--- product_id: 14378640 title: "Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer" brand: "novation" price: "R23514" currency: ZAR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 category: "Novation" url: https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/14378640-novation-mininova-analog-modeling-synthesizer store_origin: ZA region: South Africa --- # 256 preset + 128 user sounds Built-in VocalTune tech 18-voice polyphony Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer **Brand:** novation **Price:** R23514 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 🎶 MiniNova: Big synth power, pocket-sized magic. ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer by novation - **How much does it cost?** R23514 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.za](https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/14378640-novation-mininova-analog-modeling-synthesizer) ## Best For - novation enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted novation brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Massive Sound Palette:** Craft deep bass, soaring leads, and lush pads with 18 voices and pro-grade effects. - • **Legendary Sound Engine:** Powered by synth guru Chris Huggett’s 50 years of expertise for authentic analog modeling. - • **Instant Sonic Sculpting:** Tweak knobs or warp sounds live with Animate buttons, pitch, and modulation wheels. - • **Fast-Track Your Creativity:** Access 256 genre-spanning presets and save 128 custom sounds for instant inspiration. - • **Vocal Performance Game-Changer:** Sing or talk into the mic and auto-tune your voice perfectly with VocalTune. ## Overview The Novation MiniNova is a compact analog modeling synthesizer featuring 18-voice polyphony, a vocal tuning microphone, and 256 factory presets plus 128 user slots. Designed by synth legend Chris Huggett, it offers powerful sound design tools including Animate performance controls and an arpeggiator, making it ideal for musicians and producers seeking professional sounds in a portable, road-ready package. ## Description 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. Review: Liked it so much I bought it again. - I bought one of these back around 2014 or so and enjoyed it, it was one of my very many G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) purchases. Fast forward to 2017, I bought a motorcycle and sold off a bunch of my gear to help pay for the bike, the Mini Nova was a piece of gear I tearfully let go of. At the time I mostly just dabbled at synths so I was barely using the Mini Nova. Fast forward to now. After a lot of frustration at trying to sequence music with a DAW, I discovered the fun of sequencing synths in a "DAW-less" setup. I've dug out the few synths I kept, and bought two synthesizers from Modal Electronics. To avoid going on a further tangent, I sent both synths back, and realized I had enough refunded money to get another Mini Nova. I'm not selling this one. When I had my first Mini Nova, I was in awe at it's capabilities, and now that I've spent a lot more time tweaking different types of hardware and software synths, the Mini Nova continues to impress. I won't go into what the synth can do. Head to YouTube and watch some videos if you want a demo of what this little powerhouse can do. My main two reasons for scoring this synth so high are: 1. I find it's controls and workflow intuitive and 2. It sounds great. A lesser reason is this synth is fully polyphonic, and it's price tag puts it in competition with just a few other poly synths and a myriad of monophonic synths. To touch briefly on the Modal Electronics synths... One was a Skulpt. A great sounding synth that is cheaper and seemingly as featured packed as the Mini Nova, with a seemingly intuitive control layout, it frustrated me to no end. All it did was flash it's LEDs at me. I could almost never get the Skulpt's control app for tablet/smartphone to connect to the Skulpt. So all I had for feedback other than listening was blinking LEDs. If I did something wrong on the Skulpt, I had no way of telling what I did. When both the Skulpt and the other synth I had bought, a Craft Synth 2.0, kept crashing, I sent them back. Dealing with those made me appreciate the Mini Nova's controls so much more. The Mini Nova has a screen that shows you numerical values as you turn knobs! Such a simple feature, yet dealing with the ME synths has made me realize how I took it for granted. Furthermore, while some features of the synth, such as LFO's and patching, do require you to menu dive a bit, there's enough knobs to tweak the synth's sound, in both subtle and dramatic ways without needing to look at the screen. The toggle switch to the right of the synth dictates what the four small knobs do, and the text on them is clear enough that I don't have to look at the screen. But having the screen there is so wonderful. Moving on to sound, I'll compare this to one of my old synths, a first generation Korg Minilogue. Great sounding