Nord User Forum

[BuckW]

also make the patch mono, and adjust the glide. Good starting point. If you want leads do the same as above,but go up an octave shift or two and add a bit of delay. Also, experiment with copying a patch to another slot and making slight adjustments to the second layer.

Good advice. That way a 3 VCO synth can easily be simulated. The only thing missing though is a fine tune option per slot. The only fine tune option I could find is in the "DET" oscillator. Or am I missing something?

I think you may bee missing something I stumbled onto. If you make osc 1 and 2 the same then there is course and fine detuning svailable. IIRC, osc control is fine detuning (cents) perhaps with shift key. I don't think this is available with all wave types but for sure it works with the classics like saw.

[Rusty Mike]

I thought had shared something on this thread, but I guess I didn't.

A few months ago, I added the Minifooger Drive pedal to my Nord Stage 2EX. I use it only for synth lead sounds, and more for it's analog ladder filter than the overdrive (although a little crunch is nice!). I felt that I couldn't get a lead sound on the Stage to sound warm enough, and adding the MF Drive really made the difference. I understand the Stage's oscillator configuration is not as robust as the Lead, and I didn't want to use the 2 slots just to create a single lead sound. What used to be thin an relatively buzzy is now warm and fat, and helps my solos really stand out.

I would recommend the MF Drive pedal as an effective way to get that warm Moog sound. Sweetwater did a comparison video some months back that demonstrated different overdrive pedals for keyboards. The MF Drive was one of the pedals, and you can hear a significant difference between it and other pedals in the comparison.

[stiiiiiiive]

For filtering, I would even recommend going further back to the MF-101. I find the MFDrive filter kind of clean besides the MoogerFooger's. one.

[Spider]

Can any of the Nord Leads make those fat moog sounds from the 70's?

Short answer: no.

I would disagree with this judgement.

hey, there was the long answer too!

I will elaborate a bit more: I think you can't really get Moog-like sounds using a single Program or Slot of any Lead. The architecture is just too different. But you can get closer if you use Performances, that allow you to layer several slots.

In detail: (I don't own the Lead A1 so I can't speak for it) with my Lead 2X (and also the 1,2, 3 and 4), each Slot has 2 oscillators, and they're not really independent because you don't have separate level controls. So, I aproximate multiple individual oscillators using Performance Mode.
What I do is:
- enter Performance Mode and activate one to four slots, corresponding to the number of oscillators I want.
- in each slot, I use only Osc 2 by turning the Mix knob fully to the right.
- I choose Osc 2 because it's the most flexible one. Compared to Osc 1 you only lose the sine wave, but get access to the full tuning options (+/- 5 octaves, fine tuning) plus noise and Keyboard tracking.
- I then proceed to program the Performance as a single 2, 3 or 4-oscillator synth.
- Of course the filter and envelope settings will be independent, so you must take care to carefully match them between each slot (using Morph to control all of them simultaneously), to get the feel of a multi-oscillator synth.
- a final trick I use to get a more "analog" feel is to assign LFO1 to the pitch of oscillator 2, using the "Soft Random" wave with a slow rate and a barely audible amount. In this way, you simulate the tiny drifting of analog oscillators (of course, you can't do this if you need the LFO for other matters).
- I keep the filter WAY closed with no key tracking and little or no resonance. I find all the 2X filters very bright and aggressive when you open them by more than 30-40%, so to get a softer sound I prefer to keep it closed below that point and use the Gain or Master volumes to reach the desired output level.

The final result will not be identical to a Moog, but it can get close... and you even get an additional oscillator to use as noise source or to add some harmonic overtones, like a barely-audible fifth.
The big disadvantage of this method is that the oscillators are truly independent and separate, so you cannot cross-modulate them through ring and sync. You lose lots of sonic possibilities, but until now it's the best aproximation I could get of a moogish sound.

[Quai34]

Finally, why nobody ask advices for emulation of the Arp as you said?

[starkaudio]

Can any of the Nord Leads make those fat moog sounds from the 70's?

Have you tried? If not and you're asking with intention to buy something, the price of a Subsequent 37 is comparable to a Lead A1 (save for mono vs poly). I'd say you can get close enough to sit in a mix.

I would always advocate just about any Nord over the just about any monosynth if it's your first synth purchase however.

-L

[kozmo]

I appreciate everyones help on this....i just bought a minimoog last night and it will arrive in a few days. Im guessing it will be fat and im hoping stable

[Quai34]

Well, 10 months between your first post and the purchase, you took the time to decide....Or to put $$ aside? If it's a "new" Moog Minimoog, yes, it will be stable....

[stiiiiiiive]

Wow, congratulations on that!

Hey, try to program some Moogish sounds on your Nord synth (if any) and tell us if you really achieve the same oomph-factor

[Quai34]

+1 for the cmparaison between the real Moog and the Nord....If you do it, post some MP3....