Novation Remote 49 LE

Advantages: Very convenient and well-planned
Disadvantages: Company not well-established (support?)

...Why bother buying a CME keyboard when there are plenty others, with more established names: Edirol, M-Audio, Korg, Novation - to name but a few? Well, there are a couple of reasons: 1) It is very compact and easily portable. Not an inch of space is wasted. It is probably the narrowest 49-key keyboard, as well as one of the slimmest. You can easily carry it with you, put it on your desk and even keep it on your lap! 2) Key action is quite good. Obviously, this is a matter of preference, but for me it is better than the Edirols, Yamahas and quite a few other keyboards and MIDI-controllers I have tried. The action is quite firm, but not hard. I usually do not fancy so called "weighed" keyboards. I don't know why, but they do not have the same action as a real grand piano. Sure, there is some "hammer-like" effect in these expensive keyboards... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to use, sounds are big
Disadvantages: Not very robust

...The Novation Bass station keyboard is a small and portable multi use synth able to produce not only low bass sounds but also high frequencies (and noises). It has a two octave keyboard scale with two VCO's. It is able to produce some fantastic analogue sub bass sounds similar to the Roland TB303 as well as Moog like synth lead sounds. I have found that some of the control knobs can be a little temperamental but that could be due to lack of use, also I feel that if this synth were to be dropped on the ground, it wouldn't stand much chance of survival. A great feature of this piece of equipment is that you can store up to five sounds which is really useful and very easy to do. Also this works well in live situations, giving ease to tweak the knobs to get a desired sound. This is a small synth with big fat sounds and although not built... Read review

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Advantages: A great product on paper...
Disadvantages: ...ruined by awful build quality

...I could write a rave review about the features on this synth. The fact that it does everything my entire analogue collection does, the fact it has built in vocoder and effects, the fact it's small enough to put in a suitcase. Ok so it looks lke a bad trance nightmare with presets to match, and the manual spends more time talking about the A Station for some reason. We can overlook those things if the synth is good. You know what it can do, though - you've read the brochure - so I won't go into that. What I do want to share is my experience (8 months use of a K Station). Within weeks, if not days, by brand new factory-fresh K Station was rattling. Within two months, the rattle was louder. Three months, and the rattling was a serious worry as the pots began to feel loose. Novation gave me the OK to open the case, and I found a circuit... Read review

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