Yeah, I do get that certain extremes will introduce aliasing etc, but I think it’s largely just vintage fetishism and a fear of newer tech, or something.
This is a bit different as the 3 is a different sound engine to the others. I’d still love to play with one though.
Which brings me to the 4. Has anyone done a shootout between the 1/2/2X and 4?
After a few fruitless years of trying to buy a Rack 3 I snagged a Lead 4R at a very, very good price last week and have been digging into it for the last few days. It feels a little bitter dwelling on the amount of stuff that has been removed from the 2/3 - pretty much every unique Lead 3 feature is gone and there are a few things from my old 2 that I miss badly (ringmod, simultaneous sync+fm, notch+LP filter, drum maps, etc).
BUT:
It sounds incredible, like a more clear and strident take on the 2/2x engine.
Classic ear-ripping Nord FM in spades.
Two morph groups plus seven impulse morphs that can all be addressed by standard MIDI messages. This is insanely powerful and means I just need to send three different CCs from my OT to get a huge amount of timbral variation.
Some of the FX choices are bizarre (two vocal filters and no chorus?) but they work perfectly when modulated via morph groups. Modulating the delay on a hellish Nord FM patch is instant EP7.
Perhaps most important (and maybe least discussed) aspect is the mutator. Far more useful than typical randomiser functions and you can activate it while the synth is running with no latency or dropouts. You can even put the synth into multi focus mode, and instantly apply separate mutations to each of the four slots in a performance at once. I cannot overstate how powerful this is, even for just creating variations or subtly mutating your whole track live, mid playback. It can only be improved if you could save the results of a mutation to a morph group (I think the A1 does this, which makes me far more interested after years of dismissing it)
I’ve been lucky enough to fuck around with a Korg Radias and Virus TI recently and the Lead 4 sounds way better than either and is far more fun and fluid to use. Timbral shifts and modulations that require a whole bunch of program changes or mod matrix slots on those can be done with just a couple of CCs on this.
I know a few guys who could line this up…
Sorry for bumping the thread; no big news in the Nord Lead world - afaik at least
Is anyone else waiting for the next Nord Lead to drop?! I’ve been waiting for some time! I was thinking about getting an A1 lately but it has been around for some time now and it would probably be smarter to wait for an A2 at this point, right? Was also thinking about the Wave 2 but somehow it doesn’t call me as much as the A1 simplified but versatile concept that reminds me of Monomachine.
I have an A1 – honestly, I am not sure what an A2 would bring to the concept that wouldn’t overcomplicate it. It’s a very well thought out instrument. A screen with readout would be maybe the one area of improvement I can think of.
Superbooth is next month – if they don’t announce anything there, I’d say grab one.
Yes, great points! I was thinking maybe an OLED screen would be better ofc but it’s not that crucial. I would also prefer an A2 with 4 octaves as it’s now. Will wait for the Superbooth; great advice! 
What about the FM engine? how do you like it in your A1?
Ah yes, there is one more thing I would like to see in the A2 and that is audio over USB
I’m a huge fan of the Nord leads. Have had them all. They’re all special in their own way, but man, the 1 and the A1 are something else. Amazing sound!
Proud owner of this lil cutie and loving the sounds so far.
Every time i feel the sound design options are lacking all I need to do is remind myself that the design philosophy was intended to be more in line with a prophet 5 (limited options but powerful core tone) than a hydrasynth. And then I switch presets and get blown away by said core sound 
I have a 4r and the presets are good … so many new synths seem to fail on getting good presets ( reading threads on the p-800 often comment how bad the presets are )
Many classic old tracks are full of presets.
Modern equivalent of the Nord lead racks in terms of sound, features and build quality?
If by modern you mean in-production, the only VA synth in 19’ rack format in production I recall is the Modor MF-1 but, its mono-timbral . As for tabletop modules, there’s the Hydrasynth which is very feature-deep; has wavetable synthesis but again - mono-timbral. Can’t speak for the Modor, but my impression from a play on the Hydra in a shop, fine but not as solid as Nords. I don’t reckon either surpass the Nord in sounding modern , then again wtf is modern-sounding anyway?
The Virus TI Desktop can be mounted in a 19" rack. It is unclear if it is still in production or if retailers are just selling out the inventory they already have. New price is pretty steep though considering that you need to buy 3rd party software to get the TI side mostly working with MacOS.
4r or A1rack might still be available new in stores , hard to find though .
2nd hand are probably well looked after.