synth, even more hands-on than the Mini Nova. There's one nuance to the Minilogue's tone that makes me glad I've got the Mini Nova back in my arsenal, now that I'm playing synths so much more. Nearly all of the Minilogue's tones have a metallic edge in them. Sometimes that's preferable, so I'm not griping. But when it comes to dialing in a warm, smooth tone, the Mini Nova does so with ease, as well as edgy metallic tones or otherwise. Put simply in another way, until now, the Minilogue was my most tonally versatile synth. The Mini Nova trumps it easily in that department. Oh, and unlike so many other synths, the Mini Nova has an ENTIRE bank of BLANK presets!! I've used numerous digital synths that are fully loaded with presets. If you want to save a tone you dialed up from scratch, you need to delete a preset on said synths. Not so with the MIni Nova! I'm so glad that Novation realized tone tweakers like myself would want to dial in their own tones, while also enjoying some of the preset tones! I would recommend the Mini Nova to synth players of all experience levels. As an absolute beginner myself back when I bought my first Mini Nova, I was still comfortable enough with it to start creating my own tones from scratch on day one. While I've got a lot more experience in synth tweaking now, I still don't use the Mini Nova to it's fully capacity, so as long as one doesn't mind the digital nature of this synth, I'd even recommend this to an experienced synth player. I feel the Mini Nova is very unique with the features I've outlined: Very powerful and flexible, yet friendly and approachable to new synth players. Plus it's hardware feels rock solid. While I understand not many people like the mini keys, I don't mind them and they beat the touch pads found on other synths! Review: Awesome synth for recording of electronic music! - I am just getting started in electronic music creation, and this has been the perfect synth for me. At first I was comparing this keyboard to the UltraNova and wasn't sure which one to get. I really wanted a vocoder (both have this) and they both have the same sound engine, but I was used to the full-size keys of a larger keyboard and I wasn't sure how I would like having to run the sound through a separate USB MIDI input (the UltraNova can just plug in via USB). Ultimately the lower cost of the MiniNova and the great videos I saw on YouTube won me over in favor of the MiniNova. It's been great! I've been using it with Garageband on a Mac - plugged in through a USB MIDI input device I bought years ago, and recording has been very easy. I record it as a "real instrument", not as a MIDI controller. Just make sure your levels are good (not too low and not peaked) and you get a perfect recording. In fact, the smaller size of this keyboard has made recording MUCH easier on my computer, since the MiniNova can sit on my desk right in front of my computer keyboard and not have to sit on some large stand a few feet away. The smaller keys are actually easier to play in some respects because you can jump around much easier. The only time I wish for a larger keyboard (in terms of number of keys) is when I play something classical like Bach, but when I actually go to record my own electronic music this doesn't really apply anyway. There is an easy to use octave control that gives you whatever range you are looking for when needed. The sounds are excellent. I love the vocoder and there are a lot of great synthesizer sounds, both modern and classic. The arpeggio/motion sounds are very good. If anything I could use a few more, but it's an impressive collection overall. Just hearing some of the sounds and playing around with them is inspiring for the kind of music you can create. I've been sticking to mostly the "stock" sounds without having to do much tweaking with the onboard controls, but as I play around with those I can see the power that is available for tweaking on the fly. They are easy to use. I would say the only "problem" I have had (and I wouldn't say it's a true problem), is that if I do go crazy with some tweaking of sounds, sometimes it seems I lose the original "stock" sound, but a quick reset of the synth (turn it off and back on) brings it back to normal. Maybe a reset button would be useful, but it's not a big deal to get around it. The controls on the MiniNova also seem a bit easier than the UltraNova. When I tried out the UltraNova in a local music store, it took the sales guy (and me) about half an hour to get the vocoder to work. Much simpler on the MiniNova - just turn the dial and you get your choices. I also like that the sound tweaking controls are right there in front of you with real controls and not buried in some menu that you have to navigate. Overall an excellent synth that is relatively easy, fun to play, and powerful enough to keep me happy for years to come. Nice job, Novation. ## Features - Make Huge Sounds- Create deep, gritty bass, soaring leads, lush pads, and vintage sounds with up to 18 voices and