KVR Audio

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 1:36 am

Hey there

I got Novation Peak yesterday, spent may be an hour with it and was not impressed. May be because I recently got Behringer Deep Mind, or may be because I was expecting something else... I was expecting clear sound similar to Novation Supernova. I was waiting for it 6 months from the time it was announced, and it just not that impressive. I do like that it has distortion and overdrive. But it comes with only 2 banks x127 presets and 2 banks of empty programs. The arpeggiator is not meaningful- who ever attempted to program it definitely did not know what he was doing or it must be very hard to program. It took me 20 minutes to find where arpeggiator is in the first place, still not sure how to program it and how it works. The sounds are.... hard to manage, start with khhhhh..... I remember Novation Supernova with great TB33 sounds, pads, synths, everything in tune, arpeggiator had 99 patterns assignable to each part, with 8 parts multi tembral. I expected good synth from Peak, and it just boring. It does not do much. yeah, I will work with it and probably use, and get something out of it. It has some good sounds, but it is just average synth.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 3:46 am

I had preordered it on the strength of the Sonicstate videos. But as time got closer to shipping and I checked out more videos, the less interested I became. On paper the specs are pretty good. From what I've heard, however, it has what I consider that classic Novation sound: bland and boring. In the end, it didn't offer enough over, say, the Blofeld to make it worth the price. I might still pick one up eventually if I can find a good price on a used one, but I'm not paying MSRP for it. Rather ironically, I thought the DM12 sounded better, mostly because of the effects piled on every preset, but I'd be fine with that as well at a good used price.

stonestreet · Post by **stonestreet** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:13 pm

I ended up going for a Blofeld and am loving it. My first hardware synth was Novation KS4. I still have it. The Peak has a similar setup in concept. I probably could not make the Peak sound better than the KS4 for the sounds that I programme... and the KS4 is 4 part multitimbral so is quire flexible. It is a joy to programme.

Of course (IMO) the Blofeld has even more flexibility than both the Novations.

They all sound great though to my ears.

deastman wrote:I had preordered it on the strength of the Sonicstate videos. But as time got closer to shipping and I checked out more videos, the less interested I became. On paper the specs are pretty good. From what I've heard, however, it has what I consider that classic Novation sound: bland and boring. In the end, it didn't offer enough over, say, the Blofeld to make it worth the price. I might still pick one up eventually if I can find a good price on a used one, but I'm not paying MSRP for it. Rather ironically, I thought the DM12 sounded better, mostly because of the effects piled on every preset, but I'd be fine with that as well at a good used price.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:14 pm

Yeah, even though I literally requested Novation make this synth, I've yet to find a demo that got to me. Actually, what I asked for was the Ultranova engine in an 8 voice synth with the Bass Station 2's filters. I think they got so in love with their NCO design, they forgot to check that it actually was interesting sounding. (I'm not anti NCO, I think Modal does it really well) Anyway, the Peak looks great on paper, but I feared exactly what the OP discovered would be my take on it as well.

Geosynths and Nick Batt did squeeze some good sounds out of it, but not enough to make me interested. I'll stick with my Micromonsta as my hardware wavetable. I'm still in the market for a hybrid, but I think it'll end up being the Pro 2. I lose polyphony, but the sound is great to my ears.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:37 pm

zerocrossing wrote:Yeah, even though I literally requested Novation make this synth, I've yet to find a demo that got to me. Actually, what I asked for was the Ultranova engine in an 8 voice synth with the Bass Station 2's filters. I think they got so in love with their NCO design, they forgot to check that it actually was interesting sounding. (I'm not anti NCO, I think Modal does it really well) Anyway, the Peak looks great on paper, but I feared exactly what the OP discovered would be my take on it as well.

Geosynths and Nick Batt did squeeze some good sounds out of it, but not enough to make me interested. I'll stick with my Micromonsta as my hardware wavetable. I'm still in the market for a hybrid, but I think it'll end up being the Pro 2. I lose polyphony, but the sound is great to my ears.

