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V-Station

Synth (Analogue / Subtractive) Plugin by Novation
MyKVRFAVORITE160WANT39
Free (development ceased)
V-Station
V-Station V-Station V-Station
V-Station by Novation is a Virtual Instrument Audio Plugin for macOS and Windows. It functions as a VST Plugin, an Audio Units Plugin and a VST 3 Plugin.
Product
Version
2.6
Product
Version
2.6.1
Instrument
Formats
Copy Protection
Key File
Important Note

Note that V-Station and Bass Station are no longer in development support, and so no further bug releases will be available. However, they are both available for free.

To activate V-Station or Bass Station:

  • Click the Activate button.
  • Save the cape-unlock-key.fnlf file to your computer.
  • Click Install License button and select the file.
My KVR - Groups, Versions, & More
384 KVR members have added V-Station to 82 My KVR groups 450 times.
Not In Your MY KVR Groups
(or group limitation prevents versioning)
+82 in private groups

KVR Rank

Overall: 60   45   59

30-Day: 70; 7-Day: 60; Yesterday: 69

V-Station is a plug-in version of the hardware K-Station:

  • V-Station sounds can be downloaded into the A or K-Station and vice versa.
  • Liquid analogue sound based on the K-Station sound engine.
  • Powerful 3 oscillator sound engine with Noise and FM capability.
  • Arpeggiator with synchronisation lock.
  • Simultaneous high quality effects including Reverb, Chorus, Phaser, Delay, Panning & Distortion and EQ Filter.
  • 400 user programs - 200 factory presets.
  • 8 note polyphony per instance.

Latest User Reviews

Average user rating of 4.29 from 14 reviews
V-Station

Reviewed By viraven8 [all]
January 26th, 2023
Version reviewed: 2.6.1 on Windows

Simple but very effective. This plugin was on my wishlist back in the day, and I'm happy it became free. Has a unique amazing sound. I highly recommend for psytrance music.

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V-Station

Reviewed By VELLTONE MUSIC [all]
January 17th, 2023
Version reviewed: 2 on Windows

Simple, but yet powerful synth.

Suitable for EDM genres, especially classic trance.

Underestimated imho, could be used among modern synths and to add cool vibe.

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V-Station

Reviewed By gdev1981 [all]
December 6th, 2010
Version reviewed: 1.6 on Windows

This is a classic synth I bought a few years ago for a good price and have never regretted it.

The sound is good for the price and overall the synth represents really good value for money.

It is easy on the CPU and fairly versatile - featuring limited FM, Hard Sync and some other pretty cool features.

I like this synth and it sounds good for some lead sounds etc.

The only thing I would say is that it would benefit from oversampling and better preset management as it is pretty old skool in that respect (as it was probably intended to be - like the K-station).

I would recommend it for people who make trance etc and want something for leads etc on a limited budget or with limited CPU resources.

In summary, it is a simple synth that is easy to program, has useable presets and offers good flexibility for it's price.
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V-Station

Reviewed By BONES [all]
August 13th, 2008
Version reviewed: 1 on Windows

I bought this because it was going for $69 + postage, which made it hard to go past. It sounds exactly like the hardware K-Station I used to own but is much, much easier to use. The GUI is very well thought-out and looks slick, too.
What I really like about this synth is that, like Korg's software, it has excellent sound quality but is not over-burdened with a million features that get in the way of getting the most from it. it is very easy to get really good sounds from its three fat oscillators and silky smooth filter. The effects are handy and offer more than you might expect, given the lack of fine control.
There are a lot of presets but not much imagination has gone into naming them. I'm not a preset person so I haven't really listened to many of them But this synth is so easy to use your time is much better spent doing your own thing.
Overall it is a well-balanced package with high quality components [oscillators and filter] with enough features to let you do a lot with them. At full-price it was a little expensive but for $69, you'd be crazy not to take the plunge.

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V-Station

Reviewed By JimmiG [all]
October 9th, 2007
Version reviewed: 1.41 on Windows

GUI
This is one of the greatest strengths of this synth. The GUI is sweet to look at, but also very clean, functional and easy to use. The Main page contains most of the things you'd need to tweak, and keeping other features on separate pages reduces clutter. The knobs and buttons don't have tooltips, but the name and value of the parameter is displayed in the virtual "LCD" display and idicated by a virtual "LED Ring".