powerful effects - Built By a Legend- MiniNova’s synth engine was conceived, shaped, and refined by British synth legend Chris Huggett and has his five decades of passion, experience, and expertise behind it - Gently Tweak or Instantly Warp- Subtly tweak your sounds with the knobs, or totally warp them with the Animate buttons, pitch, and modulation wheels - Create Unique Vocals - Talk or sing into the mic and run your voice through the keyboard and effects engine. Use MiniNova’s secret weapon for the perfect vocal – VocalTune. Your voice will automatically be tuned to the notes you play on the keyboard - Animate and Arpeggiate- Switch to 'Animate' mode and press one of the eight backlit buttons to trigger awesome performance functions or 'Arpeggiator' mode to jam with arpeggiator rhythms in real time - Find Your Sound Fast- Instantly search through 256 sounds by type or musical genre and save 128 more sounds of your own ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | ASIN | B009AK3NDW | | Best Sellers Rank | #30,745 in Musical Instruments ( See Top 100 in Musical Instruments ) #53 in Synthesizer & Workstation Keyboards | | Body Material | Plastic | | Brand | Novation | | Brand Name | Novation | | Color | Blue | | Connector Type | MIDI, USB | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 279 Reviews | | Finish Type | Painted or Lacquered | | Global Trade Identification Number | 00815301000136 | | Included Components | MiniNova synthesiser, Gooseneck microphone, USB cable,12V PSU | | Item Dimensions | 2.95 x 22.04 x 9.84 inches | | Item Highlight | USB, 37 Mini Keys, Analog Modeling, 18-Voice Polyphony, Built-In Vocoder, 256 Presets, 5 Effects Per Voice, Animate Buttons | | Item Type Name | Synthsizer | | Item Weight | 6 pounds | | Item dimensions L x W x H | 2.95 x 22.04 x 9.84 inches | | Manufacturer | Novation | | Material | Plastic | | Model Name | MiniNova | | Model Number | AMS-MININOVA | | Number of Items | 1 | | Part Number | NOVSYNTHH02UKEU | | Set Name | Yes | | UPC | 815301000136 | | Unit Count | 1 Count | | Warranty Description | 2 years. | ## Product Details - **Brand:** Novation - **Color:** Blue - **Item dimensions L x W x H:** 2.95 x 22.04 x 9.84 inches - **Material:** Plastic - **Model Name:** MiniNova ## Images ![Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71LzyTXnrvL.jpg) ![Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/6122Dl7mYOL.jpg) ![Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71InYhrbQzL.jpg) ![Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer - Image 4](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/717NMeMtjTL.jpg) ![Novation MiniNova Analog Modeling Synthesizer - Image 5](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61w7Wx-rBmL.jpg) ## Questions & Answers **Q: Did anyone buy the one with the bigger keys? $199 extra for bigger keys?? Worth it?** A: Yes, it really worth.... Bigger keys let you play it as a regular keyboard. Mininova`s are too small **Q: Do i need to run this through my computer via midi? or can i use it stand alone? sick of having to use programs, just want a plug and play synth.** A: It's completely stand alone. However there is no sequencer on board. It is not a workstation. great synth though. It does have a fantastic software editor that makes programing it very very easy but you do not have to use the software editor you can totally programme it by hand. **Q: My son composes music for his video games. He is looking for more than 8 bit sounds (no idea what that means) Would this synth be a good fit?** A: This is a professional synth. There are 100's of sounds. Check the Novation website. I thinks it's 36 bit data. He will fiddle this synth for years. **Q: does this mininova come with the microphone pictured for vocoder input?** A: yes, it comes with the microphone pictured. I myself haven't used the mic so I can't say anything about the quality of it. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Liked it so much I bought it again. *by H***E on October 21, 2020* I bought one of these back around 2014 or so and enjoyed it, it was one of my very many G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) purchases. Fast forward to 2017, I bought a motorcycle and sold off a bunch of my gear to help pay for the bike, the Mini Nova was a piece of gear I tearfully let go of. At the time I mostly just dabbled at synths so I was barely using the Mini Nova. Fast forward to now. After a lot of frustration at trying to sequence music with a DAW, I discovered the fun of sequencing synths in a "DAW-less" setup. I've dug out the few synths I kept, and bought two synthesizers from Modal Electronics. To avoid going on a further tangent, I sent both synths back, and realized I had enough refunded money to get another Mini Nova. I'm not selling this one. When I had my first Mini Nova, I was in awe at it's capabilities, and now that I've spent a lot more time tweaking different types of hardware and software synths, the Mini Nova continues to