Going off topic, but I think the real competition for the Pro 2 is the Analog Four. They both excel at sequenced parameter automation, which at least for me would be the real reason to get either one.

I wanted the Peak to be a good sounding polysynth with versatile oscillators, but the overall sound just falls short.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:09 am

deastman wrote:
zerocrossing wrote:Yeah, even though I literally requested Novation make this synth, I've yet to find a demo that got to me. Actually, what I asked for was the Ultranova engine in an 8 voice synth with the Bass Station 2's filters. I think they got so in love with their NCO design, they forgot to check that it actually was interesting sounding. (I'm not anti NCO, I think Modal does it really well) Anyway, the Peak looks great on paper, but I feared exactly what the OP discovered would be my take on it as well.

Geosynths and Nick Batt did squeeze some good sounds out of it, but not enough to make me interested. I'll stick with my Micromonsta as my hardware wavetable. I'm still in the market for a hybrid, but I think it'll end up being the Pro 2. I lose polyphony, but the sound is great to my ears.
Going off topic, but I think the real competition for the Pro 2 is the Analog Four. They both excel at sequenced parameter automation, which at least for me would be the real reason to get either one.

I wanted the Peak to be a good sounding polysynth with versatile oscillators, but the overall sound just falls short.

I actually had the Analog Four on my wish list. I had it, and stupidly sold it to try another route that didn't go so well (Scope based studio) I think the Pro 2 is going to be a better choice at this time. Better hands-on interface. More varied oscillator options. Very nice filters. Not great for chord work, but I've got other options for that, and when I had the Analog Four, the low voice count made me use it for a lot of drone stuff anyway, which makes me think that four voice paraphony would be fine for. I also have a pair of Tetras, which have the parameter sequencing too, and at 8 voices it works really well, though clumsily as a multi-timbral synth. We'll see. I do already have a Tempest too, so that's a lot of that Curtis love going on. I'm in no rush though. I really like the way the kids are getting along, even though some of them are siblings.

v1o · Post by **v1o** » Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:57 am

deastman wrote:I had preordered it on the strength of the Sonicstate videos. But as time got closer to shipping and I checked out more videos, the less interested I became. On paper the specs are pretty good. From what I've heard, however, it has what I consider that classic Novation sound: bland and boring. In the end, it didn't offer enough over, say, the Blofeld to make it worth the price. I might still pick one up eventually if I can find a good price on a used one, but I'm not paying MSRP for it. Rather ironically, I thought the DM12 sounded better, mostly because of the effects piled on every preset, but I'd be fine with that as well at a good used price.

The Supernova and The BSII are not bland.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:58 am

I already got Novation UltraNova and Bass Station 2 and love them both. While i am also interested in Peak i think it would be a kind of "overkill" to have it too, not to forget i also got a Waldorf Blofeld.

While UltraNova does not have real analog filters the overall amount of features seems to be higher than in Peak.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:56 am

Ingonator wrote:I alreaddy got Novation UltraNova and Bass Station 2 and love them both. While i am also interested in Peak i think it would be a kind of "overkill" to have it too, not to forget i also got a Waldorf Blofeld.

While UltraNova does not have real analog filters the overall amount of features seems to be higher than in Peak.

A lot higher. I can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't load it up with tons of cool wavetables, like the Ultranova. It's got FM, but the limited number of EGs and LFOs make it not as useful as something like the Prophet 12.

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 3:09 am

I hope they make an ultranova with lots of knobs someday, bitimbral too.

Peak has my interest but I need a keyboard for gigs and a sequencer also so it falls short, maybe in the future. Personally I have liked lots of demos I have listened, seems to have its own character.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:21 am

I think it's a good synth overall, but not in this price point. This small toy looks like mid-segment 600-700 Euro synth and not 1100 by any means. Not in the age of Minilogue and Deep Mind.

