Bass Station 1 Vs 2

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Ramya Bradbury

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Aug 4, 2024, 9:56:33 PM8/4/24

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Equallyat home on stage and in the studio, Bass Station II is a classic analogue synthesiser that can sound as warm and mellow or aggressive and hard as you want it to. Modulate the filter to make it sing, crank the distortion to toughen up that bass, and push the resonance to self-oscillation to get those lead lines screaming.

Before the famous Novation Bass Station Rackmodule came the small and portable Bass Station keyboard! This synthesizer uses digitally synchronized analog oscillators (DCO's) to reproduce thesounds of a monophonic dual-osc analog synthesizer with simple andintuitive controls via 17 knobs, 10 switches and 2 Moog-style pitch/modwheels. Think EDP Wasp and ARP Odyssey.

The Bass Station can faithfully reproduce analog bass sounds similar to aTB-303, Micromoog or Pro One synthesizer. The small keyboard andmonophonic architecture set this keyboard up for strict bassline, leadsynth lines, and synth fx. It also transmits MIDI continuous controller data from itspitch/mod wheels, frequency cutoff, resonance, filter modulation depth,env1 attack, decay and env2 attack and decay.

Unlike the Rack version, however, the keyboard lacks basic patch storagefeatures. There are only 7 memory patches and 1 manual patch (what theknobs are doing right now). The memory can be stored externally usingMIDI SysEx dumps. But for the low price (under $500) this makes a greatand compact analog bass synth for any user with simple but tasteful bassneeds. It is used by Apollo 440, RZA, and Lo Fidelity AllStars.

I multisampled my Bass Station thoroughly before selling it off. Sharing with the community for free (again)

Around 7GB, long samples and several notes, to capture as much of the original analog-ness as possible.

104 patches - plenty of different sounds, not just bass, and obviously unlike the monophonic BS2 these can be played polyphonically ?

How to:

Put the BassStation2 folder with the sample files in a folder specifically called Multisamples inside your main SAMPLES folder on your SD card.

The names must be exactly the same, so the filepath for the samples ends up being: SAMPLES\ Multisamples\ BassStation2

In case it helps anyone using a Mac, I wanted to put the samples in a different folder ("SYNTHS" instead of "Multisamples"); the following shell command will do the replacement on everything in a folder (so be careful, make sure you are in the correct directory patches first):

Wow these are great! I don't usually take such long samples, its nice to not have to worry about looping points. I couldn't fit these all on my main card, so I converted them to 16-bit, which saves about 1/3 of the space, if anyone wants the 16-bit versions of the samples I put them here:

@hamptonio said:

These sound really great, and I have a question. I'm just going through some of the folders, and it sounds like they are all in a specific scale rather than having all the notes. I'm not sure though if that's just a structure thing and some of the same preset are in different folders? I'd love to understand this. Thanks.

@Delusions said:

@Delusions multisamples don't necessarily need every note sampled to be effective. i imagine the multisample presets will reuse a sample a couple of times retransposed before the next unique sampled note. the trade off here is smaller overal filesizes and better performance from the deluge.

@reza said:

But the Alien Bass Station is not limited to just bass guitar alone. History has shown us that some of the best designs originally intended for bass, like the legendary Fender Bassman, have become essential favorites among guitar players as well. When you plug a guitar into the ABS the character of the pedal changes and becomes an entirely different animal.

Truly unique among fuzz pedals, it has stronger and lower frequencies that will produce more fuzz. Your bass will take on a whole new expressive harmonic richness when you run it though the Gamma Fuzz.

The new DSM & Humboldt SIMPLIFIER BASS STATION is everything you ever needed to go direct to the FOH or recording amazing bass tones without sacrificing anything. It includes a Bass Preamp with gain, level, and a 3 band EQ with semi-parametric mid control. A parallel signal routing with a selectable LPF, dual FX loop (for preamp and parallel signal), and an amazing analog cabinet simulation, based on the acclaimed Omnicabsim by DSM Noisemaker.

The Cabinet simulation was carefully designed to get the most distinctive cabinet tones. A Closed Back 8x10, with its tight and punchy lows. A vented 1x15 for warm creamy mids and thick lows, and a vented 4x10 for more open, wider range response. The Speaker color switch, Warm, Bright and Modern, simulates the different materials and geometry of bass speakers, which affects the dynamics and midrange response.And with the Resonance and Mic position controls, you can adjust the exact amount of high end brightness and the cabinet low end resonance you want.

The SIMPLIFIER BASS STATION is the first to include TWO effect loops, so you can use different effects on the main (preamp) and on the parallel signal chain. The sky is the limit here. Try a compressor for the parallel signal, and a chorus on the preamp; or a delay that only repeats the bottom end, or even a volume pedal to control the parallel blend in real time. Use your imagination to get bass tones never heard before!

The very big Frequency control dial is the dramatic one you will return to for massive sonic changes while the resonance dial does its thing, enhancing or reducing frequencies around that set by the frequency dial. It adds growl and a lot of edge to whatever sounds you are working with.

Sequencing

The Bass Station II really does come alive because of its arpeggiator which has all of the features and patterns you will want plus control over tempo. It has a bank of 32 increasingly complex arp sequences which are selected with the Rhythm control and you can easily adjust both octave and swing. A really useful performance or ideas feature is the on board sequencer. You can store four banks of 32 notes (retained on power off) so can jot down ideas easily when you are on your own doodling or trigger melodies when showing off to friends.

Alongside the basses and leads, analogue synthesis is able to create other types of sound and the Novation team have excelled here too. So there are occasional vocoder-like presets and plenty of bleepy analogue percussion sounds: claps, snares, kicks etc. Get to the top end of the presets and they start to take a turn to the dark side with more in your face distortion.