Nord User Forum

After years of being inspired by the Nord A1 and how easy it is to come up with great sounds, I was wondering if upgrading to a Wave 2 would be worthwhile.

One thing I like to use on the A1 is the osc combinations like saw + triangle or saw + one of the sine harmonics, and sometimes use osc ctrl to morph between different balances of the two. Looking at the Wave 2 manual, it didn’t look like it had these kinds of combinations? It listed things like Dual Saw and Dual Saw 5th+ so it might be simplified in this regard?

I just played the Wave 2 in a music store 1 hour ago. Sold my Lead A1 two weeks ago. I'm not planning to upgrade myself. I was trying out guitar amp heads.

If you upgrade, you will no doubt lose some of the immediacy of the A1. Essentially every part of the synth is upgraded (more complicated) to some extent. Although for example filter drive is far more tame om the W2.

There seem to be less options the way you described it, but I would say it is far from "simplified". I guess you mean "less options", which is arguably the same thing.

The only reasons I would upgrade are sample playback, and (more significantly) the keybed. I already own a Stage 3, so sample playback is covered, but the W2 keybed i infernally better than the one on Lead A1.

If I could have the W2 keybed on the Lead A1, I would probably still own it.

I did upgrade from the A1 to the W2 in 2020. I found it is super easy to program any sound on it, including complex multi-patches. I don't find the Osc selection limited at all, and the Poly(Chord)/Gate ability of the Arpeggiator (Like the Virus TI2) is worth the price of admission for my use. Side by side, it took me only a few days to duplicated all of my A1 patches on the W2, and there were about 70 of them-

-dj

I upgraded from L2X & A1 & A4 and is very happy! Less stuff, more possibilities IMHO.

Thanks for the replies! So just to verify, are there any multi-oscillator settings that allow waveforms of two different types at the same time in one program, like saw+triangle, or saw+sine (without needing to use different layers)?

robmartino wrote:Thanks for the replies! So just to verify, are there any multi-oscillator settings that allow waveforms of two different types at the same time in one program, like saw+triangle, or saw+sine (without needing to use different layers)?

The complete description of waveforms is listed starting on page 20 of the manual. All of the waveforms beside the Basic set allow continuously variable sound modulation via the Osc Control knob.

https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sites/def ... on%20G.pdf

-dj

Yup, I was looking at that part of the manual but didn’t see any examples of multi oscillators with two different types, just this reference to “a large number of simultaneously sounding oscillators”:

Super Saw, Super Square, Super Bright, Super Organ: a large number of simulatenously sounding oscillators, producing a very rich and full sound. The stereo width is increased in Unison mode.

I wish the wave 2 had this feature, like the stage 3. On the stage 3 you can mix two different oscillators and adjust the amount of each on a single panel. For instance, you can mix a saw wave with a square oscillator set an octave lower at a 60/40 mix. Very handy to do a simple bass on one panel. The wave 2 can achieve the same effect using 2 layers but having the oscillator blend function like the a1 and stage 3 would be more efficient, I think.

The Stage 3 synth was modeled after the A1 synth. The W2 is unique it its own, and you can get very good sounds from one layer.

-dj

robmartino wrote:Thanks for the replies! So just to verify, are there any multi-oscillator settings that allow waveforms of two different types at the same time in one program, like saw+triangle, or saw+sine (without needing to use different layers)?

You can morph some waveforms, mostly sine to various others (sine/saw for example,) but not mix 2 different waveforms on one layer. That would require 2 layers to accomplish. Given that the layer sliders are right there, it's easy enough to set this up, I don't really think it's any less immediate and you can still use the morph groups to control it as well.