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:40 am

Wow.... It freezing. I had a moment of being ready to send it back to the store. And it would not reset with power off, needs unplugging power cable. I should say that it freezes likely due to the MIDI coming out of my DAW. It is possible that it has some kind of lock function on purpose? I have to do testing to figure out what causing it. It is reproducible persistent freeze that makes all controls, buttons, programs- everything freeze. I suspect it reacts to D16 Group Punch Box, which for some reason leaks MIDI out on all channels- I cant figure out how to make it stop sending MIDI. This is preliminary, have to test it- been busy, but this freaked me out. I had my partner trying sounds and I did not know what he did to it- suddenly it stopped responding. Will update.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:19 am

zerocrossing wrote:
Ingonator wrote:I alreaddy got Novation UltraNova and Bass Station 2 and love them both. While i am also interested in Peak i think it would be a kind of "overkill" to have it too, not to forget i also got a Waldorf Blofeld.

While UltraNova does not have real analog filters the overall amount of features seems to be higher than in Peak.
A lot higher. I can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't load it up with tons of cool wavetables, like the Ultranova. It's got FM, but the limited number of EGs and LFOs make it not as useful as something like the Prophet 12.

Even if UltraNova costs only a fraction of the price of Peak and Peak has the real analog filters and FM options overall UltraNova still might stay the "flagship" hardware synth of Novation. In terms of combination of price, sound and features UltraNova is a "bargain" anyway. Same is true for Bass Station 2 that i got too.

The much higher price of Peak somehow does not really seem to fit to the prices of those other 2 prodducts (and otegrs from Novation) even if i know that having 8 analog multimode filters (one for each voice) opposing to 1 in Bass Station 2 must must have an impact in the price.
The current price of Peak might fit better to a keyboard version of the synth while even then IMO it could still be a bit cheaper than that price.

v1o · Post by **v1o** » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:09 pm

Ingonator wrote:I already got Novation UltraNova and Bass Station 2 and love them both. While i am also interested in Peak i think it would be a kind of "overkill" to have it too, not to forget i also got a Waldorf Blofeld.

While UltraNova does not have real analog filters the overall amount of features seems to be higher than in Peak.

The Peak has better oscillators than the Ultranova. Designed by Chris Hubert. Apparently they are indistinguishable from the standard Novation DCO. They shouldn't be thought as standard VA OSCS because they are discrete hardware based. An FPGA is not not a CPU or DSP, it is fully configurable hardware.

Also the Ultranova is a step down in character compared to very liquidy sounding Supernova.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:35 am

FWIW one reason why Peak might fail as a polyphonic Bass Station 2 replacement is the missing Acid filter mode in Peak. The character of that filter is totally different compared to the two "classic" LPF modes that also seem to be included with Peak.

So far the only real advantage i see with Peak compared to UltraNova is that Peak has a real analog multimode filter and dedicated FM while i also like the digital multimode filter in UltraNova.
With dedicated VA waveforms, multiple Saw/PW mix waveforms, around 20 single digital waveforms, 36 wavetables and 2 ring modulation sources in the Osc mixer i am not sure if i really miss FM that much in UlltraNova (it also offers adding pre FX and/or post FX signal to the mix).
The V-Sync feature included in the Peak oscillators is also included in UltraNova.
If the UltraNova oscilators are really that bad compared to e.g. Peak or the Supernove is another story and also subjective.
IMO the sheer amount of features in UltraNova is impressive and both the wavetable options and the dual multimode fillter in UltraNova seem to be superior. FWIW i had done certain patches that use the dual filter which i could not replicate in Peak.
Speaking about oscillators in Ultranova those got a dedicate phase parameter where you could also have free running Oscs and each Osc also has a drift parameter to add pitch drift to them.

One of my favorite features available in all 3 Oscs are the two "Density" parameters that result in a
"Hyperssaw" like sound but works with all waveforms and not just the Sawtooth and you could set this differently for each of the 3 Oscs. When using this often you do not need an additional Chorus FX and even using a single Oscillator could give a fat/dense sound.

Novation Peak- not impressed