In this tutorial I show you a few techniques I've found to make your MiniNova synthesizer sound less digital and to add more of an analog character to your patches.
Another tip to get more out of this synth is to buy or download other patches for it. Especially 80’s patches are great. Or ambient space patches. Also patches for the ultra nova work for the MiniNova.
Excellent, thank you. I've been so impressed with MN's sound library i've never tried editing default settings via menu routes - that's about to change.
I love your stuff. It's helping me break through some blocks I was having trying to understand this machine and synthesis in general. I appreciate how you describe how each of the parameters you are changing effects the sound and show how to get to it in the menu at the same time. Just what I needed. Thank you, and keep it up.
Man, thank you so much for this. I bought my MiniNova new in 2015 and haven't played around with it that much until this year. I was new to synths then as I'm mainly a drummer but had read every article I could on these and the other sub $600 synths at the time. It seems these kind of have a cult following now and are still very well respected. I recently bought some great patches for it too. And I agree that overall it sounds a little too crisp and icy but that was kind of what I originally liked about it. But warm is certainly in these days with the resurgence of analog gear so it's nice to know how to tone it down. Lastly, one drawback for me is I wish it had a button and or button/shift function to quickly scroll from bank A, B, C and then also by units of 10, rather that only the data knob or big genre knob. As a workaround I have set A64 ,B64, C64 to three Favorites pads (6-7-8) but it kills those three pads for what should be actual favorites. And that said, they should've just had 16 pads for favorites, the arpeggiator and sequencer. Those few additions would've made this synth infinitely more appealing and much more user friendly. They should've made page a button to toggle between page / patch mode and it would reclaim the space of the two patch arrow buttons.. thus 3 more inches for 16 animate / arpeggiate / sequence / favorites.
This is just too good, man! Thanks for putting this up. Ive read alot of really bad comments about the mini-nova, and i bought some analog synths, putting it away for quite some time, but after seeing this , i really have to dive deeper. Great stuff, excellent explanation and so helpful.
Great tutorial that reminded me of how good this synth is (currently in storage whilst moving house). All the menu navigation also reminded me why I always use the editor! hahaha
This was really great. I got a used Mininova a while back and was struggling with it. I finally figured out how to factory reset it using the librarian. I was getting some awful white noise, but I figured out that my audio input level was sitting cranked all the way up, and by turning that down all the noise went away. And then I discovered this video and it was super helpful. I suddenly feel very content with this synth. Thanks for opening some doors for me. I definitely enjoy this content and would be delighted to see more of your Mininova life hacks
Great tips! On my UltraNova, I was getting a sort of plucky sound when applying the density detune. Turns out it was because oscillator phase is set to 0 deg on the Init Patches, changing it to Free got me the recognisable detuned sound.
Thank you so much for the explanation, as others said, I was kind of disappointed with the general digital felling on the mininova. I knew it was more digital than analog sounding, but I purchased it cause I read it had a lot of possibilities, but didn’t find these tips you’re (brilliantly) pointing out. Now I want to play and experiment. Novation should publish a book as guidance
Up to now I've used my Korg Monologue for the fatter sounds. Thanks to your advice I've been experimenting with the features I've not used so far on the Mininova. Thnx 😊
Always cool coming across a Mininova video! It's an underrated gem. Something else I do is tweak the 'oscillator phase' parameter. Not exactly sure what it does but it seems to give sounds a sharper attack and bass presence and brings the sound more forward, which is great for bass patches.
That's a good tip. I'll have to try that. I think what that setting does is start the wave at a different phase of it's cycle, kind of like a wave table index. But I could be wrong on that.
Thank you for these tips. I recently got a cheap MiniNova, and I will use these. The Alesis Ion/Micron has adjustable “Analog Drift” that makes a huge difference on many patches, to my ears. My only quibble is with your description of filter tracking. Tracking simply applies the virtual control voltage of each note’s pitch to the cutoff frequency of its filter-this is a common feature on synths. At the full level of 127, the filter tracks the pitch perfectly. If the filter is self-oscillating, it will play in tune only if tracking is set to 127. Sounds with highly resonant filter settings may need full tracking to maintain the right timbre for all notes. On the other hand, as you demonstrated, patches often sound better with lower tracking. Perhaps Oberheim got it right by providing 3 simple options: full, half, or none!
