NOVATION KS4

Sep 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By David Battino

Novation is clearly on to a good thing with its “liquid” analog-synthesis modeling. In the past two years, the British manufacturer has rolled out the single-rackspace A-Station; the functionally identical two-octave K-Station keyboard; and now the KS4, KS5, and KS-Rack synthesizers. (V-Station, a software version of the KStation, is also available.) All four K instruments feature solid construction; an intuitive layout with plenty of knobs; lush sound; and surprisingly low prices.

Compared to the K-Station (reviewed here in the November 2002 issue of EM), the KS range adds a significantly enhanced synthesis engine, better interfacing, and some ingenious programming features. Most significant is Hypersync, which synchronizes the arpeggiators, LFOs, and effects. Because the KS-series instruments are four-part multitimbral (the KStation produces only one sound at a time), Hypersync makes it easy to whip up some insane polyrhythms, with everything pulsing in sync.

To boost the KS-series' rhythmic power further, Novation included sampled drum sounds that can be mapped to individual notes to form drum kits. Version 2 of the KS operating system (free from Novation's Web site) adds a new arpeggiator mode called Drum that plays drum grooves with a maximum length of eight bars. The 33 drum patterns (mostly house and trance styles) are fixed, but they make the KS-series fun to jam with.

K BY K

The four-octave KS4 and five-octave KS5 differ only in number of keys and price ($1,399 versus $1,499). The six-space KS-Rack, which is identical minus the wheels and keyboard, lists for $999 — just $100 more than the K-Station. You can also use the KS-Rack as a tabletop sound module. For this review, I tested a KS4 and will focus on its improvements over the K-Station.

FIG. 1: With its metallic silver case, 29 knobs, and bright blue display, the Novation KS4 looks as elegant as it sounds. The Hypersync feture, however, makes it jump up and dance.

One very welcome enhancement is the two-line LCD, which displays Program names and categories (see Fig. 1). (The K-Station shows Program numbers only, and Novation has no plans to add naming capabilities.) Pressing the two Select buttons beneath the display switches among the 24 sound categories, which include Arpeggio, Bass, EP/Clav, Soft Lead, Strings, and six User slots. (The K-Station has no such grouping feature.) Hit the adjacent By Category button, and the Up and Down buttons and Data knob will select sounds from the current category only. Oddly, the Vocoder category has no factory presets, although the vocoder has been boosted from 12 to 16 bands and sounds quite smooth and detailed.

The clicking I complained about when switching patches in the K-Station has been cleaned up in the K4, but I still heard it when switching between certain patches — for example, from Performance 134 (World Com) to 133 (Mr & Mrs Gurner). Sadly, I also heard obvious clicks when I exceeded the instrument's polyphony or adjusted the delay time.

The KS4's lightly weighted keyboard feels more substantial than the K-Station's, and it adds pressure sensitivity. The keyboard action gave me sufficient control, even though it has only two Velocity curves — Soft and Hard.

Nearly every part of the KS4 synthesis engine — oscillators, filter, LFOs, and so on — has more parameters than those on the K-Station, but fortunately, the KS4 also has more knobs and buttons to adjust them. Only the mixer knobs are pressed into double duty with a Shift button. That one-knob-to-one-function design makes the KS4 easy to operate, which is something I really liked about the K-Station. For deeper editing, you call up menus at the panel's bottom right.

FIG. 2: The KS4 has four individual outputs, that can also be addressed in stereo pairs. The mic/line input can feed the synthesizer voice, effects, or 16-band vocoder.

I/O SILVER

With six effects for each of its four multitimbral parts and a vocoder (that's 25 simultaneous effects!), the KS4 doesn't need a lot of individual outputs for external processing, but it has four (see Fig. 2). You can route each Part to any output or in stereo to outputs 1 and 2 or 3 and 4. Unlike the K-Station, the KS4 has sustain- and expression-pedal inputs. A headphone jack, a trio of MIDI ports, and a monophonic audio input round out the back panel. And the KS4 replaces the K-Station's wall wart with an internal power supply.

