Aphex Twin fans and fans of Novation's classic Bass Station II monosynth are in for an excellent crossover treat today, as the brand has unveiled its new AFX Station—a limited edition version of the classic Bass Station II, designed in collaboration with legendary electronic musician Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin.
The AFX-branded synth follows the free April 2019 firmware update for all Bass Station IIs, which included a "patch-per-key" mode developed by James and other new features.
At its core, the AFX Station retains everything that Bass Station II fans love about the monosynth. It's also an all-analog machine, with two oscillators, dual-mode filters, modulation, tons of effects, step-sequencing, and more. But the AFX Station gets both Aphex-approved design and feature upgrades. Most notably, the patch-per-key mode is now pre-installed, which Novation says turns "the Bass Station II into a sound designer's dream."
With the AFX mode engaged, every key becomes a new patch and transforms the whole machine into an entirely different beast that's primed for sequencing and arpeggiation. Whether you're after an excellent bass/lead generator, a powerful drum module, or a versatile sound design multitool, AFX mode can get you there.
The AFX Station is also packed with a ton of new artist patches—128 new synth patches and seven new overlay banks from Noyze Lab, Perplex On, Richard Devine, r beny, and Lightbath.
The AFX Station comes with other features of Novation's most recent v4.14 firmware pre-installed. This includes fixed-duration envelopes and re-trigger counts, microtuning editing, a paraphonic mode, extended sub oscillator controls, and an oscillator glide diverge effect (which allows the glide time of oscillator two to be slowed down relative to oscillator one by a variable amount, causing the two to diverge).
Finally, the AFX Station is as much of a collectible as it is a powerful and feature-rich machine. It differentiates itself stylistically with bright purple reveals and the famous "A" insignia and comes packed in a limited-edition gift box with custom artwork on the inside and outside, a matte finish, and high-quality gloss highlights—all designed by Aphex Twin's long-time collaborator Weirdcore.
Find the new AFX Station on Reverb now. Or if you're interested in what James' firmware offers without caring about the extra bells and whistles, you can buy any Bass Station II and update it to v4.14 for free.