Thank you so much for giving me information about this synthesizer I think that might be a better option for someone brand new like me for simplicity high medium and low etc Or maybe I don't even need the feature at all for the deep and spacey sounds I'm looking for
Great info , had my mininova for s few years and never liked the digital sound , can't believe the difference, my fault really for not persisting with it and finding this out , I don't have it setup with a computer or laptop so menu diving can be convoluted . 👍
Glad you found it useful. A little practice with the menu system and you'll find it's not that bad once you get used to it. It could be worse. At least it's not a DX7. Lol!
I just bought one of these, and really appreciate you taking time to make it... For anyone struggling with how to even get to this menu hes on its pg. 6 of the manual (Scrolling through Patches)
I have a mininova on order as my first ever synth for some home recording projects. Are these particular edits able to be applied at a global level or do you have to edit each individual patch/preset individually? I'm like you and not a big fan of the harshness, so it would be nice to do a one-and-done edit if it's possible to smooth and warm things up across the synth as a whole. Great video by the way. Learned a lot here.
Unfortunately these have to be done on an individual basis. What you could do though is make your own default patch that has all these settings set up and then select it everytime you start designing a new patch and then save to a different slot.
It is a very deep synth. If you had a knob per function it would fill a whole producer's desk. That's why it can be a little intimidating. I don't recommend synths like this or the microkorg to beginners in synth editing because you really have to know what you're doing before you can start navigating the menus. That's why I'm doing these videos. Hopefully it will demystify this beast of a synth.
@@System-1541 IM looking for a little synth with 3 oscillators and with chorus so in that regards this ticks all those boxes... the other feature I need is a pitch envelope for all 3 oscillators - is that possible with this? Thanks for the info :)
@@zenobibonsai Oh yeah. It has 5 or 6 envelopes that can be routed to just about any parameter you can think of - oscillator pitch, pulse width, even effects and LFO rates and stuff. You could loose days making patches on this beauty.
Yo! I'm new to the world of synthesizers - not midi controllers - but synthesizers. I bought this back in January, and was super disappointed to learn that the editor plugin isn't supported anymore in Ableton. Disappointed because I could use a little more of a visual when trying to figure this stuff out. It seems like it doesn't affect your ability to explore it, and that the synth itself is still a super solid purchase. Is that valid? Solid synth and I should just try exploring it more rather than returning it?
It's one of the best in the price range. I'm not sure why ableton wouldn't be working with the editor. The editor is just a vst and ableton is a good vst host. Have you checked with novation or ableton customer service to see why it's not working?
This link should be helpful. The support ticket only 3 months old so it should still be a valid guide. support.novationmusic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207560755-How-to-configure-the-Mininova-with-the-Mininova-Editor-plug-in-in-Ableton-Live
@@System-1541 I called Novation yesterday. They said that the VST plugin is no longer supported because it's "32 bit" and Ableton runs at "64 bit." I'm going to be totally honest - that means almost nothing to me. I know I bounce my tracks at 24 and that's about it. I was going to call Ableton today though, because after watching a bunch of videos last night, I gave it another try. But it's not showing up in my control surfaces in Logic or Ableton. I can see that the sound is reaching the interface, and I can see the sound come through to Ableton, but nothing happens because I can't set it as a control surface. I just upgraded to Live11, and Ableton's site said they automatically update control surfaces - but the miniNova isn't showing up.
@@System-1541 Yeah that' the link I was using previously. I have the plugin in Ableton, but when I pull it up - it's a super glitched out screen. I've redone the process like 4 times (uninstall and re-install). Maybe I'll call Novation again today and see if I get a different answer than yesterday. Thank you for your help!
@@audreyrose7450 Ableton has instructions on their website to convert 32-bit plugin to 64-bit so they can run in Ableton 10 and 11 using jbridge. It's a paid tool, but if it's worth it to you it might be worth a try. This link is for the windows instructions but if you're on mac you can use jbridgeM. help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209772465-Converting-32-bit-plug-ins-using-jBridge-Win-
It is good out of the box. If you got it new I'd be surprised if it doesn't have the newest update. There's a few extra things they added in the latest version, but it's still a great synth either way you go. The manual should show you how to check your version.
Just hit save, put it in a location, then use it like an init patch whenever you want to make a new one...which you then save to a new location so you don’t lose your init patch.
Way less. They're different types of synths. The MiniNova is an analog modeling synth so it's designed with the features of an analog subtractive synth. The DX7 comes from the time when everyone actually wanted to sound digital. So it really owns that sound.