impress. I won't go into what the synth can do. Head to YouTube and watch some videos if you want a demo of what this little powerhouse can do. My main two reasons for scoring this synth so high are: 1. I find it's controls and workflow intuitive and 2. It sounds great. A lesser reason is this synth is fully polyphonic, and it's price tag puts it in competition with just a few other poly synths and a myriad of monophonic synths. To touch briefly on the Modal Electronics synths... One was a Skulpt. A great sounding synth that is cheaper and seemingly as featured packed as the Mini Nova, with a seemingly intuitive control layout, it frustrated me to no end. All it did was flash it's LEDs at me. I could almost never get the Skulpt's control app for tablet/smartphone to connect to the Skulpt. So all I had for feedback other than listening was blinking LEDs. If I did something wrong on the Skulpt, I had no way of telling what I did. When both the Skulpt and the other synth I had bought, a Craft Synth 2.0, kept crashing, I sent them back. Dealing with those made me appreciate the Mini Nova's controls so much more. The Mini Nova has a screen that shows you numerical values as you turn knobs! Such a simple feature, yet dealing with the ME synths has made me realize how I took it for granted. Furthermore, while some features of the synth, such as LFO's and patching, do require you to menu dive a bit, there's enough knobs to tweak the synth's sound, in both subtle and dramatic ways without needing to look at the screen. The toggle switch to the right of the synth dictates what the four small knobs do, and the text on them is clear enough that I don't have to look at the screen. But having the screen there is so wonderful. Moving on to sound, I'll compare this to one of my old synths, a first generation Korg Minilogue. Great sounding synth, even more hands-on than the Mini Nova. There's one nuance to the Minilogue's tone that makes me glad I've got the Mini Nova back in my arsenal, now that I'm playing synths so much more. Nearly all of the Minilogue's tones have a metallic edge in them. Sometimes that's preferable, so I'm not griping. But when it comes to dialing in a warm, smooth tone, the Mini Nova does so with ease, as well as edgy metallic tones or otherwise. Put simply in another way, until now, the Minilogue was my most tonally versatile synth. The Mini Nova trumps it easily in that department. Oh, and unlike so many other synths, the Mini Nova has an ENTIRE bank of BLANK presets!! I've used numerous digital synths that are fully loaded with presets. If you want to save a tone you dialed up from scratch, you need to delete a preset on said synths. Not so with the MIni Nova! I'm so glad that Novation realized tone tweakers like myself would want to dial in their own tones, while also enjoying some of the preset tones! I would recommend the Mini Nova to synth players of all experience levels. As an absolute beginner myself back when I bought my first Mini Nova, I was still comfortable enough with it to start creating my own tones from scratch on day one. While I've got a lot more experience in synth tweaking now, I still don't use the Mini Nova to it's fully capacity, so as long as one doesn't mind the digital nature of this synth, I'd even recommend this to an experienced synth player. I feel the Mini Nova is very unique with the features I've outlined: Very powerful and flexible, yet friendly and approachable to new synth players. Plus it's hardware feels rock solid. While I understand not many people like the mini keys, I don't mind them and they beat the touch pads found on other synths! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Awesome synth for recording of electronic music! *by F***C on January 28, 2013* I am just getting started in electronic music creation, and this has been the perfect synth for me. At first I was comparing this keyboard to the UltraNova and wasn't sure which one to get. I really wanted a vocoder (both have this) and they both have the same sound engine, but I was used to the full-size keys of a larger keyboard and I wasn't sure how I would like having to run the sound through a separate USB MIDI input (the UltraNova can just plug in via USB). Ultimately the lower cost of the MiniNova and the great videos I saw on YouTube won me over in favor of the MiniNova. It's been great! I've been using it with Garageband on a Mac - plugged in through a USB MIDI input device I bought years ago, and recording has been very easy. I record it as a "real instrument", not as a MIDI controller. Just make sure your levels are good (not too low and not peaked) and you get a perfect recording. In fact, the smaller size of this keyboard has made recording MUCH easier on my computer, since the MiniNova can sit on my desk right in front of my computer keyboard and not have to sit on some large stand a few feet away. The smaller keys are actually easier to play in some respects because you can jump around much easier. The only time I