Novation X-Station

This thing has a lot of features, using the manual is very important, quite intuitive but defenitly need the manual to kick things off, and regular references ongoing for quite some time. Overall very well laid out interface and manual.

A few of the presets are ok, I'm not scared at all of modifying and re-saving as my own improved sound.

This thing is a bit of a jack of all trades, takes a while to set up if it is to be incorporated as a controller/midi router with other synths and sequencer software etc, but then everything takes time, very portable, I sometimes go to the beach in the evening with some batteries and do sound designing there, so good. All controls are a bit tacky but great value at this price point, great portable workhorse that I'm not scared to use and abuse, and it's worth using and abusing.

Integrates ok as a controller for sequencer software, nothing special, Buy this as a cheap portable synth, not as a controller or sound card, think of those as a bonus that are well worth having, I use it with Live.

As a 3 osc synth with a couple of envelopes and some modulation options, a single filter (with some suprising features) and a very basic arp this unit rocks. It would be nice to have an extra filter though. Effects are quite good.

The only other synth I have is a Nord Modular G2, I'll be comparing perhaps unfairly to that beast. The synth engine is obviously nowhere near as flexible which was the main reason I bought it. Sounds are not quite as pro sounding mainly due to the effects section, everything else seems fine to my ears.

Can not complain at all. It sounds a lot better than it feels/looks in person.

Not the strongest of units, but should be fine, I don't expect it to last as long as the Nord G2.

no comment

At $699 Australian dollars nothing I am aware of comes close. Great portable unit with great interface and very usable and flexibe synth. Could do with another filter.

Synth - pretty easy and immediate, better if you know synth basics
Sound tweaking - dead easy, loads of knobs

As a softsynth controller - depends on the synth, anything with midi map (like Sylenth) makes it dead easy, otherwise templates are reasonably okay to create. None of the templates shipped helped me much.

As a DAW controller - don't know, don't use or like DAWs, I prefer to play in live.

Presets are okay. Novation provide some downloadable free patches many of which are way better.

Manual is okay. It is cluttered and some areas are better / worse than others. At least as a PDF you can search for key terms which helps.

For this price point this is in my view gold dust.
I've looked for anything with this feature set and not found anything comparable.
I bought this unit to control soft synths and ended up loving the synth. I nearly cried with joy when Sylenth and the X station joined up so easily. All those sliders and knobs make synth programming a joy.

I have had some drop outs and hung notes here and there when programming - mainly with Korg legacy Digital - impossible to tell where the glitches were. Just reset and carried on.

I like the action, the keys, the joystick, the XY Pad. I wish I could figure out how to make the XY act as a wavestation vector joystick though.

Power was an issue for me. My laptop did not send enough juice via USB. So I invested in some rechargeable batteries and my joy quotient went up even more. It works really well and I can literally tuck it under my arm and get a good 4 hour session of playing or tweaking on one charge.

The arpeggiator is pretty good. Surprised that the arp is not more easily programmed, maybe I've not looked hard enough in the manual. Did think that a software solution would be included as it would be dead easy to do this graphically and download custom arp patterns.

I would have liked a better bit of software from Novation for sending / editing patch libraries. It does work just about. BUT you have to use Banks A / B and manually combine your best of instead of doing this in software.

The synth itself is pretty cool. True it could have more easy modulation possibilities. However, it has loads of effects, lots of power and plenty of grunt warmth for the money. If you want pristine sound quality you are probably going to pay well over a grand in hardware form. Otherwise softsynths are the way to go.

Overall a great feature set.

Great sounds. I love the lead sounds and basses and pads and gated and so on. Sits well alongside bread and butter romplers.

Best suited for electronic and dance styles.

This is not a Virus, but then what is?

Effects very good and easy to tweak.

Keyboard feels great to me. Semi weighted with good controls.

So far so good.
Would always have a standby second unit if I did gig with it.

It's online.
They do respond to questions.
Plenty of downloads are available for patches, firmware etc
I've had no experience of needing serious help.

