Synth for 80s band

[RyanC]

Hello!
I've been a proud Electro 4HP owner for a few months, playing mostly piano & organ in a classic rock cover band. I'm now putting together a band which will play more 80's pop and need a synth. I've read a bunch of stuff here and I think I understand the differences between the Nord leads, but I'm still not sure which best meets my needs. I'm looking for keyboard that will best replicate the sounds from 80s songs below and also be easy enough for a synth newbie to program (unless there are people that program patches for money - is that a thing??).

Here's an example of songs that I need synth for: Toto- Africa, Men at work - Land down under, Asia - Heat of the Moment, J Geils - Centerfold, Huey Lewis - Want a new drug, Duran Duran - Hungry like the wolf, Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible, Aha - Take on me, MJ - Billie Jean.

Thanks for your suggestions.
Ryan

[Marlowes]

Hej RyanC!

My vote goes to the NLA1. I just bought one and is totally very pleased.
My roots go back to the 80:ies since I'm so old ... I felt at home with the new Lead from day one!

/Amicalement
Michael in Scania

[RyanC]

Oh, I would love a NLA1 But will I be able get many of the sounds for these songs? How about something older - will I be able to find more patches online for a NL2/2X than the A1?

[Darren]

Roland Jupiter 8 and a DX7???

[Mr_-G-]

Synclavier II Lol!

[pablomastodon]

Hi Ryan,

Theoretically, there should be lots more programs for the NL2/2X. If I understand correctly (this was before my time), because the architecture of the original Lead 1 and the Lead 2 were quite similar, a conversion process was available. And NL2X is exactly the same program achitecture as NL2, so essentially folks have been writing programs for more than twenty years which can load into an NL2X.

However, you might do well to go searching for these supposed gold mines of programs before making a purchase decision. I haven't stumbled across them yet. Of course, the factory load is more than a thousand programs already, so perhaps that the answer. But there surely is much programming activity around the A1, and having onboard f/x with your synth is pretty huge, something which will be painfully obvious if you get something without.

Also, any which way you go you'll want to spend time twiddling knobs and such and getting involved in doing your own programming. With 1024 programs on the NL2X, for example, going through them all to try to hunt down that perfect sound is likely to take longer than actually just programming it from scratch!

Pablo

[SocProf]

Geoff Downes uses a Roland SH-201 on Asia--Fantasia (live). He later switched to a Roland Gaia. You can find cheap used copies of the first synth on Ebay. The second synth sells new for $600, plus $90 for the editing software. The Gaia is very easy to edit. The SH-201 is easy to edit if you stick to one layer. If you are doing two layers, it gets messy because there is no copy button and no display (which is why I hope to replace mine with an NL4 someday ).

[Marlowes]

Hej RyanC & Pablo!

(In the 80:ies I played in a band with my Juno 106, SH 101, TB 303, DR 606 - so that's my reference in sounds.
http://fagerart.se/sound/7managento/Golden_Grave_RM.mp3
... and I'm still there, mentally! )

Yes, there are zilliions of patches to download and try out for the fantastic NL2/NL2X.
nord-lead-rack-forum-f12/lead-2-2x-patc ... t6997.html
And supportive guys like Electromin & Ricard & ...

And I trust there will be more patches available for the NLA1 pretty soon. There is already a vast pile to select from.
http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libr ... roffe-bank

But as a "vintage" synth (well, the Lead 1/2/2X actually is now?) the NLA1 works much better IMHO. Especially with the practical onboard fx.
In my ears the NL2X sounds a bit too "modern" so I frequently add lots of external fx like tube-amp/reverb/chorus/delay.
Which are not stored with the patches. The NLA1 is more easy to maintain and use with the Sound Manager.

If you really need an almost perfect match of old keyboards, why not add Arturia Analog Lab
http://arturia.com/products/analog-clas ... b/overview
or some Native Instruments samples to your rig?



/Amicalement
Michael in Scania

[AinTziLLo]

But as a "vintage" synth (well, the Lead 1/2/2X actually is now?) the NLA1 works much better IMHO. Especially with the practical onboard fx.
In my ears the NL2X sounds a bit too "modern" so I frequently add lots of external fx like tube-amp/reverb/chorus/delay.
Which are not stored with the patches. The NLA1 is more easy to maintain and use with the Sound Manager.

I completely agree with you.
(I think we like the same style of sound.)

In addition to giving us a great sound, the A1 is also very easy to program, compared to the vast majority of synth on the market.

[RedLeo]

The 80s stuff you are looking to reproduce used an extraordinarily wide variety of synths and samplers to produce the original sounds. Both "traditional" analog synthesis and the (at that time) brand-new FM digital synthesis were the main ingredients. Not only that, but some of the signature sounds weren't synths, but real instruments. Strings, brass, pianos, organs, even flutes, were all widely used.

In short, you're going to have your work cut out for you, and although I'm sure you'll be able to get some of the sounds you need from other users, you're still going to have to come to grips with programming a lot of your own stuff.

In all honesty, the similarities between the different Nord leads are much greater than their differences. All the Leads, including the A1, basically work the same way as far as programming sounds is concerned, the differences are basically just details. Any of them should prove ideal for what you need, they're all more than powerful and flexible enough to handle the job, and the four-part multi-timbrality is going to be your new best friend.

I understand that you want something as simple as possible to operate, so the new A1 would be a good choice here, but you must understand that it is not really fundamentally any different to program than any of the others, it's more a matter of - it's a bit faster and more convenient. To do your own programming - or just tweaking of existing sounds to get them just the way you want, you'll have to learn a bit about synthesis whatever you get.