Be very carful with this keyboard had mine for a few year not used it much when I did go to use it the keys decided to break there are a few of them coming lose badly made.very disappointed wasn't exacly cheap either.
This was the first synthesiser I bought and since then I bought pretty much knob per function analogue synths which I have to say there is no comparison the menu diving on the Mini Nova is unfortunately way too time consuming.
That's the purpose of these videos. It's to help beginners that can't afford knob per function synths or who are just starting out to get the most out of this menu based synth.
Awesome tutorial, thank you for sharing your knowledge on the mini nova!
Great piece of kit
A fantastic little synth with beefy sounds. I’ve owned mine for almost 10 years and again, it’s fantastic.
You just need the Novatronix Soundpack for the MiniNova, it's amazing.
Another tip to get more out of this synth is to buy or download other patches for it. Especially 80’s patches are great. Or ambient space patches. Also patches for the ultra nova work for the MiniNova.
Wow Thanku I will look for videos on this - the exact sound I am looking for (fake space) I didn't know the synth did that
Excellent, thank you. I've been so impressed with MN's sound library i've never tried editing default settings via menu routes - that's about to change.
I love your stuff. It's helping me break through some blocks I was having trying to understand this machine and synthesis in general. I appreciate how you describe how each of the parameters you are changing effects the sound and show how to get to it in the menu at the same time. Just what I needed. Thank you, and keep it up.
Man, thank you so much for this. I bought my MiniNova new in 2015 and haven't played around with it that much until this year. I was new to synths then as I'm mainly a drummer but had read every article I could on these and the other sub $600 synths at the time. It seems these kind of have a cult following now and are still very well respected. I recently bought some great patches for it too. And I agree that overall it sounds a little too crisp and icy but that was kind of what I originally liked about it. But warm is certainly in these days with the resurgence of analog gear so it's nice to know how to tone it down. Lastly, one drawback for me is I wish it had a button and or button/shift function to quickly scroll from bank A, B, C and then also by units of 10, rather that only the data knob or big genre knob. As a workaround I have set A64 ,B64, C64 to three Favorites pads (6-7-8) but it kills those three pads for what should be actual favorites. And that said, they should've just had 16 pads for favorites, the arpeggiator and sequencer. Those few additions would've made this synth infinitely more appealing and much more user friendly. They should've made page a button to toggle between page / patch mode and it would reclaim the space of the two patch arrow buttons.. thus 3 more inches for 16 animate / arpeggiate / sequence / favorites.
Dude. Thanks for this.
No problem. I'm glad you found some use out of it!
Thank you for taking the time to make and post this. Very informative, I'm going to dive in on all my favorite patches and try it out.
Really good information that can even be applied to the Ultranova, thank you
Tremendously helpful! Thank you!
Thank you. Really helpful video. I will be utilizing these tips.
Man I'm glad I found you and everybody here on here has been a big help just reading through this
Wow, can’t wait to make my mini sound more vintage...these are great tips...thanks!
This is just too good, man! Thanks for putting this up. Ive read alot of really bad comments about the mini-nova, and i bought some analog synths, putting it away for quite some time, but after seeing this , i really have to dive deeper. Great stuff, excellent explanation and so helpful.
Great tutorial that reminded me of how good this synth is (currently in storage whilst moving house).
All the menu navigation also reminded me why I always use the editor! hahaha
This was really great. I got a used Mininova a while back and was struggling with it. I finally figured out how to factory reset it using the librarian. I was getting some awful white noise, but I figured out that my audio input level was sitting cranked all the way up, and by turning that down all the noise went away. And then I discovered this video and it was super helpful. I suddenly feel very content with this synth. Thanks for opening some doors for me. I definitely enjoy this content and would be delighted to see more of your Mininova life hacks
Great video. I was considering selling my mininova but I'm looking forward to spending more time using it now.
Amazing!! Really useful! Thanks ;)
You are great !
Thank You.
Hey man, thks for this video e thaks for being subtitled. You helped a lot!
Thanks for tips. I hope you'll make other tutorials about creation of patches on Mininova ;-)
I have my mininova nog for 3 says just watched your tutorial and it really sounds warmer nog many thanks!#
Great tips! On my UltraNova, I was getting a sort of plucky sound when applying the density detune. Turns out it was because oscillator phase is set to 0 deg on the Init Patches, changing it to Free got me the recognisable detuned sound.
That's a good tip! Thanks!
