Love for the Wave 2!

[gadgetprop]

Greetings, I purchased a Wave 2 as my first Nord a few weeks ago. Though I got a great deal on a demo unit, It was still a lot of money for me, but I have to say - it was totally worth it.

I have dabbled with various mono synths and a few polys in the past and I feel like the W2 is a revelation! On paper it was just what I was looking for, a performance instrument that can play some traditional keys or do some electronic stuff in a blink of an eye, something highly versatile. After getting it and living with it for a while, I really love it. It's so inspiring and clever the way it's laid out. The build quality is out of this world, are all Nords like this? If they are, I totally get why you see them on stages all over the place. Anyway, I'm not sure why it's not more popular. Maybe it's the lack of good demos or maybe the 'presets' (which I don't use) don't grab people, the price (though a used one is in the ball park of your Novations and Rolands)? I don't know.

All I know is I'm a Nord convert! Thanks for having me!

[gadgetprop]

[gadgetprop]

welcome to the red community! Yes, all nords have the same build quality. They are handmade in a small factory, almost like a family company, and treated with care. I guess the wave2 is not so popular yet due to the lack of videos with custom sounds or from live performances (who gigs in those days?). All demo videos with preset patches show just the potentials, it's up to the users to show what this machine can do through their work. Also worth to mention that lots of other brands released new synths lately witch are all great and raise the competition.

[gadgetprop]

Welcome to the Forum, GP-

I also believe the NW2 is a unique and flexible instrument with lots of potential. Hopefully you will be able to post some of your new programs in the Nord Wave forum!

-dj

[ChrisCopeman]

I brought my new Wave 2 home October 2 and I've loved it ever since. It's my first Nord and my first hardware synth. I want to speculate why it's not more massively popular with the synthesizer community (despite being totally unqualified to do that). There are some obvious things we can't do with the wave2 like scanning through a set of waveforms in the wavetable, and loading and editing our own wave forms. And it seems we should have more control of the FM carrier/modulator configurations. While those things seem like deficiencies it really doesn't seem to limit the great sounds I can get out of my wave2. I kinda think those things make it easier to play and configure. Perhaps Nord is holding some good stuff back for a wave3. Perhaps some long time Nord users would know if Nord does stuff like that.

[gadgetprop]

I suspect it is not as popular due to the limited LFO options and other simplifying decisions Nord made. The resale value on these seems to be lower than other Nords -- I paid $1900 for mine, mint. I ended up trading it for a Prophet6 because at least my unit had a bug that drove me nuts, but the tone was fantastic and despite some limitations it's far more flexible than it may first appear if you understand synthesis and can think outside of the box when programming. Naturally the P6 is easier to dial up a classic analog sound because it's all right there (no configs, multi layer etc) but it's far less flexible and in terms of raw tone between the 2, just on analog waves, the Nord was almost there...in a mix no one would know and even soloed it can be very close. I'd gladly own another one day and frankly often miss it but could not deal with the bug that at least my unit had.

[gadgetprop]

Hey, thanks for the reply, the P6 is super sweet! One day...!

Every synth has their limitations, that's for sure. Sometimes those limitations can be sources for creativity. Don't get me wrong, I still love breaking out the trusty moog and cranking the filter overdrive, but the W2 is also so inspiring to jam on it, it can get so deep so quick and back again. It's nice when a synth can go from tight snaps to massive reverb land with the turn of the wheel, with 4 simultaneous arps with different time divisions going around in crazy clockwork counter-rhythms! The tension on the mod stick reminds me of playing a guitar when bending, I like that you really have to dig into it a bit.

Care to elaborate on bugs? I haven't encountered any issues thus far, my W2 has been solid.

[DJKeys]

The only real bug I have encountered (and reported to Nord Support) is described here:

nord-wave-forum-f11/vibrato-sync-across ... it=vibrato

It doesn't really affect me because I don't need to have simultaneous vibrato on multiple layers-

-dj

[alex78]

I ended up trading it for a Prophet6 because at least my unit had a bug that drove me nuts

What was this annoying bug? the guys in clavia try to fix most of the known bugs in each software update they release for their products, so I guess you got an early version of the wave2 and the bug you are talking about may have already been eliminated.

[tsss27]

For reference I did submit the bug to Nord, along with the vibrato sync mentioned above.
The bug was the main LFO not syncing across layers just like the vibrato one, even when editing the LFO as a group or in multi-edit mode. I could not get it to consistently sync across multiple layers once a patch was saved and re-selected later. This made synth-style vibrato, at best, a guessing game as to whether it would behave correctly or not.
I had posted about this on another forum, and DJ Keys had actually tested some stuff on this for me and could not replicate it. My hope is that it was only a bug with my unit somehow...
An easy way to test, for those interested:

1. Use 2 layers. Set both to the same sound, but for clarity I would put them an octave apart.
2. Add both to the group for LFO editing, or use multi edit mode. Set the LFO however you like. For now, it should be in sync.
3. Save patch, reload it later and see if it's still in sync. You can move to other patches and back again multiple times to confirm it is working.
If unsure, slow the LFO rate down a lot and it will be very obvious if it is working or not because if out of sync the LFO's may travel in opposite directions!