I was pleasantly surprised by the KS4's construction quality and heft. The case is metal with plastic endcaps, and the knobs, though not bolted to the panel, feel solid. The four sliders in the envelope section, however, feel a bit fragile. Although the knobs turn with enough resistance to make them easily controllable, some knobs would benefit greatly from being detented. The smooth knob response is fine when you're adjusting a single parameter such as filter cutoff, but it's not good for selecting discrete values such as waveform shape. Conversely, I was constantly bamboozled by the effects section — one of the few areas that uses buttons for incrementing and decrementing values — because those buttons are arranged horizontally whereas the seven LEDs that indicate the current effect are stacked vertically.

BETTER OSCILLATE

Like the K-Station, the KS4 offers three oscillators per voice as well as a noise source and the ability to route an external audio signal through the signal path. Novation's unique doubling feature (described in the K-Station review) allows you to detune each main oscillator with itself for an even thicker sound. The polyphony has been boosted from 8 to 16 notes, and 28 new waveforms complement the original sine, triangle, sawtooth, and variable pulse. The new waves, credited to sample developer Ilio, sound more like single cycles of sampled waveforms than the extended recordings in typical sample-playback instruments. Consequently, the KS4 can generate complex sounds that retain an appealing analog flavor and are more realistic than a traditional analog synth, but more organic than a rompler.

The new percussion samples, which make up 15 of the 32 waveforms, are all looped. With a fast envelope you can transform them into straight drums, but I whipped up an amazing raspy lead by using a kick-drum sample as a tone source and transposing it up until the rhythm blended into a ragged, woody tone. The percussion samples are all short and sound electronic; you get the TR-808 and 909 staples as well as some burly kicks and snappy snares. Because each note in a drum kit is actually a complete KS synthesizer voice, though, those 15 waveforms go a long, long way. (You can use the other waveforms for drums, too.)

Unfortunately, all drums in a kit share the same effects settings — including panning — so you can't make a kit with a dry kick and an echoing snare, or even pan the hi-hat to the side without moving everything else in the kit. I came up with some work-arounds, such as mapping the mod wheel to reverb level and flicking it up and down on alternate beats, and running the drums through a panning delay to spread them out in stereo, but that limitation was frustrating. You could run an entire drum kit to the individual outputs for external processing, but there's no way to assign specific drums in a pattern to individual outs. (However, the KS4 supplies three kits that contain only kick, snare, or hi-hat.)

AN LFO NEVER FORGETS

A new button in the mixer section allows you to modulate the levels of the three oscillators, noise source, ring modulator output, and external input with the two LFOs or the two-stage FM envelope. Because the routings are hardwired with LFO 1 controlling four of those six destinations and pitch, that design is not the most flexible, but it is straightforward. I crafted some bubbling, animated patches by setting LFO 1 to a rhythmic waveform and LFO 2 to sweep the filter and pulse width. The filter, incidentally, now has highpass and bandpass modes. It drips with goodness; that must be the “liquid” sound Novation refers to. I really like the sound of this synth.

Whereas the K-Station has just 4 LFO waveforms, the KS4 offers 32, as well as the ability to run them in unipolar (positive-only) mode. The manual (which is unindexed and crawling with typos) doesn't list the waveforms. Some of the more interesting ones are the quantized sample and hold, which pings between high and low values with a random rhythm; several that play chromatic or major scales (or even arpeggiated seventh chords) when the LFO is in unipolar mode and the depth is set to 30; and a handful with envelope shapes. When you press the adjacent One Shot button, a selected LFO becomes an envelope with up to 12 stages — great for adding unusual transients to the beginning of notes, particularly at faster speeds.