Thank you so much for the explanation, as others said, I was kind of disappointed with the general digital felling on the mininova. I knew it was more digital than analog sounding, but I purchased it cause I read it had a lot of possibilities, but didn’t find these tips you’re (brilliantly) pointing out. Now I want to play and experiment. Novation should publish a book as guidance
Up to now I've used my Korg Monologue for the fatter sounds. Thanks to your advice I've been experimenting with the features I've not used so far on the Mininova. Thnx 😊
How you feel with that comparison?
That's why it has detune to actually use it :) Drift also comes in handy. You can make some insane sounds with it. I've made couple of them
Always cool coming across a Mininova video! It's an underrated gem. Something else I do is tweak the 'oscillator phase' parameter. Not exactly sure what it does but it seems to give sounds a sharper attack and bass presence and brings the sound more forward, which is great for bass patches.
That's a good tip. I'll have to try that. I think what that setting does is start the wave at a different phase of it's cycle, kind of like a wave table index. But I could be wrong on that.
thank you for this video
great tips bro!!! + filter distortion
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Well done:) ... accurate & interesting
Thank you for this one , very clear , defenetly push to dig in it. Is it possible to get into the CHORD MODE in a next video ?
Thank you for these tips. I recently got a cheap MiniNova, and I will use these.
The Alesis Ion/Micron has adjustable “Analog Drift” that makes a huge difference on many patches, to my ears.
My only quibble is with your description of filter tracking. Tracking simply applies the virtual control voltage of each note’s pitch to the cutoff frequency of its filter-this is a common feature on synths. At the full level of 127, the filter tracks the pitch perfectly. If the filter is self-oscillating, it will play in tune only if tracking is set to 127.
Sounds with highly resonant filter settings may need full tracking to maintain the right timbre for all notes. On the other hand, as you demonstrated, patches often sound better with lower tracking. Perhaps Oberheim got it right by providing 3 simple options: full, half, or none!
Thank you so much for giving me information about this synthesizer I think that might be a better option for someone brand new like me for simplicity high medium and low etc Or maybe I don't even need the feature at all for the deep and spacey sounds I'm looking for
Great info , had my mininova for s few years and never liked the digital sound , can't believe the difference, my fault really for not persisting with it and finding this out , I don't have it setup with a computer or laptop so menu diving can be convoluted . 👍
Glad you found it useful. A little practice with the menu system and you'll find it's not that bad once you get used to it. It could be worse. At least it's not a DX7. Lol!
Thanks!
I just bought one of these, and really appreciate you taking time to make it...
For anyone struggling with how to even get to this menu hes on its pg. 6 of the manual (Scrolling through Patches)
He shows how to open the menus in the video…
Thanks.
I want to know, how I get the same velocity and volume in all the sounds.
Are you happy to share some patches youve made? Id love to have a collection of some warmer patches on mine but im lazy 🤣
Do you have some patches done? Even for selling purpose? Great video.
But... but I LIKE the cold digital sound of my Nova... :) Still, some very cool ideas here - and I thank you for sharing.
Cool 💯💯😎✌️
I love you :)
I have a mininova on order as my first ever synth for some home recording projects. Are these particular edits able to be applied at a global level or do you have to edit each individual patch/preset individually? I'm like you and not a big fan of the harshness, so it would be nice to do a one-and-done edit if it's possible to smooth and warm things up across the synth as a whole. Great video by the way. Learned a lot here.
Unfortunately these have to be done on an individual basis. What you could do though is make your own default patch that has all these settings set up and then select it everytime you start designing a new patch and then save to a different slot.
@@System-1541 Excellent idea there. Thanks for that info.
@@System-1541I did that with frequently used aspects to the tweak knobs for a touch less menu diving :)
Im suprised this little synth has 3 oscillators and looking at all the setting your scrolling through it looks pretty powerful and impressive
It is a very deep synth. If you had a knob per function it would fill a whole producer's desk. That's why it can be a little intimidating. I don't recommend synths like this or the microkorg to beginners in synth editing because you really have to know what you're doing before you can start navigating the menus. That's why I'm doing these videos. Hopefully it will demystify this beast of a synth.
@@System-1541 IM looking for a little synth with 3 oscillators and with chorus so in that regards this ticks all those boxes... the other feature I need is a pitch envelope for all 3 oscillators - is that possible with this?
Thanks for the info :)
@@zenobibonsai Oh yeah. It has 5 or 6 envelopes that can be routed to just about any parameter you can think of - oscillator pitch, pulse width, even effects and LFO rates and stuff. You could loose days making patches on this beauty.
