Novation Supernova II Keyboard

Reviewed by Bernie Eller

Somewhere in the late '70s Chris Hugget designed washing machines for a living. Wearying of whiteware, he set out to design and manufacture a cost effective lightweight synth which everyone could enjoy. From his bedroom was born the Electronic Dream Plant Company and in time the EDP WASP.

The WASP was a small analogue synth with a two-octave touch pad keyboard and a maassssssive sound. It wasn't long before the likes of Stevie Wonder, Jean Michel Jarre, David Bowie and Keith Emerson got wind of this little puppy with very big teeth.

Described at the time as 'One of the biggest advances in synthesiser design - an ultra low cost, high performance instrument', it is an odd looking device. Built in garish black and yellow plastic with a flat, yellow, keyless two-octave 'keyboard', it weighs no more than a couple of pounds. Two digitally controlled oscillators running through an analogue filter give the instrument a distinctive and powerful sound belying its awkward appearance.

History Never Repeats

A few years and some mismanagement saw the demise of EDP, but not the end of Chris Hugget's obsession. He formed a new company called The Oxford Synthesizer Company, the OSC in the name of its premier synth the 'Oscar'. This machine set wheels in motion for further developments in synth architecture design for the common people. The Oscar had dual oscillators, programmable memories, a step sequencer and two-note polyphony along with a number of other groundbreaking features for the time. This little, and essentially English company, was starting to make waves in an industry dominated by the Americans and Japanese. The Oscar had a sound unlike any other synth of its time and this, along with its rarity, is partly why they still command high secondhand prices today.

Even the ground breaking advances and passion were not enough to keep the company afloat in the face of the ever increasing tide of disposable synths that the Japanese companies were producing. And so Chris Hugget moved on.

Novation (New Hope in British Design)

After months of offering advice, and some consultation to a small company called Novation that was, at the time, producing a small two octave
monophonic synth and controller keyboard, Chris was taken on board fulltime. The company's early products, namely the Novation Bass Station and soundless controller version brother, were welcomed by a market searching for a reasonable alternative to the likes of the Roland TB-303.

Although a few teething problems occurred with these early examples, more ingenious models followed. The Novation Drumstation, I believe, is still one of the most faithful representations of the classic Roland TR-909 and TR-808 drum machine sounds. All this boxed in a one-rack space 19" unit, with knobs if you please!

The real breakthrough came with the release of the Supernova in 1998, the flagship of the company until recently when the version II keyboards were unveiled. The Supernova, initially was a 16 voice, three oscillator, 8 part multi-timbral, three space rackmount module with Virtual Analogue Modelling for a brain. Interestingly enough, an ex-pat Kiwi was also deeply involved with the evolution of this product - Phill McDonald, you may remember him from many years ago, a very talented keyboard player and general synth guru, now resident in the UK (like so much of our best kiwi talent).

The specs were pretty amazing at the time, get this: you can have up to four effects on each sound on each of the eight parts, completely independent of each other. Yes that's right! What you hear in standard Patch mode, is what you get in Multi mode.

Phew! that's something I've wanted to shout about for a long time. Remember listening to those wonderful presets in the shop on the latest and greatest new synth? Then being let down by the sound when you had to share the single effect unit, oh what the hell, two, if you were lucky, in multi mode.

That's it in a nutshell really, before I even start dissecting the Supernova II keyboard, remember those words: what you hear in Patch mode, is what you get in Multi mode - no ifs, no buts.

Enter Our Bernie (Strange Electronic Music Buff)

My part of this story starts on Tottenham Court Rd one day after working several 70-hour weeks and having saved enough money to purchase a workstation synth to connect to my computer at home. I misguidedly popped into Turnkey Systems, plugged myself into a Novation Supernova and turned up the headphones.

First impressions were not so good, maybe it was the environment, or possibly the presets had all been somehow altered beyond recognition, but I just could not get a decent sound out of the machine. This all seemed strange, as the major music magazine reviews had just raved about this product.

To cut a long story short, I ended up buying a Yamaha EX5R, which I still believe was an excellent choice of bread and butter synth. Yes, in case you weren't aware, the Supernova series is dedicated to old school analogue sounds and not much else bar the odd organ and electric piano sound, which it emulates quite well actually.

I later read an article that looked into the deep recesses of the Oxford Synthesizer Company days, Chris Hugget's association with the new Novation company, and went on to explain that he had spearheaded the design of the Supernova. How could this be? The creator of my favourite strange, quirky synth had produced something, which I had given neither time, nor day to.

A year later and back in New Zealand the latest instalment in the family, the Supernova II keyboard is now available and I was keen to give it a look over for NZM.

First up don't listen to the demo, it's complete rubbish. What struck me first was the clarity and power of the sounds, obviously with a healthy dose of digital effects but this is no drawback, as you will see. After 30 minutes just sorting through the seemingly endless pallet of patches, I was convinced that I had indeed missed the point of this company - and missed the boat completely soundwise, for that matter.

Let's face it, electric blue displays on synths just do something that no other colour can. The display is clear, and delivers the necessary amount of detail for accurate manipulation of the patches. To tell the truth electric blue anything gets me going! In fact the overall aesthetics and feel of the control surfaces is about half the appeal of this unit for me. I think that's pretty important, as it not only has to be functional, but becomes part of your furniture as well. The whole unit is encased in a matte navy blue outer shell with rubbery pitch bend and modulation wheels, the upper panel sprinkled with various descriptions of the carefully moulded knobs in smooth pastel colours.