I love it. I also liked receiving free Novation Bass Station software bundled.

I would like to see a unit like this with decent drum pads on it as well. Bundle with a strong ready to go pre-loaded dance / rock / industrial drum engine (not another set it all up yourself in 2 years of your own time package) and wipe out the competition.

Novation X-Station 25

200 preinstalled presets + 100 more u can download from Novation WebPage - most do really well. If u play with it u can get really good sounds for yr needs.

Manual might be bit complicated for beginners.

1) Its really flexi device. Wide range of knobs / faders / pressure sens. keys + few Effects and XY Touch Pad with 200 banks gives you really good synth.

Live performance or studio projects might be so much easier with X25.
Nothing better 3 in 1 : sound card / midi controller / synth

2) Sound Card : I've heard many opinions about it...

1. If You want to use it in a studio - forget about it and get proper sound card.
2. Using a Windows OS ? - ! THIS IS IMPORTANT ! Get a 2.0 USB Hub before installing whole device. Crashed a lot before . While You playing.. it can crash . Can imagine .. ksssssssszzzzzzzzzzzz in your headset while you plaing live ? I got my powered 2,0 Hub [10 euro on Ebay] + good gold ended USB cable.
no more issues. ( Recommended by Novation Customer Support )
3. No option to extend memory


3) MIDI - good - very easy to assign keys + 40 presets for progs like Cubase / Logic / Reason / Albino etc etc

10 / 10 for synth mode
10 / 10 for midi controler mode
4 / 10 for soundcard

Check banks at Novation Page before You buy X25 to see what u can expect.
Sounds very well in general

Yes, You can depend on it without backup ..just remember to plug hub before.

Page it self doesnt give you much support and its not clear what to do if you have a problem, however their CS is pretty good ( I had to call just once but they solved my problem v.fast giving advice how to fix ) Can't complain .

Drivers / Updates / any extra features are bit too old
- this is big issue.

Best part ,.
I really like that hardware.. :

- positive :
300 banks / 40 presets / good sounds / many knobs / faders / good for studio and Live performance P E R F E C T
and .... GREAT price ( compare to diffrent MIDI Controllers / synths and their features )

- negative :
soundcard features / need USB Hub /no external memory / sensitive faders ( ITS NOT A MIXER !! - be more delicate with them )

Totally easy. Lots of physical controls, clearly labeled, sliders as well as knobs, decent manual, etc. An internal power supply would have made it easier, but at this size and price that's probably unrealistic. The option to run on batteries is killer! Very easy to control soft synths, too.

A ton of features in a tiny box. (I have the 25-key version.) Audio interface with phantom power, audio through effects, an excellent hardware synth, MIDI interface, incredibly good keyboard action with pressure sensitivity, X/Y touchpad, pitch/mod lever that can spring back or not as you prefer, charges its batteries over USB, on and on.

The synth engine is not the most compresensive (it's not a modular or a $2,500 Virus), but it's **** good even at twice the price. 3 oscillators with extra waveforms, 2 LFOs with lots of waveforms and a one-shot mode that lets them act as complex envelopes, dedicated arp buttons, and smoooth smoooth beautiful filters. No zipper noise anywhere, unlike some synths that are much more expensive.

There are some audio/synth routings that it cannot do, but come on...it's dirt cheap and it does a million things. You might as well complain that your Swiss Army Knife can't remotely unlock the doors of your Mercedes. Plus, it's lightweight, solid as a rock, and not much bigger than your laptop. Great instrument!

This little dynamo is incredible. Under the magnifying glass, in isolation, those familiar with real analogs will be able to tell that this is a virtual analog. In a dense recording, on stage, or in a mix with lots of other instruments, even experts could easily be fooled. Warm oscillators, fast envelopoes, and a silky wet filter give this synth a fantastic sound. It does great, squelchy TB sounds, and it can be as pretty or nasty as you like. I have a real analog synth, and I still love my X-Station!