@@System-1541 thats super helpful to know as i need to recreate a sound that uses pitch env on 3 osc : )
How do I get to the initial patch. I’ve searched your videos but I need step 1
Scroll to bank C. Those are all init patches.
Great tips, greetings from brasil
Are these settings remain for any selection of sounds or just on the one your using to make your changes?
Any preset you load on the MiniNova can be edited so these techniques will work on any of them.
Yo! I'm new to the world of synthesizers - not midi controllers - but synthesizers. I bought this back in January, and was super disappointed to learn that the editor plugin isn't supported anymore in Ableton. Disappointed because I could use a little more of a visual when trying to figure this stuff out. It seems like it doesn't affect your ability to explore it, and that the synth itself is still a super solid purchase. Is that valid? Solid synth and I should just try exploring it more rather than returning it?
It's one of the best in the price range. I'm not sure why ableton wouldn't be working with the editor. The editor is just a vst and ableton is a good vst host. Have you checked with novation or ableton customer service to see why it's not working?
This link should be helpful. The support ticket only 3 months old so it should still be a valid guide. support.novationmusic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207560755-How-to-configure-the-Mininova-with-the-Mininova-Editor-plug-in-in-Ableton-Live
@@System-1541 I called Novation yesterday. They said that the VST plugin is no longer supported because it's "32 bit" and Ableton runs at "64 bit." I'm going to be totally honest - that means almost nothing to me. I know I bounce my tracks at 24 and that's about it. I was going to call Ableton today though, because after watching a bunch of videos last night, I gave it another try. But it's not showing up in my control surfaces in Logic or Ableton. I can see that the sound is reaching the interface, and I can see the sound come through to Ableton, but nothing happens because I can't set it as a control surface. I just upgraded to Live11, and Ableton's site said they automatically update control surfaces - but the miniNova isn't showing up.
@@System-1541 Yeah that' the link I was using previously. I have the plugin in Ableton, but when I pull it up - it's a super glitched out screen. I've redone the process like 4 times (uninstall and re-install). Maybe I'll call Novation again today and see if I get a different answer than yesterday. Thank you for your help!
@@audreyrose7450 Ableton has instructions on their website to convert 32-bit plugin to 64-bit so they can run in Ableton 10 and 11 using jbridge. It's a paid tool, but if it's worth it to you it might be worth a try. This link is for the windows instructions but if you're on mac you can use jbridgeM. help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209772465-Converting-32-bit-plug-ins-using-jBridge-Win-
I get my mininova todat but do i need to update the mininova or is it good out from the box ?
It is good out of the box. If you got it new I'd be surprised if it doesn't have the newest update. There's a few extra things they added in the latest version, but it's still a great synth either way you go. The manual should show you how to check your version.
Ok so how do you save your updated sound?
Just hit save, put it in a location, then use it like an init patch whenever you want to make a new one...which you then save to a new location so you don’t lose your init patch.
Would you say the MiniNova is less digital sounding than a DX7?
Way less. They're different types of synths. The MiniNova is an analog modeling synth so it's designed with the features of an analog subtractive synth. The DX7 comes from the time when everyone actually wanted to sound digital. So it really owns that sound.
When I save some music, I don't know how to find it again 😔 can you explain, show how to do it 🙏?
Are you talking about saving patches?
5:06 meeoow
Can anyone tell me how to change "Memory Protect" to OFF
Be very carful with this keyboard had mine for a few year not used it much when I did go to use it the keys decided to break there are a few of them coming lose badly made.very disappointed wasn't exacly cheap either.
Do this work with circuit
Everything except the oscillator drift. The Circuit doesn't have that feature. You can get good phasing by slightly detuning the oscillators though.
This was the first synthesiser I bought and since then I bought pretty much knob per function analogue synths which I have to say there is no comparison the menu diving on the Mini Nova is unfortunately way too time consuming.
That's the purpose of these videos. It's to help beginners that can't afford knob per function synths or who are just starting out to get the most out of this menu based synth.
Anybody make a video for semitone transposition?
Do you mean transposing what you're playing on the keyboard or changing the oscillator tuning?
@@System-1541 the keyboard semitones for a band tuned a half step down. I found it! But a video would be awesome!
It should've been possible to scroll by just holding down a button rather than pressing down repeatedly
Watching this was frustrating because the introduction lacked examples of the final results.
Great ! 👍