- Rewind 11 or so years and dance synths were all the rage. Access' Virus range, the Nord Lead, even Roland's JP8000 was still going strong—all instruments with great sounding engines and oodles of real-time performance dials to make patch creation easy. Novation's Nova range slotted nicely into this group too, offering great sounding oscillators, a warm, rich filter section, basic effects routing and more of those dials. Within the collection of different instruments released through a period of a few years, the SuperNova II module, launched in 2000, became a go-to synth for dance producers everywhere. Slowly, the Nova line was retired, yet its products remained popular on the second-hand market, perhaps explaining why, rather wonderfully, the Nova has been dragged out of retirement, sent on a fitness course, been subjected to heavy cosmetic surgery and given a few internal transplants. The result is UltraNova; a new Nova for a new generation.
The midnight blue casing immediately identifies this as a Nova-series synth and there are other features confirming this as a Novation product too, most notably the long two-line LCD display as seen on the Remote SL controllers. Above the display, a series of eight rotary encoders allow you direct access to multiple edit parameters simultaneously, making this instrument a real joy to program. To the right, a Touched/Filter dial offers a larger performance rotary which lets you map a parameter of choice for on-the-fly manipulation of your chosen sound and, as the name suggests, this controls filter cutoff for the majority of the presets.
Below the screen, a clever system is employed to ensure you can get to the edit pages of your choosing. Having pressed one of the Oscillator, Mixer, Filter or Voice buttons, separate pages for these are toggled through the Synth Edit Up and Down buttons. For instance, there are six assignable envelopes so, having pressed the Envelope button, you can scroll down to the envelope of your choice while there are three pages for the Oscillator stage to reflect the fact that this is a three-oscillator synth, for instance. UltraNova features three LFOs too and the rates for these flash next to the LFO button so you can see the performance of the LFOs at a glance to help identify which ones are currently deployed in your sound.
To the right of these structure buttons, there is another to jump directly into UltraNova's Effects section, where five separate effects can be used sequentially. These are: EQ, two compressor algorithms, two Distortions, two Delays, two Reverbs, four Chorus types and Novation's Gator effect with, of course, the option to bypass any unwanted effects at each stage too. Editing here is neat, as you turn the matching dial above an effect to scroll through the effect choices, a bright red LED lights up below that dial to tell you its parameters are currently selected. This means that when you scroll from one page to the next, its extended parameters are available for tweaking. The particularly clever part is that you don' t have to turn a different dial to let UltraNova know you want to edit its parameters next—a gentle touch of a dial selects it, so you can speedily reach for your effects parameters of choice without unwanted sonic implications.
The 12-band vocoder is next, accessed from a button below the Effects section. The provision of a goose-neck microphone and a top-panel dynamic microphone input make vocoding a straightforward process and there are synth patches dotted through UltraNova's 300 presets which use this function with a variety of treatments. The edit parameters for the Vocoder include Voice Balance, Width, Sibilance Level, and a Sibilance Type filter. As a performance tool, the Vocoder is first and foremost a good deal of fun but that's not to say it can't achieve some musically useful things, even if the results are more readily of the floaty pad type than the Daft Punk robot kind.
To the right of the Vocoder, the Arp section lies in wait, with its On light indicating its involvement and its Settings button allowing parameter tweaks. On offer are seven modes including standard fare like Up and Down as well as more unusual patterns including the wonderful Random, a choice of 33 Arp patterns, a Gate Time control to progressively limit the length of each slice, Octave control with up to eight octaves of playback range and so on. The Arp can be clocked to the tempo of your host DAW or selected manually and the effects it can produce are pleasingly diverse.
Back-lit Pitch and Modulation wheels take their customary position in the bottom left hand corner, while above these you'll find Octave Up/Down buttons, Master Volume and Monitor balance dials, plus Global and Audio buttons, the latter of these switches on UltraNova's Audio Interface, whose functions are controlled digitally. A pair of ¼-inch jacks on the rear panel provide the physical connections but after that, audio set-up and routing is all configured via the LCD. Firstly, you can decide whether the inputs will be independent or linked for stereo use, while gain dials then take over with independent or matched values depending on which mode you select. Input gain ladders show you how much volume is coming into UltraNova and there's also an option to route either or both inputs into the FX chain.
That's not all, though: The output ports on the back of UltraNova make this audio input a multi-option affair. As there are two separate pairs of audio outputs, it's possible to route the incoming audio out of its own pair of monitors, while the provision of S/PDIF outputs mean you can also use UltraNova to handle analogue to digital conversion and decide which sounds being produced (internal synth or external audio) are routed where. It's a great and flexible system though, personally, I'd like to have more control over the audio input from hardware controls rather than via software.
UltraNova's most direct competitor, M-Audio's new Venom, features hardware gain controls and LEDs for signal levels on the front panel, so you can plug in and set up without having to enter a menu and there would be room for additional controls on the right-hand side of UltraNova's main panel. That said, the output routing options on UltraNova easily exceed those on Venom, so if you're happy with software control and the audio interface is a big selling point for you, this instrument has more. Elsewhere on the back panel you'll find MIDI In, Out and Thru ports, Sustain and Expression pedal inputs, the USB connector and a toggle switch to power the unit from either mains or USB bus power. Lastly, there's a headphone port which I'd rather see mounted on the front edge, below the Pitch and Mod wheels, myself, though this is merely personal preference.
UltraNova is great, a worthy new arrival in the Nova line which, with Novation's carefully planned control set, truly delivers a Nova equipped for modern times. First and foremost, the sound of this synthesizer is wonderful. It's rich, smooth, blaring, distorted, raspy, crisp and pretty much anything else you could want it to be and, while presets will quickly be modified, tweaked and replaced, they really help sell this instrument's capabilities. Each turn of the sound selection dial brings up another new sound which would slot effortlessly into a broad selection of musical genres.
For those who prefer graphical editing, installation of UltraNova's software places a plug-in in your VST/AU folder which allows graphical editing of parameters and, as you'd expect, facilitates sound creation by allowing multiple parameters to be viewed simultaneously. The vocoder, arpeggiation and effects sections are all highly useable and the readiness with which UltraNova will integrate with Novation's Automap software allows for even greater levels of real-time tweaking. The audio interface seals the deal for me, particularly as UltraNova offers multiple outputs and flexible routing. All in all, this glorious synth comes highly recommended.
Ratings /
Cost: 4/5
Versatility: 4.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Ease of use: 4/5