Nord wave?

dust_ward · 2014-12-20T18:56:47.000Z

hey all,
so i’d never been much interested in Nord stuff until yesterday when i became aware of the Nord Wave.

i was curious if anyone here had any hands on experience using one for left of center stuff along the lines of ambient/ experimental/ drone/ horror movie sound design and could answer a couple of quick questions to fuel my growing obsession with saving up for one.

1] can the VA section of the oscillators do low, thick, dark and growly?

2] how does the onboard FM stuff compare to monomachine for making metallic scraping sounds and ghostly deep space SETI fizzles?

3] holy shit can i really load like a field recording from a construction site or something gross sounding like that and slowly blend and mutate it with the oscillators?! that would be huge for me.

let me know, it’d be a huge purchase but it seems like it might be worth it.

Allerian · 2014-12-22T17:58:16.000Z

[quote=““dust ward””]
1] can the VA section of the oscillators do low, thick, dark and growly?

2] how does the onboard FM stuff compare to monomachine for making metallic scraping sounds and ghostly deep space SETI fizzles?

3] holy shit can i really load like a field recording from a construction site or something gross sounding like that and slowly blend and mutate it with the oscillators?! that would be huge for me.

let me know, it’d be a huge purchase but it seems like it might be worth it.
[/quote]

Here I am. I’ve had the NW for years and I make noise/drone/whatnot.

1] Low and thick, yes but not really growly like a Virus. Pretty easy to get in there with the Filter and/or EQ and beef things up tho.
2] You will be happy here. Imo, very similar to the range of FM sounds in the Mono.
3] Apparently, yes. However, I have not done this.
Other thoughts:

The onboard delay is nice as a layer, but you will not be visiting the corners of the universe with it.
The distortion on the NW is almost like a guitar distortion to my ear. Sounds very good with organ sounds.

The Mellotron library, as well as a bunch of other strings, choirs, bass, keys, pads, etc. are part of the NW package. Great stuff to blend with the VA.
The pitch bend on the NW is to die for. Best pitch control ever.

dust_ward · 2014-12-22T19:00:54.000Z

Hey Allerian,
Thanks a lot for the info, I was thinking of selling my Virus TI to help offset the cost of the Wave but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll hold onto it and see how they compliment/ contrast each other instead.

Actually took the plunge and bought a Wave yesterday cos of the mellotron sounds. I’m pretty 70’s horror soundtrack obsessed so those are a big selling point for me.

I guess its a good thing I don’t mind ramen noodles.

Automux · 2014-12-26T16:56:35.000Z

How does the Nord Wave compare to a Blofeld? You can load samples on the Blofeld to be used as oscillator wave forms. It has some FM but frankly I’ve found it takes a lot of work to get that MnM FM like sound.

shinobi · 2019-03-09T12:04:34.000Z

Hi guys!
How warm is the sound of Nord Wave?
I have a NL2 which I love, just can’t make warm pads on it…
Thanks a lot!

soundxplorer · 2019-03-09T21:20:26.899Z

I’ve owned most of the Nords and currently the Wave is my main keyboard. The virtual analog section sounds pretty much identical to the Nord 1 and 2, so if you don’t like that it won’t be much different. It does have on-board chorus which is nice and very Juno-like. I think the NL2 can make nice warm pads in my opinion, but maybe it’s the chorus you are missing.

futureimage · 2023-12-20T18:59:15.072Z

Sorry to necrobump, but ugh, falling down a rabbit hole of potentially wanting one of these.

Talk me out of it?

KF6GPE · 2023-12-20T19:25:51.152Z

I love my Wave 2. The action is good — sensitive in a non plinky way. The presets are all good, and if you’re in to designing your own, it’s not hard to figure out and very flexible. It sounds good, and you can get some interesting sounds mixing PCM and oscillators. I’ve not used the pc/mac software much, so I can’t comment on that.

It’s the keyboard I have in my office/studio for serious playing and practicing when my wife is napping and using our piano is a no-no. For work on the nanobox tAngeline I ended up running a long MIDI cable over to my desk, and it made (albeit overkill) a good controller for testing the tangerine multisamples. I wouldn’t buy it as a controller alone, of course, but found it as quite serviceable for that as well since I knew the keybed anyway.

papertiger · 2023-12-21T03:27:52.051Z

You might need to necroforum!

Pretty sure elektron-users was abuzz when the Nord Wave came out. It looked cool as hell and I think there were a few lucky people that actually owned and used it…

I am not sure if my recollection is accurate, but whenever it is mentioned I think of @earsmack

futureimage · 2023-12-21T09:30:56.430Z

Interesting… I looked at the Wave 2 briefly and found it a bit too “keys” for my liking, if that makes any sense? However, I’m aware that I’m likely watching and listening to demos made by keys players primarily, not necessarily synth heads first, simply due to Clavia/Nord’s target market nowadays. How do you find the synthesis section?

The thing that’s drawing me into the Nord Wave 1 is a few of the sample sets (Mellotron! A couple of decent acoustic pianos! Some nice electric pianos! Party on!), plus the capabilities to get those samples properly deep into the synthesis engine (thinking mainly about the FM from the samples to the first oscillator). It’s also about half the price on the second hand market

It would be nice to have a proper weighted keyboard though, as that’s something I don’t have and I miss the days of being able to sit at a piano and play.

Shame they never did a Wave rack module

KF6GPE · 2023-12-21T16:02:41.464Z

I can’t comment on the original Wave, but on the Wave 2 it is quite robust — a bank of 4 generators which can be PCM samples or the usual oscillators, along with the usual filtering and modulation choices. I find sound design to be quite fun with it, and have gotten some great drones.

Ooh! I didn’t know about the Wave 1 Mellotron! Fun!

earsmack · 2023-12-30T13:53:08.172Z

Thank you @papertiger! Hope all is well with you…I’m glad I found this notification (went to spam)…

I loved the NW1 so much I bought the NW2 and have kept them both. Here are some videos of the NW2 in action including two “analysis” videos of the filters and analog waveforms. Both instruments are very emotive and really great to play. I love the 1 but love the 2 more just because it does offer more functionality above and beyond what the 1 did - including the ability to more easily play those Rhodes sounds I love so much.

https://www.youtube.com/@aheadinclouds9693/videos

I hope this helps the decision-making process!

PS: Read the video descriptions since some of the NW2 tracks start these pieces via the Octatrack - so you can get a better idea of what sounds are what.