The AFX Station, which is essentially a limited edition variant of Novation’s Bass Station II, takes all the features you know and love from the original and crams them into a new purple chassis, with Aphex Twin’s iconic logo slapped on the back for good measure.
Notably, the AFX Station also comes with Richard D James’ AFX Mode pre-installed, which allows for idiosyncratic micro-tuning modes and patch-per-key modes.
This mode, which was released as a firmware update back in 2019, essentially allows for every key on the AFX Station to become its own patch, which when combined with the AFX Station’s inbuilt sequencer or arpeggiator, unlocks the potential for the unit to become a powerful analogue drum machine or sound design module.
The AFX Station also ships with 128 new preset patches and seven overlay banks from Richard Devine, Noyze Lab, Perplex On, Lightbath and r beny to get you started on all your weird and wonky synth odysseys. The unit also comes with a custom giftbox with artwork from longtime Aphex collaborator Weirdcore, making the AFX Station the ultimate collector’s item for any Richard D James purist.
Aside from that, however, there’s not much that’s new to the AFX Station that you can’t already achieve with a Bass Station II. In his own weird way, Richard D James is a marketing mastermind, so we can certainly see the appeal in this unit, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t have bigger expectations for this one.
Find out more via Novation. For inquiries about availability in Australia, contact Innovative Music.
