Want a real review? Look at this.
We are poor sinners crawling upon the face of the Earth. We are weak and mortal. There is no shame in admitting that we are often mistaken. At this moment you are mistaken because you have not yet agreed that the Novation Ultranova is the greatest musical instrument of all time. I will give you a moment.
The very worst is to be apostate, like the guy that sold me this. He not only lacked the truth but acted to rid himself of it, and once I safely received the holy device I burned down his house to save his immediate family from the shame of its absence.
It’s customary in reviews to say things like ‘on the balance’ or ‘for some people’ or ‘you might disagree’. I will not waste time on that nonsense although I will give a suitably short consideration to some of your obvious niggles. The keyboard is neither too short or too long. Too short and you will find yourself trilling in thin air. Too long and it doesn’t fit up the stairs. The keys are neither too heavy or too light – pounding wooden keys is for people in beebop bands and that is beneath the Ultranova. There is not a plethora of knobs nor is it a controller desert void of life. It is not coloured some juvenile red nor some fake memory of 70’s wood. It is blue, like the cloak of the Virgin Mary.
You ask what it sounds like. I say what does it not sound like? It is wooden and metallic and harsh and gentle and shimmery and warm and if you made up a word, like gostraquilia I would say hell, the word starts and ends with patch G127. You want synch sweeps, grunge, wavetables, string machines, bloops, borborygmus, choirs, cats, just keep reciting and I will nod with full conviction that I am right to do so.
Why bother comparing it to any other brand of synthesiser? That would be futile. Compared to the Supernova it is more precise and deft. It has less voices but each has more voices within. With both you have hammer and screwdriver. Compared to the Ass Station 2 it has 17 more layers of beef patties and special sauce but it can be just as angry young man when it wants. Compared to the Mininova it doesn’t fall apart when you try use it and the wheels are very very BRIGHT BLUE. The Mininova sounds just as good but just dips under greatness by being a miniature poodle. The Ultranova is a standard poodle.
Put it this way. Take all of your wo/man cave in view and ask yourself – what would I sell first? Keep going until one thing is left. That for me is the Ultranova.
I am happy for you leave comments. However if you disagree with me I will justifiably replace them with entirely supportive cheering.
Novation MiniNova
My Respect to this toy that got me back into owning hardware after decades. However that decision was purely on specifications and price – for one gig I needed a small keyboard that makes sounds as well as controlling things, handles the funny voices and fits in my suitcase wrapped in undies. And I had to buy new (contracts / taxes) and didn’t want to spend very much.
I bought it not ever having heard it, because one gig right? The rest of my life was going to be virtual instruments. But then…
It wouldn’t be hard to beat that level of non-expectation. The MiniNova did that, but also proved to me that hardware could compete in the range of sounds possible. Unlike most hardware it is a very broad brush. It doesn’t seek to be anything in particular and manages to approximate all kinds of things. If you were to own one keyboard I’d recommend this or the bigger UltraNova with a clear conscience.
The first thing I liked are the three oscillators, which have a good library of waveforms, samples and wavetables, but also allow a lot of bending and twisting and cross modulation. You can make an awful lot of sounds just with these before you get to the two filters. The latter have multiple modes, but nowhere near as distinct as the Micron, being just a little more or a little less of this and that.
Amps and drives and all that follow on, but really your next point of interest is the extensive modulation matrix, which is a bit overwhelming, and connected with the launch pads on the front of the box. If you’re very obsessive you can set up eight instant variations (or ‘tweaks’) on every sound – so far I’ve lacked the dedication. These same pads control the arpeggio pattern. Arpeggio is a big deal with the Nova. You could probably spend a month in prison learning just that.
As well as the launch pads there’s a grid of adjustments lined up with four twiddly knobs, not too different to the microKorg. The twiddly knobs and selector actually work pretty well, although they go nowhere near the range of twiddles needed to actually program the thing. For that you need the menuing system, which is decent, not great. Use the VST programmer to do the deep work (and wonder again why you’re not just using a VST.)
The main problem with the Nova is the lack of documentation. It’s nowhere near what you need to understand why things are there or not there. For example – the wavetables are numbered – no description. There are bizarre LFO shapes that must have an intention, but you will never know it. Everything is presented as a fact of life to be puzzled over by poets and philosophers. And the online community is dead in the water, mainly people wondering why no one will help them with some Novation wet patch.
And there are wet patches. Like how external MIDI and local control switching (e.g. using the VST editor) causes the machine to go mute with malice or become confused about timing. And the blue light broke in my mod wheel – unforgivable
The Nova is not the kind of synthesiser that you come to love for a particular sound, because it’s scatterbrained and has no overarching theme. Instead you will slowly explore it like a lost pyramid and you will find treasures.
Update – the MiniNova has completely fallen apart. Which is not a good look, given my BassStation 2 has had the knobs rot off. Novation sent me new ones, they are nice people, but their QC is awful.
Hear It In Action
You are hearing the MiniNova (most of it) and the Radias (the bleeps). Recorded in 2015.