Clavia Nord Lead A1R to replace my A4

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
1

Hi,

I just buy an Octatrack, so now i have a hardware midi sequencer for external gear

So I wonder about a Clavia Nord Lead A1R to replace my A4.

What do you think in terms of sound and use pairing with an octatrack ?

Thanks

Cedre

2

I have a Nord 4 rack and AK and prefer the sound of the Nord.
Much more balls, Nord FM rules.
Nord A1r is a less complex version of Nord 4 but some say it sounds even better, although less versatile. They both share the same sound engine pretty much. I prefer Nord 4 over A1r due to more advanced FM mainly
I keep AK mainly for overbridge and CV

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3

I would say yes.

4

Effects per part (individual reverbs, not a master reverb), Way more polyphony. They’d go together perfect with the A1R’s 2 stereo outputs.

5

Just curious; in what ways is the FM on the NL4 more advanced than the A1’s?

6

Can’t remember honestly but was one of the reasons I went with the 4.
Was a while ago when I researched the 2 units
Think there are more modes of FM available on 4 and if I remember correctly FM modulator on A1 is only a sine wave whereas on 4 you can use any of the available oscillator waveforms as modulator?
Gives more power to the 4, but don’t quote me on the details

7

I just bought a NL4r and it sounds incredible. If my set up was just octatrack and one more synth I’d probably take the nord for the 4 parts and more polyphony. That being said The A4 has CV (I use modular) and does some great pad sounds and broken fm sounds. It’s not true fm as the digital lfo’s don’t have a high enough resolution to do real fm, but the glitchyness it gives is really unique and fun. Plus the sequencer and arp etc are great obviously.

Can’t really go wrong with either but like I say if it’s a small set up you want OT and NL would be nice.

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8

Yeah the A4/AK digital lfo FM is way too mild.
Better than nothing though and was a good addition to the unit.

9

Can you do thing like use a square wave as the modulator while its PWM is modulated by an LFO?

11

Hello,

I also prefer the Nord sound over AK/A4.

Plus the A1 really has a simplified yet clever user interface.
To be honest this is the only synth i use for “sound design”, because i’m too lazy to program patches with other synths.
Also i do a lot of live gigging with friends, so it’s really nice to be able to set up a specific patch in no time. With other synths I would have to prepare patches before live improv gigging, and then browse through presets that would never perfectly fit to my needs. it would be much more tedious and less fun.

The A1R has 4 parts with 4 assignable audio outputs (perfectly matching your octa’s inputs), midi din IN/OUT, it also behaves well with an external midi clock.
Definitly a good choice to pair it with the Octatrack!

[EDIT] : i’ve spotted a bit of audio latency when I sequence NLA1 with Octatrack, getting the audio back in the Octa.
It’s really tiny, but keep that in mind, depending on what you try to achieve. Only a concern if you are trying to turn the 4 parts of the A1 into a 4 voice drum synth i think! Which is a cool idea by the way, don’t you think :wink:
Maybe the tiny delay is due to the fact that NLA1 is digital, so there is a D/A conversion. Octatrack cannot automatically compensate for that.
I’ll check with an analog synth to see if the result is better.

12

Thanks for all these info.

i’m suprised about the latency of the nord lead A1, wonder if ana analog synth like Analog four or Prophet6 has the same issue with latency ?

Or maybe it’s due to octatrack A/D converter ?

Do you check “DELAY COMPENSATE” in octatrack ?

13

NLA1 / NL4 are not specifically designed for drums, so very small latency should be acceptable.
I think it is emphasised by the octa/Nord combo, midi is intant but you have a Nord D/A and an octa A/D to get the audio back in the Octatrack wich is not ideal.

my experience was not scientific, i just listened to the metronome of the Octatrack mixed with the audio return of my NLA1 (generating a synth click). had to delay the recording trigs 2 or 3 microtimming increments back in the octa to create a fake “look ahead” and make it right. didn’t qualified this in ms, though. sorry i don’t have more info for now, just discovered it.

This is not compensated by the octa, like ableton or other daws would do for example. Octa has no kind of “look ahead” feature.

14

How are you monitoring the audio from the Nord?

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15

Through 2 of the Octa inputs.

16

Direct or Thru machine?

17

with a flex machine set to continuously record i had to move my recordings on the grid (regardless the octa compesation setting).

18

well, this behaviour is expected as the Octatrack neither conpensate for external hardware latency, nor for it’s input A/D stage.
Also, this concern is not a Nord specific thing, it’s more Octatrack specific

19

Hello,

Tested further synchronising the nla1 with the octatrack.
Total latency getting the audio back and monitoring into the octatrack is under 10 ms which is very acceptable I think! 7ms according to my “empirical ear test” :diddly:

Tested my ipad air2… >20ms with Imini, Iconnectivity midi4+ @128 frames… :zonked:

20

I just made a test, recording a sine wave sent to Cue Out > Input A.

I found 136 samples latency, i.e. about 3.1 ms at 44.1khz.

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