wish for a larger keyboard (in terms of number of keys) is when I play something classical like Bach, but when I actually go to record my own electronic music this doesn't really apply anyway. There is an easy to use octave control that gives you whatever range you are looking for when needed. The sounds are excellent. I love the vocoder and there are a lot of great synthesizer sounds, both modern and classic. The arpeggio/motion sounds are very good. If anything I could use a few more, but it's an impressive collection overall. Just hearing some of the sounds and playing around with them is inspiring for the kind of music you can create. I've been sticking to mostly the "stock" sounds without having to do much tweaking with the onboard controls, but as I play around with those I can see the power that is available for tweaking on the fly. They are easy to use. I would say the only "problem" I have had (and I wouldn't say it's a true problem), is that if I do go crazy with some tweaking of sounds, sometimes it seems I lose the original "stock" sound, but a quick reset of the synth (turn it off and back on) brings it back to normal. Maybe a reset button would be useful, but it's not a big deal to get around it. The controls on the MiniNova also seem a bit easier than the UltraNova. When I tried out the UltraNova in a local music store, it took the sales guy (and me) about half an hour to get the vocoder to work. Much simpler on the MiniNova - just turn the dial and you get your choices. I also like that the sound tweaking controls are right there in front of you with real controls and not buried in some menu that you have to navigate. Overall an excellent synth that is relatively easy, fun to play, and powerful enough to keep me happy for years to come. Nice job, Novation. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Big step up from the Korg Volca Keys! *by J***. on March 25, 2019* I've played with my Korg Volcas for a while now, and I wanted something a bit...….more. I don't write many reviews, but this thing is SPECTACULAR so far, and I've only had it about 12 hours. I started out playing with the arpeggiator and presets, which were fun - not exactly my taste, but definitely good for getting a sense of what the machine can do. After that, I loaded the software, updated the firmware, and used the VST plugin in LMMS 1.1.3, which seemed to work fine. I use a tiny little Acer Spin 111-33 without much oomph to do simple things like arpeggiate my Volcas and sync midi devices, and the VST seems to work perfectly fine in LMMS on my machine so far. The Mininova came with a license for Ableton Live Lite 10, but judging from the size of the download, I figured it might be a bit too heavyweight for my little Acer travel laptop. There were also some patch libraries that were bundled, but I haven't tested them yet. I was able to make a nice, light-sounding patch that I made a simple lullaby out of - perhaps a bit of a departure from the hard-driving bass and dubstep patches the thing seems mostly loaded with, but it definitely confirmed my hopes of the configurability of the machine. I almost went with a microKorg due to my positive experience with other Korg products, but as of now, I'm glad I got adventurous and went with this machine. The configurability via the VST seems to be amazing - I can't wait to play with it more. I do think it would be frustrating to try and take full advantage of this machine without the VST - the menus on the machine are a bit much for the tiny display and handful of control buttons. That said, I think that for someone (like me) willing to dig into the controls via VST, there is a lot of exploration to be done on this machine. The single complaint I have so far is that the menu/data dial had come off during the shipping, but all I did was put it back on the post with a gentle push, and it seems solidly in place now. Judging from a few dings on the box, I imagine that the machine was given a little rough love during the shipping process - the device seems relatively well manufactured. A little more play in the mini keys than I like, but they don't feel delicate. I don't own a lot of synths, but I definitely suspect it would be hard to find this much functionality in a similarly-priced package. ## Frequently Bought Together - Novation MiniNova Analogue Modelling Compact 37 Mini-key Synth – Tough, compact, powerful mini-synth with pitch-correcting effect vocoder, 256 onboard sounds and five effects per voice layering Blue - Dunlop MXR M222 TALK BOX w/4 Cables - D'Addario Accessories Guitar Pedal Power Supply - DC 9V Power Cord - 9V Power Supply for Guitar Pedals - Pedalboard Power Supply - PW-CT-9V --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/14378640-novation-mininova-analog-modeling-synthesizer](https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/14378640-novation-mininova-analog-modeling-synthesizer) --- *Product available on Desertcart South Africa* *Store origin: ZA* *Last updated: 2026-09-12*