The best Nord Lead ?

[RedLeo]

To my ears, Nord's organ products are also harsh, but that's because some programmer somewhere seems to have a lust for overdrive. First thing I do on organ programs is turn off leslie overdrive and then STORE. Harshness gone.

Personally, I really like that the Nord organ's have a little bit more "cut" that other clones, even on clean sounds. It makes fighting your way through a wall of Marshalls that much easier, though that's not a problem that most people need to face. I also love the Leslie and Amp sim overdrives. I need a ton of overdrive (see "Marshalls" above) and while the Nord overdrives don't really simulate traditional 122/147 overdrive, I find them just perfect for those "Jon Lord" moments - which is most of the time for me. Plenty of bite without thinning out the sound. If you've ever heard the ghastly noises produced by Korg and Kurzweil overdrives (I'm sure there are others) then the Nord overdrives are a real blessing. I do wish that Nord could better simulate the lovely low throaty growl you get when playing overdriven low notes through a Leslie, though. They haven't got that at all.

[pablomastodon]

I will confess that during performance if I hear that my organ is not cutting through the mix, I bump the O/D to compensate, but my personal preference is usually for clean and pretty and when playing alone at home the crunchiness offends my ears.

Sorry to venture off-thread...

Pablo

[ricard]

The Lead 4 and A1 appeared at exactly the right time for me, but ironically, the appearance of both together has stopped me buying anything. The Lead 4 seemed a great choice - until I saw the A1's chorus/ensemble effects, the Multi-Focus thing, and its reputedly warmer, more analogue sound. Problem is, the A1 is a non-starter for me because of the limited envelope controls and the oscillator configuration system. I've already got two synths with limited envelope controls: a Minimoog and the one in my Stage. They are both a total PITA. Even the mighty Ken MacBeth needs a good talking-to about this.

So now that Nord seem to realise that if a synth is going to include effects, a chorus-type effect is actually more practically useful, I now find myself waiting for a hypothetical "best-of" synth. And given the relatively recent release of the Lead 4 and A1, I don't expect to see anything new for a long time.

I feel exactly the same way about the NL4 and A1. I found myself wanting a combination of machines, and since that is not available, I've been looking elsewhere.

As for 61-note synths, they've done one already. Yeah, it was a behemoth in other ways, price point notably among them, but it has been done and so may actually be possible again in future.

Are you thinking of the G2 X ? I think Clavia got badly burned by the market with the G2 series and would be very cautions to go that route again, including any synth with a 5 octave keyboard, I think it would tip the price too much in the wrong direction for them.

P.S. -- I think that perhaps the HARSH judgment about the NL4's sound character is based largely on the programming which has been provided for the instrument by Nord. It is not necessarily fair to generalize in this way based on others' programming.

Yes, it's true that a lot of the factory presets are very gritty sounds, my (albeit limited) experience is that even when trying to program the machine yourself, it tends to lend itself to gritty and cutting sounds more than anything else.

I remember trying to set up a soft pad sound, but couldn't really get there. Then again, I'm not a master synthesist by any stretch of the word, but I think it should be fairly easy to set up that type of a patch on a machine with a classic analog-style architecture.

[kroffe]

My premier tip for programming "warm and analogue" sounding patches on the Nord Lead 4 would be extensive use of velocity-morph to fine-tune on oscillator 2 and/or use of one of the LFOs for adding another layer of "living".

[electrow]

So,are there any sound demos of the "warmer" side of the Lead 4?

[ricard]

I may be wrong, but to me 'warm and analog' has something primarily to do with the quality of the sound coming through the signal chain, and not things like random detune (which the A1 has, but not the NL2 for instance; don't know about the NL4) or modulation.

While random detune definitely mimics how a synth with analog oscillators behaves, it is not necessary for an analog feel - if that were the case, then a monophonic analog synth would not sound analog either (as there is no random detune between voices when there is only one voice).

To me, things like random detune are a second order effect which brings the behavior closer to an analog machine, but are not necessary to make a patch sound 'warm and analog'.

I would think that with careful setting up of an NL4 including using the effects section to smooth out the edges, it might be possible to get something reasonably close, but with considerably more effort than on a real analog machine or an A1.

[pablomastodon]

Just a thought here, actually a couple thoughts:

1) to the extent that this thread has devolved into a discussion about escaping the purported "harsh" sound character of the NL4 and finding "warm and analog" sound, perhaps it should be split off -- helping future forum searchers to find what they are looking for, and

2) yesterday I had occasion to backup my custom programming and reload original factory load. I took this opportunity to do a little "survey" and ran through the first ten performances one by one. Fully half of them, 5 out of 10, are sounds which are anything but harsh. Quite mellow really. This leads me to suggest that these reports of harsh character are completely overblown. Perhaps because several of the new aspects of the instrument are receiving extra highlighted attention, e.g. the crusher effect, the new filters and filter overdrive, etc. that some other things are being unfairly overlooked. This may also be true of the factory programming to an extent. Then the A1 comes out armed with new features which lean in the opposite direction, making the contrast even more pronounced. But silky smooth pads can and do exist on the NL4, as do other sounds which can accurately be described as "warm and analog."

Just a thought...

Bless,

Pablo

[Muziksculp]

Hi,

I will be posting a new NL4 video/demo next week.

I will try to emphasize the warm/silky (non-harsh) sonic side of the NL4.

Cheers,
Muziksculp