The KS4 also provides a selection of nine Morse-code-like rhythmic LFO patterns. I briefly amused myself by holding a chord and modulating the filter cutoff with the LFO patterns while juicing the cutoff knob with my other hand, but the rhythms were so square that I soon lost interest. For an instrument with so many tempo-syncing features, it's disappointing that there's no swing control.

SYNC AND BE MERRY

The KS4's arpeggiator improves on the K-Station's rudimentary one by adding the Drum mode as well as 32 rhythms you can apply to the basic pitch sequences (up, down, up-and-down, order played, random, and chord). Some of the rhythms do have a swing feel, but I thought most of them sounded awkward, and you can't make your own arpeggio patterns. However, once you twist the Hypersync dial, nearly all is forgiven. Hypersync instantly synchronizes the arpeggiators, LFOs, and effects to the current tempo, with assignable rhythmic subdivisions for each parameter.

FIG. 3: Turning the Hypersync knob instantly locks as many as 16 parameters to a common tempo. Here, delay time is set to a dotted eighth, chorus rate is set to a 16th, EQ sweep is set to ten beats (2 1/2 bars), and pan sweep is set to 12 bars.

The KS4 has 16 rewritable Hypersync setups, each with 16 parameters (see Fig. 3). Hypersync Preset 4, for example, sets the chorus rate to a quarter note, the pan sweep to four bars, the delay time to an eighth note, the pitch LFO rate to quarter notes, and the filter LFO rate to one bar. You can specify rhythmic subdivisions and send levels for each of the tempo-based effects (delay, chorus, EQ, and panning); the rate and delay of the LFOs; the left-to-right time ratio of the delay taps; the type of chorusing (though the display mysteriously toggles between Room and Chamber); and the EQ's center frequency and modulation depth. When you like what Hypersync is doing to the current sound, a few clicks will save the Program or Performance with the new rhythmic settings.

MULTITIMBRAL OPERATION

The feature that most impressed me is the way the KS4 handles Performance editing. On most multitimbral synths, you create multitimbral Performances (aka Combis) by layering monotimbral Programs. That forces you to remember which Programs make up each Performance; if you delete or alter a Program, all the Performances that use it will change. Worse, few synths have enough effects to faithfully duplicate all the original Programs in a multitimbral context, so you have to make hard choices about which effects to keep.

On the KS4, each Program in a multitimbral Performance retains its arpeggiator and all six of its effects. (Only one vocoder can be active.) When you edit a Program from within Performance mode, the KS4 creates a new version of the Program in a hidden area of memory. Consequently, you never have to worry about keeping Programs linked to Performances. That scheme also makes Performance editing far more powerful. When you create a Performance on most multitimbral synths, you can specify levels, panning, note range, and Velocity range for each Program — and that's about it. On the KS4, you have immediate and risk-free access to every parameter. I could easily set up wheel-driven crossfades between Programs and scale specific controller response.

If you've visited EM's Web site, you might have heard the audio loops I created with the K-Station and layered in Ableton Live to simulate a multitimbral performance. I was able to dump my K-Station patches (also on the Web site) into the KS4 and quickly re-create those painstaking productions to play back in real time.

I then created a Performance with four arpeggiators and gobs of synced effects and LFOs. Next I used MIDI to connect a Korg MicroKorg to the KS4 and let it rip. The combination of the Korg's master arpeggiator and the KS4's four slave arpeggiators blasting through my quad speaker system with synchronized echo was outrageous; it was like a one-finger rave. Although the KS4's tempo knob tops out at 191 bpm, the KS4 happily followed the Korg all the way up to the smaller keyboard's maximum of 300 bpm. It even stayed in sync as I maniacally torqued the Korg's tempo knob.

When I tried to return the favor by clocking the MicroKorg with the KS4, however, I was shocked to discover that the KS4 doesn't transmit MIDI Clock; it only slaves to it. To play your K-Station grooves into a sequencer, you must drive the KS4 from the computer. Onstage, that one-way sync limits your interfacing options. I also found that twisting knobs while a drumbeat was playing caused the groove to flam and hiccup.

