Built to emulate two of the company’s ‘90s/noughties hardware synths, Novation’s Bass Station and V-Station plugins are now pretty long in the tooth themselves. In fact, the company has now discontinued them as commercial products and made them available for free as ‘legacy’ software.
Bass Station is designed to create the monophonic 1993 hardware of the same name in your DAW. Like the original, which was used on countless dance records in the ‘90s, it offers two digital oscillators and an analogue filter. The plugin ships with all the presets from the original plus quite a few more, giving you a total of 100.
V-Station, meanwhile, is an emulation of the K-Station synth that was released in 2002. It has a 3-oscillator sound engine with noise and FM capabilities, an arpeggiator, effects, 200 user programs and 200 factory presets. Polyphony is eight notes.
Both plugins can be downloaded now from the Novation website, though it’s worth bearing in mind that there’s no guarantee that they’ll be compatible with your OS and DAW. They’re available in VST/AU formats for PC and Mac, but there’s no M1 support.
As such, it’s very much a case of sucking and seeing, but you’ve got nothing to lose by trying, right?
