NOVATION XioSynth 25

Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By David Battino

Novation packs a lot of features into the compact plastic body of the XioSynth analog modeling synthesizer.

Click here to read Electronic Musician's
comparison of Novation's X-Station and the XioSynth.

Jamming three devices into a tiny case is usually a recipe for frustration, but Novation has done something remarkable. For a few hundred bucks more than a standard USB MIDI controller, the XioSynth 25 gives you rich-sounding virtual analog synthesis, fistfuls of MIDI knobs and buttons, and a 24-bit audio interface — all in a compact keyboard that runs off AC, batteries, or USB power.

The XioSynth (pronounced zy'-oh-synth) contains the same basic synthesis engine as Novation's flagship X-Station but adds sound-shaping features such as filter overdrive and the X-Gator, a rhythmic sound slicer. Of course, Novation did make some adjustments to reach the XioSynth's friendly price point (see the online bonus material at www.emusician.com). Having reviewed two previous Novation synths for EM (the K-Station and KS4; see www.emusician.com) and owning a third (the original BassStation), I was excited to try out the company's latest marvel of miniaturization.

Xio, Silver!

Novation packed a lot of features into the XioSynth's compact plastic body (see Fig. 1). An attractive, 4-page Getting Started guide gets you going quickly, and there's a lot more detail and some handy shortcuts in the nicely illustrated 82-page PDF manual. In between, I highly recommend watching the included DVD tutorials, which walk you through the XioSynth's functions and offer Web links to the artists behind some of its sounds.

Be sure to visit the Novation Web site as well. The USB driver on my disc was outdated and the promised template editor was missing, so I downloaded both from the site. (Note that the XioSynth is USB class compliant, so the driver is not required.) Online, you'll also find an explanation of the clever Preview mode, along with an Answerbase of brief articles addressing common questions. There's even a diagram of the XioSynth modulation matrix, submitted by a customer. I haven't seen this level of support for a new instrument since the original Yamaha Motif came out, and it's very welcome.

The XioSynth keyboard feels like nothing else I've played. Like other 2-octave keyboards, it uses keys hinged where they disappear into the case rather than farther back, making the black keys hard to press unless you play near their tips. But the XioSynth's white keys also contain substantial weights, which give them surprising heft and make them quiver when they snap back. The strange thing is that the white keys also squish down and seesaw when you press them at the bottom of their travel, as if they were generating Aftertouch (which they don't produce). Nonetheless, I soon grew accustomed to the action and preferred it to the wimpy, switchlike keys on most small keyboards. You can choose among 7 Velocity curves or 120 fixed Velocity values and assign different ones to controller templates (more on those in a moment). The keys transmit Release Velocity as well.

Two octave-shift buttons lengthen the keyboard's range. I was pleased to discover that I could hold a chord with one hand, shift octaves, and solo with the other, a favorite trick (see Web Clip 1). I wish that pressing both buttons simultaneously would reset the octave shift to normal, though.

Real-Time Controllers

Novation's signature joystick and x-y touch pad anchor the control panel's left side. The spring-loaded joystick controls pitch on its x-axis and LFO depth on its y-axis, but you can assign other parameters, such as filter cutoff and delay amount, to the y-axis as well. You can even specify a different bend amount for each of the three oscillators. You can't unhook the y-axis spring, however, as you can on the X-Station.

On the factory patches, the x-y pad is mapped to filter cutoff and resonance. I really liked how rolling my finger slightly produced subtle swells in the sound, while stirring my finger on the pad made dramatic sonic gestures (see Web Clip 2). Unfortunately, tapping the pad makes its output glide to the new value rather than changing immediately, which means you can't play percussive sample-and-hold effects by drumming your fingers.

The control panel furnishes 11 rubberized knobs and buttons. In Synthesizer mode, they control parameters such as oscillator detuning and ADSR settings. In Controller mode, they transmit MIDI Control Changes over USB or the MIDI Out jack. The slick new Hybrid mode routes the knobs and buttons to external devices while the joystick, touch pad, or both control the internal synth. Hybrid mode also lets you use the keyboard to control an external instrument while your sequencer plays the internal synth over USB.

You switch between Synthesizer and Controller mode with a button press. Another button flips the 11 knobs and buttons to a second bank of assignments, giving you a whopping 22 knobs' and 22 buttons' worth of control. The LEDs that indicate which bank is active are very close together, though, so I often found myself adjusting the wrong parameter.

Another button transforms the 11 control buttons into menu triggers. For example, normally button 11 toggles the arpeggiator on or off, but when you press the Menus button, button 11 instead calls up an effects menu in the display. Pressing and holding the Menus button for one second switches the 11 knobs to Audio mode, in which they control settings such as input level, panning, and the balance between the synth and external audio (I had to crack the manual to figure out how to get to that mode). Several of the other buttons do special things when you hold them down or push them twice as well.

Those layers of complexity make navigation confusing. There were several times when I destroyed a sound I was working on by pushing the wrong button because the XioSynth was in a different mode than I expected. Another big annoyance is the white-on-gray labels, which are impossible to read unless the lighting is just right.

Read more of the Electronic Musician review of the Novation XioSynth 25

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