MiniNova packs the sort of specs you'd expect to find in an instrument twice the size and sounds like one double the price. Whether you're a music production novice taking your first steps in synthesis, the keyboard player in a band looking for a sturdy, road-worthy instrument, or an experienced sound designer after a pro-quality portable addition to your existing arsenal, Novation's backpack-sized beast more than delivers.

This larger-than-life USB bus-powered, 18-voice polyphonic micro synth features three oscillators and one noise generator per voice; 14 filter types; 12-band vocoder with VocalTune; 6 envelope generators; 3 LFOs; 20 modulation assignment slots; 5 simultaneous effects; with Mac/PC Editor Plug-in and Patch Librarian.

Big Sound, small synth

Built on the UltraNova sound engine, MiniNova has more polyphony, more filter types, more effects, and more modulation than any other synth in its class. And being USB bus-powered, you can easily hook it into your computer-based setup without a mess of cables getting in the way.

Every one of MiniNova's sounds is mix-ready straight out of the box, but each can be subtly tweaked or warped beyond recognition via the 24 synth parameters immediately accessible from the front panel.

Each of the three oscillators (per voice) draws on14 analog waveforms, 20 digital waveforms, and 36 wavetables, and features density/detune (for fattening), virtual sync (for punchy attacks), and 'hardness' (an additional low-pass filter). Two filters are available per patch, offering a choice of 14 low-/high-/band-pass types at roll-off slopes from 6-24dB/octave; and up to five effects can be applied simultaneously, including distortion, reverb, chorus/phase, delay, compressor, EQ and Novation's unique Gator effect.

Find Your Sound Fast

MiniNova comes with 256 killer sounds onboard, space to save another 128 of your own, and an easy-to-use Patch Librarian for storing and loading any number of patches to and from your computer.

Sounds can be searched by style and type, making short work of finding that perfect hip-hop bass or electro lead.

New, free sound packs for MiniNova are regularly released by Novation, created in collaboration with renowned artists and sound designers including Daniel Fisher, Chuckie, and Dino Soldo.

Create Unique Vocals

Not content with blazing a trail as the world's most formidable micro synth, MiniNova has a microphone and vocoder built in, too – and no ordinary vocoder at that. In VocalTune mode, it automatically tunes your voice to the notes played on the keyboard.

The lyrical fireworks don't end there, as you can also run the mic signal through the effects engine. Add reverb, distortion, chorus/phaser, Gator, compression, or EQ to produce a truly attention-grabbing vox, or recreate iconic vocal lines.

Naturally, MiniNova's sound-sculpting toolbox isn't limited to microphone input: any external instrument can be hooked up and turned into something else altogether using the vocoder – including VocalTune mode – filters and effects. 

Animate and Arpeggiate

With MiniNova in Animate mode, pressing one or more of its eight purple backlit buttons kicks in a range of sound variations, bringing even more color options to each patch and providing a wealth of instant transformations for live performers to raise the roof with. Each button adjusts multiple parameters in real-time under the hood – just the thing for injecting pads with life and movement, and serving up crazy EDM-style bass and lead lines on demand.

• Switch to Arpeggiator mode and the same eight buttons are used for pattern programming, enabling you to build a rhythmic dimension directly into your MiniNova patches.