Fans of Aphen Twin—or Kanye West—know well the melodious piano of Drukqs' "Avril 14th." The celebrated, straightforward piece is one of his best-known compositions, being included in many movie soundtracks and sampled by West on "Blame Game," from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Among fans, April 14 has become an unofficial day to celebrate all things Richard James.
Today, Novation has announced that it has collaborated with James for a 4.14 firmware update to its Bass Station II analog monosynth. The update, available as a free download now to all Bass Station II owners, brings multiple new features, with James' "AFX Mode" being the biggest addition.
Bass Station II players can now use AFX Mode to create and save different patches for each of the synth's 25 keys, giving you the ability to turn the compact monosynth into a much more versatile, multi-voice synth or even a kind of DIY drum machine.
According to Novation: "Put simply, it lets you modify your Bass Station II patch on a key-by-key basis. Use it to introduce subtle changes to a sound as you play up and down the keyboard; divide the keyboard into multiple zones (one per key if you like!), each playing its own sound; or create entire drum kits in a single preset for triggering manually or via the Arpeggiator. It’s a truly inspiring feature that really does open up a whole new world of sound design and performance possibilities."
Alongside the Aphex Twin mode, the 4.14 firmware allows you to tune the sub-oscillator separately (whereas before it was tied to one of the oscillators), making the Bass Station II a true three-oscillator monosynth. In addition, the new update allows you to create fixed-length sustain segments for the synth's envelopes, separate the amount of glide for oscillators one and two, and adjust the amount of times an envelope can be re-triggered.
For more info on what these new features can do, be sure to watch Novation's announcement video above. Need a Bass Station II of your own? Find one on Reverb here.