Seems great. Feels rock-solid.

Don't know, never needed them.

I love this little synth. It's not a Ferrari...more like a Miata that still out-sports everyone else and didn't cost your life savings to buy. It's not quite as fat as a Prophet 08, but it costs 1/4 the price and does A LOT more. It doesn't have all the features of a Virus TI, but it costs 1/5 the price and sounds 90% as good. Buy it, and here's what will happen: you'll lose track of time programming it, you'll fall in love with it and forget that it doesn't have "graintables" (whatever those are), and you'll feel a lot smarter than everyone else who got 5% more synth by spending 500% more money. Enjoy!

Easy to use. Nice presets, same sound engine as in k-station. There are tons of good patches on the web. You can load it with K, KS, V station and Xiosynth patches.

Polyphony is 8, good for a VA synth. It is monotimbral. Built-in effcts are nice and you can run audio thruogh them. I love keyboard action, it's much better then Nord Lead2 and Korg z1. It is also a good controller, has presets and templates to control a bunch of popular software. Comes with software librarian/template editor that is very handy and easy to use. It also has built-in usb audio interface with phantom power.

This is virtual analog, works great for electonic music.
Good effects, easily tweaked.
Reacts to velocity and aftertouch very well and can be adjusted.

I replaced nord lead2 with x-station, much cheaper, has effects and much better keyboard action, it's excellent way to control softsynths.

Getting something out of it isnt hard, but to take full advantage its not that easy because of the not so smart layout with no direct access to all lfos and other important features as such....

the filters suck and sometimes midi doesnt seem to be fast enough...

the sound is terrible. Its either very thin or just plain bad...
I have several synths and soft synths and this is the worse by far. If it wasnt for the great deal i got and the good keyboard to work as a controler and i would have asked for my money back...

it looks cheap and fragile...

dunno

either than the good keyboard i dont see why someone would spend the money....save your bucks and get a decent synth... a virus...a nord...

Well. As ease of use X-station is well designed but I have seen better devices. The controller and audio interface controls are quite easy, but the synth controls are not open enough. You can't have total information about the sound you create. For example if I tweak an oscillator and move on to the others, I have to memorize the setting I've made, because there arent separate controls for each oscillator. The display is small but enough and it looks sexy with that blue backlit too. Some controls cannot be used if you use X-station as a standalone device. You will see transport buttons on the panel, but it may be annoying to discover that you cant record midi tracks (it doesnt have a built in sequencer) and you only have a single filter. In general its an easy to use device.

8 voice is quite enough. It has built in effects and they sound good. The synth can be expanded if you use it with a computer and VST synths. As I said before it hasnt got a sequencer and the arpegiator is so simple and not flexible. But all these can be remedied if you use it with a computer. Plus you will get a nice audio interface, superb midi controller and decent sounding synth for that price. So my rating is 10 for features.

The synth sounds pretty decent. You can have devastating leads, distorts, basses as well as calming pads and brilliant electric pianos.
The engine is not too flexible, it has only one filter and no modulation matrix so you cant create very complex sounds to use in electronic music. Its not a synth to learn synthesis theory, but its quite powerful and well fit for dance, techno, trance etc. The effects are not the best but they are satisfying. As you can imagine reverb is not a pro one. But if you want reverb go buy a T.C. electronics machine.

I had no problems so far and it looks reliable. The knobs and buttons are solid, but the sliders sont seem so and keep in mind that pouring some liquid on them would be a bad idea. The keys feel good, solid and reliable, maybe the joystick and x-y pad can make some problems. But I didnt have any and I bought the unit one month ago.

I didnt have to deal with them and I bought the unit only one month ago.

A good one for the beginning arranger and studioguy. It has all the features to make your laptop a compact studio environment. A nice controller - audio interface and decent synth in one place. Go buy it! You wont be sorry for that. Compared to alesis ion its synthesis engine is not that flexible but dont forget that this is a device in another class. A perfect buy.