The synthesis system is called ASM or Analogue Sound Modelling. The basic Supernova II model comes with 24 voices, (the Supernova II Pro 36), expandable with 12 and 24 voice options to a maximum of 48 in the Supernova II ProX. For your coinage, ($4295 for the basic Nova II, $5795 for the Supernova II ProX) you receive a machine with three oscillators, two ring modulators and a noise generator (the ring modulators can be swapped with FM modulators on Oscillator three) not to mention a modulation matrix with 130 possible routings. There are 12dB, 18dB and 24dB filters on board along with two LFOs and three envelopes.

The Supernova Effects

The user has access to 11 effect types; Distortion, Comb Filter, EQ, Reverb, Chorus/Flanger/Phaser/Ensemble/Rotary Speaker, Delay and Panning. Up to 57 different effect types are available simultaneously. You got it, seven effects for each of the eight parts of a performance ie. Multi mode and Patch mode sound exactly the same - what goes in, comes out the other end - unchanged!
You also get a 48-band vocoder with sibilance modes, plus a spectrum analyser, and the effects are morphable between each configuration. Overall, the effects are clean, and offer a wide variation of control over the basic sounds. One of the cool aspects of the control is the ability to adjust the amount of the distortion (my favourite) effect applied, based on movement of the modulation wheel, or velocity amount.

You can also alter the effect configuration by rearranging the order of the processors ie. putting the delay section before the distortion section and vice versa. All in all, I found the effects section fairly comprehensive for a keyboard workstation. What's even more appealing is the astounding flexibility you have with so much effect power at your fingertips.

One fairly expected drawback is that the reverbs are a little on the metallic side and not particularly transparent. Having said that, essentially the effect section has been implemented as both a powerful sound creation tool, and a brilliant performance tailoring aspect of the keyboard. Surely this must be one of the most innovative and powerful examples effect use, on any synth available today, and one of the major selling points of this machine.

The Supernova Sounds

The sounds are, quite simply, inspiring. My first impressions were of a fat, clean and powerful sound pallet. There's a huge number of sounds on this machine with capacity for storing a whole lot more. A choice of 12/18/24dB filters to squeeze your oscillator waveforms through gives plenty of scope for both huge and warm sounds.

Occasionally I found it a little too easy to alter one parameter and then lose my sound altogether. This was no major problem, the same thing occurs with my Jupiter 8 and I put it down to the traits of a more comprehensive editing system. There is a distortion parameter worthy of mention at the oscillator stage, apart from the one that resides in the effect section. The purpose of this is to add some low-level harmonics and provide a sort of compression to enhance the impact of the sound - great for achieving those searing leads and adding an edge to pads.

On first appearance there seems not to be much in the way of waveform variation for the oscillators, but this is not entirely true. There's a sawtooth wave, and a square wave to choose from with another mystery button called 'Special' of which there is no mention in the manual, I assume this is for future upgrades. Hmmm, the mind boggles. The key to the sound creation process on this machine, is the modulation possibilities, and things like the Ring Modulators and Frequency Modulation routings.

The sounds are very fat, and I think that this machine's strength is in the bass line department, and the cutting lead riff sound area as well. I wasn't completely convinced by the pads, my pick would be something like the Access Virus, not that there's anything wrong with them. I'm just fussy because I've been fortunate enough to own so many classic big analogue pad machines myself. The filters are very nice, although myself and a friend could swear we heard a little stepping as we swept them on the odd sound. Still, between you and me, no one's ever going to notice in the mix.

The envelopes are nice, fast and punchy, which is why it makes such great bass sounds, they can be very Moog-like but also Roland-like at the same time, if that makes any sense. Same goes for the filters really.

There's a new sound set available for the Supernova along with the version 1.03 software, which I have yet to hear. I had trouble upgrading the OS as it's in the form of a Standard MIDI file. The problem with this type of upgrade system is it's a hit and miss affair, due to the many types of hardware out there people are using as sequencers. I tried every sequencer, both hardware and software I had, as well as those of friends, without success.

I'm sure that Novation will come up with another method that involves a self-installing file soon enough, then there's always the friendly local music shop. Check out www.novationuk.com for more info and pics plus some sound file demos of the new Novation products.

Embrace The Future

I think this is a great product and I tend to go overboard and get a little on the excited side when I find something I like. That's not very often these days with most of the large synth manufacturers churning out dozens of lookalike re-hashed over-sold designs for the mass market. The only thing outside of the analogue modelling genre that the Supernova falls into, that's worth its salt, is the Korg Triton, which would make a great combination with the Supernova, should you have the finances.

All round, for its type, that is, for a machine that's not going to have all your sampled waveform piano and string sounds, a bread and butter box, the Supernova is pretty much running the show.

Some will argue that the Supernova sound is either not complex or editable enough. Well they are missing the point of this beast, and talking about machines built with the sound designer in mind! Novation's new range is aimed at instant satisfaction and punchy, ballsy, noise appeal, not unlike its not-so-distant cousin the WASP. It delivers good useful analogue sounds, with little effort. So if you want the three Fs, then this machine is for you! FAST, FAT, FUNKY.

Bernie Eller is a freelance audio designer making music for web and video, owner of a huge pile of old analogue synths that he loves dearly and will never part with. You can hear the Oscar on his track Sphere (it's the 'arpeggiated' sound). Check it out at vast.net.nz email: bernie@vast.net.nz