Is now a good time to buy a Lead 4?

[Lyonart]

The original price of the NL4 in the Uk was £1549,it then dropped to some stores selling them for £1299 a few weeks ago,but since the introduction of the A1 which now sits at £1299,the price of the NL4 has risen back to £1549,I've been keeping an eye on it because I'm looking to buy the NL4.

Prices certainly have fluctuated recently and went as low as £1,050 on the DV247 website but have since gone back up again (I think there may have been an error on their website).

When prices fluctuate like this you start to question the true value of the item (especially as the changes at this moment in time have nothing to do with currency exchange rates). I got to try out the Lead 4 properly last weekend and I was initially disappointed. The user interface seemed very cramped and, at times, counter intuitive and the keyboard action was also sadly lacking in feel. With a bit more time I am sure I might learn to live with some of the flaws but given the price variations I have decided against buying a Lead 4 and will instead check out the Waldorf Blofeld keyboard and/ or the Pulse 2. You can buy both of them for less than £1,000 which makes the Lead 4 look pretty poor value when at the upper end of its price range.

Or how about a new Korg/Arp Odyssey?

[ricard]

The key selling point with the Nord Lead series is the one-to-one mapping between knobs/switches and parameters, although the use of the SHIFT key has diluted that a bit. Clavia seem very adament about that when discussing new features that would not visible in the front panel graphics would they be implemented. The crucial question is whether this is important to you as a user or not.

After trying to make up my mind for several months, I think I too find the 4 a bit of a disappointment. Not because of the keyboard; the keyboard has a lighter feel than my 2, but the actual response in terms of the way it reacts to playing velocity seems much more consistent than on the 2. Partly it's because of the sound, which I find a bit too aggressive overall. And partly it's because I feel most of the features they've added on the 4 compared to the 2 are not in the actual sound chain, they are in the stuff around it, like the arpeggiator, impulse morphs, etc. The only real differences in the sound chain are the additional waveforms, the ladder filter modes and the effects unit. I was somehow expecting more 16 years after the 2 was released, such as filter mod by one of the oscillators, linear detune, key scaling of envelope parameters, etc. Sure, the additional features would have added to the front panel, driving up the price, given the inherent philosophy of the Nord Lead series, but to my mind most of what can be found on the 4 feels like a software upgrade from the 2 rather than a new synth. Somehow in many respects it feels dated. I think it's a very tricky thing though. Clavia attempted a new approach with the Nord Lead 3 but it was too advanced for many and didn't sell well. So I think they've tried to get back to their roots with the 2 by offering a machine that a large enough number of potential users (buyers) can appreciate quickly enough.

While I'm not too familiar with other Waldorf machines, it seems that the Blofeld adresses a number of the issues I have with the Nord Lead 4, to a large degree due to the modulation matrix. The down point of course is that it is not at all as accessible, especially when you venture past the three oscillators, two filters, two envelopes and two LFO's available via the quick select buttons on the front panel. The arpeggiator looks an absolute pain to set up if you want to configure your ARP pattern from scratch, but at least it's possible, rather than the Nord Lead 4 approach of having a number of preset patterns, none of which are even described in the manual. And nowadays for the price differential you can get an iPad and run a MIDI control app such as TB MIDI Stuff, with the appropriate configuration, to get your user interface.

[Mr_-G-]

Yes the Blofeld Keyboard looks interesting too. I read a couple of times that the OS is not bug free and that occasionally freezes and runs out quick out of polyphony (like only 3 notes if you use the sample module "license" [which needs to be paid separately!!??]). Perhaps those were old comments and updates fixed some of that? If anybody knows I would like to hear their opinion.

[Professor]

None of us are getting any younger. Now is a good time to buy what you need to get the sound that you want. My Lead 4 was in the first shipment to the States. No regrets whatsoever. Harsh and mellow, the NL4 is just really easy to dial in the sounds that I love.

Any Lead 4 owners got an opinion on whether the Lead 4 is good enough in its current form or whether gripes about the LCD display are big issues?

Sure, an LCD screen would be nice, but it's very apparent that Clavia's design philosophy is all about a minimalist approach to interfacing the instrument with the performer. It's a very efficient idea for the sometimes chaotic stage environment. Probably, many of us use a paper set list on stage. I just pencil in the patch numbers for each song and from a distance I can see that I've got the right settings. So I think that patch numbers work well for performance, and I can still name my patches in the Sound Manager software. An LCD is not required.