I was going to review another effect pedal yesterday, and use my Novation Nova (Desktop) synthesizer as the sound source. To my horror it suddenly will not boot! I bought it about 8 years ago, and it’s virtually unused sitting untouched on a synth rack ever since.
Although the unit does turn on, it gets stuck booting with the display reading “NOVA O/S version 4.1”, and “Part Edit” buttons 1-3 lit, and “dist/EQ config” button flashing.
Doing a web search, it appears that several Novation synthesizers released around year 2000, had a few issues. Issues such as randomly turning off, and Motorola 56303 DSP chips going bad most likely the cause of my issue!
I have more than 40 synthesizers, probably half made same year or before the Novation Nova (Desktop), and they have no issues! Quite frankly it makes me wary of ever buying Novation products again!
I contacted via online support both Novation and a British electronic music instrument repair company, who apparently have experience repairing Novation synthesizers from around the 2000’s.
I have repaired a few of my synthesizers in the past, mostly with transistor replacement. However, the Motorola 56303 have 144 tiny pins, making it very difficult to unsolder and resolder a new chip! Such a shame because I remember really liking it a lot when I bought it.
Update 1/12/2026
Novation did not offer to repair the unit, but instead referred me to a company in the US, where I shipped it to today. They charge $90 an hour, not including parts and shipping. Hope it won’t be to expensive.
Update 1/20/2026
Got an update with a repair estimate today. As suspected, one of the DSP chips are faulty and will be replaced for $45 plus one regular charge of $90. Not to bad as I had feared a higher cost. Still I asked them to also test the power supply, as this era of Novation synths were known to have power issue with random shut down, or reboots, which may have been the root cause of the DSP chip failing!