Sound
I bought this after selling my Novation Nova hardware synth, because I missed the smooth analogue Novation sound. Well, now I once again have that sound! It's really very similar, including the filter overdrive and DoubleSaw waveform. The effects also sound similar though they lack some features from the classic Novation synths.

Features
This is a bread and butter virtual analog synth, and it does that job very well. There are some limitations, though. While the Nova had highpass and bandpass filters in 12db, 18db and 24db flavours, as well as a number of extra parallell and serial combinations of filters, the V-Station only comes with one LP filter, switchable between 12db and 24db. Also, the modulation routing capabilities are a bit limited. You can't freely assign LFO's (LFO2 can't modulate osc pitch, LFO1 can't modulate filter frequency or res for example), and there's only one Mod Env. Also, the limitation of 8 voices seems a bit restrictive when today's CPUs can handle much more. If you choose to use 4 voices in unison mode, the synth becomes duophonic, for example. This is a shame as some very powerful string arrangments would have been possible if more voices were available. The arpeggiator also loses the hundreds of preset and user patterns available on the Nova, which seems a bit backwards as PC's have much more RAM than the old Nova synth.

Docs
I've almost nevver looked at the docs because the synth is so self explanatory, but they seem very well written. Combined with the clear and user friendly layout, this makes it a great learning tool for those who are new to analog synthesizers.

Presets
Basses: Check, Synced Leads: Check, "Phat" Danze Soundz: Check, Arpeggios: Check, Pads and Strings: Check. You get most of the basic bread and butter analogue sounds you might need, but with few surprises. They aren't categorized at all, but the list of factory presets is mercifully short. You really need to program your own sounds to take full advantage of this synth.

Support
Never had to use it but I've only heard got things from others who have

Stability
The plugin is very stable and has never crashed under XP SP2 and Cubase SX3. The plugin consumes about 10% CPU with effects and 8 voices active on my Athlon64 3500+. This is higher than some of the most efficent synths, but still very good. The sound quality is excellent and very close to its hardware counterpart, which justifies this CPU usage. In these days, when some plugins consume 60% CPU for one voice, this is very refreshing.

Value
There are tons of freeware, shareware and commercial virtual analog synths available. There's no reason in particular why you should by this synth, but then again, there's nothing in particular against it. If you do buy it, you'll get a solid instrument, that despite lacking a few advanced features, will probably become one of the first synths, hard or soft, you reach for when you need an analogue-style sound in your song. If you've owned (or still do) a Novation synth and you're familiar with the sound, you'll be happy to know that this little plugin has the same sound. Finally, this is a great synth for those who are just getting into synths, with room to grow as your skills and techniques improve.
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Comments & Discussion for Novation V-Station

Discussion
Discussion: Active
Vospi
Vospi
5 December 2015 at 1:13am

X Station Factory Bank (from Banks and Patches tab above) is amazing.

If you love signature V-Station sound, grab it immediately. It's full of amazing squelchy and soft digital goodness.

sunfrostice
sunfrostice
11 July 2022 at 5:44pm

imho sad news, its now discontinued, the good news its now free, a noble move.

linus_369
linus_369
11 December 2023 at 7:36pm

Tried to install the v-station today - seems it is no longer available via the novation homepage (link in KVR descriptions did not work for me and also nothing to be found on the novation page itself).

So I got an installer from plugins4free (https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3883/). Used the "activate" button of the plugin after installation, safed the request file (html with a link to www.focusrite-estore.com) - also this side is not available.

Does anybody know if this plugin is dead at all or what happened there? BTW: had the same problem with the B-Station vst.

Thanks,

Andreas.

SuperJeff
SuperJeff
9 January 2024 at 10:27pm

I was able to find it and download it else ware, but I can't activate it, a real bummer!.

GeekPR1977
GeekPR1977
29 January 2024 at 2:40am

Can't download!!! so sad :-(I love to try all kinds of synths.

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