Easy. I have it hooked up to Windows XP using Novation USB driver 1.1.0, released in Feb. 2007, I think. But I think everything worked before I even installed the driver.
Patch editing is easy with all these knobs and sliders.

This is an absurd keyboard. It is too versatile. First of all, you can switch the keyboard between two primary modes: controller and synth mode. However, it still works as a controller in synth mode. In controller mode the program select rotary switches to a software preset selector, meaning you select among Generic, Ableton, Reason (separate presets for Mixer, Redrum, Maelstrom, and Subtractor), Absynth, Cubase, Logic, etc. 40 control presets in total.
Now throughout all of this activity, the keyboard will also function as an audio interface. It can perform simultaneously as a synth, controller, and 2 In/2 Out ASIO interface. That means you can hook it up to a computer with one USB cable, then record the digital output of the built in synth with your computer. This is kind of astonishing in how handy it can be. The latency on the audio interface is below perceptible levels (about 5ms output, or 10ms sum of input and output). The coolest knob on this keyboard is the one labeled "MONITOR" that fades between "input" and "output." It lets you fade between your ASIO computer source and the built-in synth.
It also has spdif out and can act as an effect processor for mic and line inputs.. i need a rest.
For a bedroom musician or hobbyist, this keyboard acts as 5 pieces of gear: midi controller, basic synthesizer, audio interface, xlr mic preamp, basic effects processor.

This is the most expressive piece of electronics I have ever laid my hands on. velocity, aftertouch, pitch/mod joystick, plus xy trackpad, plus shove an expression pedal into the back, and you have 7 dimensions of live expression. It makes the instrument fun to play.

I will devote this section to a word about the software side of things, because i dont gig with it. the Novation drivers are solid and you can tell they have some talented developers.

If it were lost or stolen I would buy a new one.

I'm using the latest OS (3.0.0.3) + the 1.0 USB Drivers (no problems on Windows, though OSX users really need to download the 1.3 driver upgrade for their platform).

I upgraded all this as soon as I bought it basically (guy I got it from hadn't bothered upgrading from the 1.0.3 OS he obviously got it with), and have had ZERO driver / software problems since then, contrary to the various issues you see posted around the 'net stemming from older versions of the OS.

It comes with a *decent* (though not the world's greatest) manual, which includes a fairly comprehensive section on subtractive synth basics for newbies (applicable to any synth, not just the X-Station).

Editing patches is a breeze - either onboard with the various tweakable knobs & sliders, or on the PC using the free 'X-Station Template Editor' app (oddly named, since it's a patch librarian as well), which you can download from the Novation site.

8 Voice polyphony (you can layer as many of these as you want in unison mode as well, for extra phatness) beats my Alpha Juno by two voices, so I'm happy :)

Effects section is great, and can be applied to the audio inputs as well. Full midi capability, and it can act as a controller also, with customisation of the latter on par with Novation's ReMOTE range (for those who don't know, the X-Station actually started out as the ReMOTE Audio, before it was re-badged as a separate product).

Basically this means you can use it to control all your DAW software, VST's AND more importantly (since it has a REAL midi out port, not just USB midi, unlike it's smaller sibling the Xiosynth) your legacy hardware synths as well. I've set up a template to control my Juno with it - no need to fork out extra cash to track down the increasingly rare PG-300 controller. Setting it up as a controller is also relatively pain-free, with a lot of DAW / softsynth templates included straight out of the box (although of course legacy hardware like my Juno requires programming your own template).

Audio I/O, you can use it as an audio + midi interface with your laptop ... what more could you ask for really ?

Oh mama, does this thing wrrrrawk :) It's got velocity, it's got aftertouch (even in my humble 25-key version), it ships with a decent array of presets, plus the ability to use sounds from pretty much all of Novation's range (with the exception of the Novas).

There are sounds to download on the Novation home page, and lots to be found on various user groups. You can ALSO use patches from Novation's 'newer' offering, the Xiosynth. That's right - all those much hyped presets by Ferry Corsten, Roots Manuva, Renny Pilgrim etc. will work on the X-Station (I know - I've tried it).

