Nord User Forum

So I decided to do a by-ear test of my Nord Lead A1's number of active voices when playing unison level 3 across 2 to 4 slots simultaneously.

In Unison 3 across 4 slots (all 4 slots with unison set to 3, all 4 slots "lit", playing the keyboard) I could play a chord of up to 6 keys simultaneously. When adding the 7th note, the second-lowest note was dropped.
In Unison 3 across 3 slots, I could play 7 notes before one was dropped by adding the 8th = 21 voices. Odd that there isn't 24+ voice polyphony allocatable here, I thought this was a 26 voice synth?
In Unison 3 across 2 slots the polyphony jumped to 10+ keys (I assume 13, or 26 voices).

Unison 0, 1, and 2 results were the same as for Unison 3.

I conclude that a) Unison does not steal voices at all on the Nord Lead A1, b) The voice allocation is a bit odd in that with 3 slots active you only have 21 possible voices no matter what the unison setting is, and c) Other than that, this is a heck of a great deal, since unison really kicks ass in many cases and being able to use it without penalty is awesome!

Yes, unisons and choruses are very similar in nature. The difference is that a chorus will have a bit of motion (often cyclic) to it, whereas a unison will only have the random beat frequencies as the only "motion". Depending on if that matters to you or not, you might find them interchangeable. However, for some sounds one or the other might be more clearly preferred. Unisons, by definition, are integer-increment effects (e.g. they are only adjusted in discrete integer quantities) - while of course the amount of detune per voice is variable the number of voices is clearly an integer. So, yes! You can definitely simulate a unison with a chorus or vice versa, but in some cases one will have a characteristic that might be more desirable than the other.

Yes, the ability to morph the chorus is really a nice feature. In fact, the Chorus is a huge selling point of the A1 to me - one of the primary reasons I opted for it as my first Lead synth instead of the 4. I bought my A1 to be a sort of one-man-keyboard-section for 80's new wave and dark electro stuff, and that lush chorus is a huge part of that sound. Since most of the synths in that era were in fact very simple (OMD famously used a one-oscillator Korg Mini-Preset, for instance) and just multi tracked (hey presto, slots!) and heavily effected (hey presto, chorus!) it's basically exactly what I'm looking for.

I *might* end up with an NL4 later on, or even wait for the NL5 if it's a nice step forward, but for now an A1 effectively replaces a whole rack of gear from a gigging/jamming perspective. I'm trying to figure out how to best pair it with a few rack modules for an insanely portable setup now.

I conclude that a) Unison does not steal voices at all on the Nord Lead A1, b) The voice allocation is a bit odd in that with 3 slots active you only have 21 possible voices no matter what the unison setting is, and c) Other than that, this is a heck of a great deal, since unison really kicks ass in many cases and being able to use it without penalty is awesome!

Unison voices are reduced automatically and dynamically before notes are stolen. At least that is how it works on NL4. So there is a drawback, but it's often not that audible.