They should have done a deal with Pianoteq. Then they could include a few great pianos on a Rasberry Pi board built into this new 88 key controller. Sell the whole thing for $1000 and make a big splash in the high end home keyboard market.
I’m occasionally tempted to pick up a Nova desktop or a SN2Kbd and deal with the power supply issues. But I just had to give away my Ultranova after repeatedly advertising it fro $300, $200, $150. I gave it to a guy who bought some Euro modules and my old 6u case.
There will be a time for a Nova/Supernova revival, but Novation is probably wise to focus on the 88 key controllers that could plausibly be used for junior’s piano lessons.
(A SuperNova II Keyboard was my first big synth and I still miss it. Ultranova was no substitute)
I miss the good old days when Novation were my number 1
IMO the Novation Nova Keyboard (I had the XL which had 36 voices) was the best synth around for years and even can cut it today.
If you owned one before then you’ll remember that changing patches etc wouldn’t screw your FX with glitches etc it was smooth transitions on all parts. That was clever for the time. These synths could put many of todays offering to shame IMO
I don’t feel the recent circuit devices hit the expectations people had , they seemed a little too close to the original… a little more streamlined but not a great leap forward.
Peak and summit are a bit out of my league price wise
Bass station 2 is still fine but there’s a lot of competition out there … they need more than a sticker and presets to keep momentum on it.
As for all the focuswrite sound cards and everything else… they seem ok but not stuff I keep an eye on … none of them are like a new weird drum machine or innovative granular weird sound box. … but I’m sure doing ‘ tried and tested familiar gear’ an still be a profitable business
When I finally got a Virus, it was quite a letdown to discover that the synth has an aneurysm if you change the FX, and stops any playing notes or arps. At least Access’ power supplies seem stable.
The only use I can see for this new Novation controller is to trigger Rytm tom samples in Ableton, and set that up alongside a Syntakt. Then we’d finally have a complete instrument for once.
How can anyone take Novation seriously when their name isn’t Moog? They should change it to something like Moog-Volca, then everyone will want what they are dishing out and serving up for the holidays.
I love Novation. The Circuit Tracks is the center piece of my setup. Circuit Rhythm is wonderful as well.
The Circuits* have the best sequencers out there. A row for the tracks, two rows for “trigs”, two rows for a keyboard. You always know where you are and what you are doing. The pads are silent (not KLONK KLONK KLONK) and velocity sensitive.
(*and presumably the Launchpad since they seem to be the same, however I never owned one. If I had to buy a keyboard/sequencer, I’d buy a Launchpad.)
The Bass Station II is one of the best mono synths out there, and for me it’s actually THE BEST since it supports patch flipping aka AFX mode.
My first keyboard synth was a Xiosynth, which was an absolute piece of shit, but it cost basically fuck all and had a surprising amount of features long before the cheap synth nirvana we live in now.
Fuck me.
Even I’m taking this thread seriously now.
Which is the most meta way of dealing with self created meta-threads, I guess.
I second this and would mildly stress to add a more designated moral evaluation to it. Is losing ‘the focus’ as a company a morally reprehensible occurence or strategy? ^^