sequential Pro- One is more reliable than a brand new KS4. In fact, if and when they fix mine I will sell it promptly and get a Jupiter, Juno or OB-Xa.As far as the VA I would get next? Maybe the Alesis micron, except I heard the Ion had the same phatom knob problem so I'll be skeptical. An-1x? Ob-12? Microkorg? If it were stolen, which it probably is by now since it's been at the repair shop for months, I'd yell to the guy "Good luck getting it to work!"

I am using software v.2.0 currently
Sound quality on this board is around a 9
As far as editing patches is concerned it is relatively easy
The manual is very thin but seems relatively comprehensive

I am not sure what the polyphony is as i am not with it at the moment.
The keyboard action is semi weighted and feels very smooth.
I do not think there are any expansion capabilities besides a software revision to v.2.0
This board has typical Midi in/out/thru and responds to velocity and aftertouch. Of worthy mention is its arpeggiator which has a technology called Hypersync which will syncronize all of its onboard effects to tempo which seems to work pretty well especially with delays and filters.

This board really excells in the sound dept. pads and basses particularly sound great and have a very slick sheen to them.
Some of my favorite patches are....
Hertz Bass,Ark Bass(very Depeche Mode!)Bootsy Bass,
Legato Strings,Get me to Heaven, Sustained Strings etc.
There are definately a few oh yeah i know that sound on this board
The onboard effects sound pretty good but the reverb is just ok and it's pretty easy to clutter a sound with them.
I would say this board is primarily best for Dance,Ambient electronica and not as a bread and butter synth. Aftertouch seems to work very well and it seems to be very responsive

Paramaters like the filter overdrive seem to blink when i am not touching it sometimes but i don't know if this is a problem with my specific board or in general. I probably woudn't use this on a gig without backup because of that

Haven't dealt with customer support

If this was lost or stolen i would definately replace if i could. For the price i got this for
$500 at guitar center kind of word of mouth special it was well worth it and also pretty cool that they are being discontinued.