Don't expect 'realistic' instrument sounds (it's a synth), but it does a VERY good job of emulating 'classic' analogue synths like Moogs & Prophets, plus generating lovely 'modern' sounds, almost on par with a Virus.

From what I've heard from guys that have one for a few years, it's rugged as all hell. Build quality is great for such a small and lightweight piece of kit. That being said, I don't know if I WOULD gig with it without SOME kind of backup ... but that's probably me playing it alltogether 'too safe'.

Never dealt with them directly, but their site offers a good support base, updates etc.

If some bast* nicked it, I'd definitely buy one again. Oh, and try to track him down to rip off his testicles too ! I compared this versus the Xiosynth for months on end, ended up choosing the X-Station because of the extra I/O options, more front panel controls (knobs beat sub-menus any day !), and the presence of REAL midi out.

Now I'm so glad I did, especially since I can use the Xiosynth presets on it as well. It doesn't have the X-Gator obviously, but who cares - I can always gate externally. As for the supposed "harder" character of the Xiosynth's filter - let me tell you, I've rattled windows with the sounds coming out of this baby - you don't NEED 'harder' than the X-Station !

The X Station 25 has a good, if sometimes confusing 85 page manual. As a synth, it is close in sound to the K and V Station, with Novation's warm sound. It's not terribly complex, but has everything you need to make professional sounds.

The preset synth configurations are out of date for the most part, but are easy to program using Novation's software editor. Be ready to get your hardware and software synth manuals out. Thankfully, the editor is very good.

Synth voices are 8 notes with monopolyphony, meaning you can't use more than one channel for the X Station's synth. The effects are basic and of good quality, with a very nice chorus, reverb, delay, compressor, EQ and distortion.

These effects are available for the audio outs and sound good in a mix though I'd rather add effects post-recording.

The faders, knobs and buttons are plentiful and of good quality. Most are pots with a few encoders for segments such as Oscillator waveforms, which are plentiful and make the synth section very useful, as do the generous FM settings.

As a controller, the X Station works well, and in the event you use synths by Native Instruments, you'll find the midi learn feature on the N.I. synths to be a godsend - particularly if you work quickly.

While weighing 10 lbs, the 25 key version is stable and comfortable to play. It is especially nice to use the excellent keys, particularly with aftertouch.

The K-Station based engine sounds wonderful. If you like the Novation sound, this is one of the better buys, particularly with all the controllers; especially the Joystick, typically used for modulation and pitch. You can change the controls to other functions such as filter and introduction of FM or reduction of sound within a patch.

Also of great use is the x/y touchpad which can be assigned multiple duties. If you have a Korg Wavestation or plugin, you'll be in vector heaven.

This is really a controller first, in my estimation, then a synth, then two audio inputs with flexible controls and excellent hardware conectors.

too early to tell, but this is a well designed, nicely put together master keyboard.

Considering this and a laptop is all you need for a gig and/or studio, it is quite considerably priced. If used as an audio setup, I'd prefer a backup for live situations.

Too many folks I've worked with had technical problems with computers, though I'd feel much more relaxed with the X Station 25's build quality.

not needed to date

This is an excellent solution for DJs, synthesists and other musicians that need an audio controller and sound card.

The synth portion is wonderful for what it is. It won't replace your Nova II or Supernova, but it has the Novation sound which is somewhat polite (unless you wish to make it grittier) and super-warm with a touch of digital due the FM capabilities when used. Overall, the sound is refreshingly pretty and fits wonderfully with my Korg Radias and Q-Rack.

I use many virtual synths, which the X Station 25 controls well. I like it a great deal because it does what it's supposed to and doesn't get in my way.

There was a learning curve which at times was frustrating. Still, I consider the X Station 25 an essential part of my recording rig and am seriously considering gigging again because of the X Stations capabilities.

If stolen I'd replace it, possibly with a 49 key version.