Nord Leads

If you link to their site or discord instead of an article. :wink:

I love my A1 — I’ve had it for almost a decade I think? I’ve since bought other more complex synths, but I keep the A1 for its versatility, ease of use, and quality sounds. It feels like an instrument — it’s very approachable and you’ll certainly have a wonderful time crafting sounds on it standalone.

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Consider me another long term A1 user that would never sell theirs. For me, it has the best multi-timbral operation of anything I’ve used. As Matmcr says, it pairs so well with Elektrons.

I don’t think it sounds dated either. Even the FX are pretty good so long as you don’t overuse them. Nothing beats it for coming up with great usable sounds from scratch.

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:fire:

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Ufff that track!!! Kills me every time! Great cover!
Ive been waiting for an A2/L5 for 5 years now and im getting so impatient… what’s taking them so long? Clavia used to release Leads more often amarite

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Never get tired of that track :slight_smile:

Same here re: Nord product - I have the NL4R, but would be into seeing something new desktop wise. Even if it was a desktop version of the Wave 2 or something :slight_smile: . Nord do feel like they have 100% gone down the keyboardist/performer route over the past 10 years (which is totally fine), but still wishing.

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is it possible that the original track used a Nord Lead though? that EP came out on February 27, 1995. the Nord Lead came out in 1995; no idea what date though. and of course… usually it takes a while for records to be manufactured, even after recording is complete. maybe it was their Juno 106?

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Yeah, I doubt it was a Nord at that time, and yeah most likely the Juno as you say.

Edit - found some old forum chat about the same thing… oh, the mystery :rofl::rofl:

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hah! we’ll never know! :rofl:

and sorry, I wasn’t trying to be pedantic about it. when you posted the video, I looked up the Wikipedia page for Garbage (because I had actually forgotten all about it) and was like “wait, when did the Nord even come out…?”

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Hah not all, I’m just as ‘obsessed’ :rofl:

Back in the days, I thought the NL1 was the best sounding synth. But I had a Z1 because of the extra physical modeling capabilities. Now I realise I could have both. :frowning:
EDIT : Though it also had nice fm synthesis for ambient washes.

They defo did, OG in 95, NL2 97, NL 3 in 2001, NL2X in 2003, NL4 in 2013 (so that was a decent jump), and A1 in 2014. So it’s only been 1 year longer than 2X->4, have some faith :sweat_smile:

Coming up with new and still innovative VA synths appears to be difficult and time consuming

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They have my sympathies and im willing to pay them monies for their difficulties :slight_smile:

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anyone here with tips and tricks to get decent tones out of the NL3? even the factory presets sound meh. I feel like with every patch I made I have to use some kind of a saturator at the end of chain to make it punchy

I absolutely love the interface but struggled for years to get sounds I like out of it. I mean it’s ok but I’d rather use the digitone for fm and virus for va

Out of all the Leads the 3, in my very biased and extremely personal opinion, is THE one for layered sounds together with other instruments. It is by far the most sterile in the series (in my opinion) and on its own doesn’t sound particularly powerful. Because of this sterile nature it is beyond easy to layer with other instruments and especially guitar. This convenient layerability(?) is also the exact reason why I got one and have no intention of letting go.

If you want something with a lot of oomph from it, use the four parts. A single part can only do so much.

oh???! i’ve never looked at it this way

and yes it does sound a bit sterile

My feelings exactly about the NL3. I sold mine and got a NL2x. Never looked back. Okay, I lied. I look back all the time and wish all the NL’s had the interface of the NL3.