AS CLEAR AS K

With its rich, clear sound; simple interface; extensive tempo sync; and accessible price, the KS4 is a good choice if you're looking for expressive analog-like timbres and rhythmic inspiration. The basic onboard drum patterns (and limited drum mixing) won't put workstations out of business, and the clicking and flamming are disappointing, but I keep coming back to the KS4 for its sound and ease of use. It's so easy to dive in and create your own timbres and then lose yourself playing them; to me, that's what synthesizers are all about.

In the analog-modeling realm, the KS4 has some tough competition from the Nord Lead 2. But the Nord lacks effects, a vocoder, and Aftertouch, and its display has only three digits. Korg's MS2000 costs several hundred less but is only four-note polyphonic, which limits the types of music you can play, and it's skimpy on effects. The upcoming Alesis Ion may be the KS4's closest competitor, but it wasn't yet shipping as I wrote this. If virtual-analog synths make your mouth water, you'll find a lot of choices, but Novation's “liquid” modeling KS4 is a very tasty instrument.

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David Battino is hard at work on Crank It Up to 1, a how-to book about digital music production based on tips and insights from top artists. More at www.crankitupto1.com.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Novation
KS4
analog-modeling synthesizer
$1,399

FEATURES	3.5
EASE OF USE	4.0
QUALITY OF SOUNDS	4.0
VALUE	3.5
RATING PRODUCTS FROM 1 TO 5

PROS: Lush sound. Brilliant multitimbral editing. Six simultaneous effects per Part. Detailed vocoder. Hypersync. Simple programming.

CONS: Exceeding polyphony and changing Programs can cause clicks. No individual send levels or panning for drum sounds. Can't transmit MIDI Clock. Arpeggiator stutters when controls are changed during drum-pattern playback. Manual needs work.

Manufacturer

Novation E.M.S. Ltd./eblitz Audio Labs (distributor)
tel. (805) 258-1465
e-mail eblitzaudiolabs@cox.net
Web www.novationmusic.com

KS4 Specifications

Sound Engine	analog-synthesis modeling, sample playback
Software Version Reviewed	2.0.00
Audio Inputs	(1) unbalanced ¼"" mic/line
Audio Outputs	(4) unbalanced ¼"; (1) ¼" stereo headphone
Keyboard	49-note, semiweighted; Velocity- and pressure-sensitive
Polyphony	(16) notes
Multitimbral Parts	4
Program Memory	(400) RAM locations (200 are blank)
Performance Memory	(100) RAM locations (50 are blank)
Drum Map Memory	(4) RAM locations (2 are blank)
Oscillators	(3) with hard-sync, FM, ring modulation; 32 waveforms (27 with doubling effect)
Additional Sound Sources	noise (4 types); external audio input
Filter	(1) resonant lowpass/bandpass/highpass; switchable 2- or 4-pole
Envelope Generators	(1) amplitude ADSR; (1) modulation ADSR (controls filter cutoff, pulse width, and pitch); (1) AD (controls FM and Osc 3 level)
LFOs	(2) with tempo sync, delay, 32 shapes, and one-shot mode; LFO 1 controls pitch and Osc 1 level, noise, ring mod, and external input; LFO 2 controls filter, pulse width, and Osc 2 level
Effects	delay, reverb (6 types), chorus/phaser, distortion, shelving EQ, pan (all available simultaneously per part); vocoder (applied to single part)
Arpeggiator	7 types × 32 patterns; Drum mode (33 patterns); 64-191 bpm or external sync
Controllers	(29) knobs; (4) sliders; (1) pitch wheel; (1) mod wheel
MIDI	In, Out, Thru
Dimensions	33.5" (W) × 3.7" (H) × 11.8" (D)
Weight	16.5 lb.