You’re right that they’re targeted at players, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less useful to electronic musicians. So long as the MIDI spec is good , which it is on my Lead 2… most of us will have sequencer around anyway.
Using the layers of a Nord synth as partials you can create an enormous range of sounds. And much as I love sound design, 99% of electronic music ends up using the kind of sounds you can make with a Nord anyway (or, indeed, a Microkorg…)
As an expander it was ok, but they forced customers to choose between a keyboard - which some people back then did not want, for the same reasons people do not want a keyboard today - and a faceless rack, when some would have wanted a desktop with at least a few knobs
Well, their company name is Clavia 
But I agree completely. They didn’t seem to get the memo that most people shifted to desktops from rack mounted gear.
I know many still love racked gear. I’ve always found it a bit awkward. Had had huge racks of synths in the 90s and early 00s but I wouldn’t go back now.
For recording gear sure, but not synths.
Nord Modular Rack. Could be used on desktop or racked.
What possessed them to release the next-gen module after this without any knobs at all or even a display, shall forever be a mystery.
those knobs on the G2 keyboard, like the knobs on the NL3 were apparently very expensive or something… so the interface was expensive to produce… so the G2 engine solved that problem i guess. I’ve owned 2 G2 engines and wish i still had one but apparently the USB chip int here goes bad sometimes. it’s fixable but you have to DIY the fix and find the right USB chip which cost like $3 or something and there’s info on line how to do it… anyway… the bigger problem is the longevity of the editor.
i agree if they’d made a desktop version it might’ve sold a bunch. the G2 KB was not inexpensive… still the G2 engine seems to still be an attractive option for some people.
i hope the release some kind of pure synth type thing down the road. it’s a tough market though. I love my NL 2x and NL3R.
Off the top of my head:
Nord haven’t produced anything analogue
Nord haven’t produced anything with CV connectivity
While the Modulars have sequencer modules that can be assigned to the interface, Nord have never produced a dedicated hardware sequencer.
Elektron have never produced a computer editor for their digital synths.
I haven’t owned any of the Elektron digital synths (MM, DT, M:C), but AFAICT, very different approach and core sound to Nord synth engines.
…end of the nineties?..everything was leaning into computers for real…everthing else had to be 19" rack gear tobe cool…no one wanted to twiddle knobs…
waldorfs most famous old time classic microwave1 had one big red knob and was promoted in that fashion, forget about all these confusing controler surfaces…
today at the final peak of otb and the more knobs the better mantra, we see just the comeback of a comeback gone full circle…and well…in a few years from now, mainstream might ask for no more fuzz, no more desktops but brain to midi only please…we can already see the silverlining of a next all back into the box hype…and so on and so on…always three steps forward, two steps back…
2020, the year when long dead vinyl sales took over back again, while the once best listenig experience promo hype of cd’s are on their final round to vanish and the otb mainstream hype starts to decline again…
life is running in circles and mysterious ways…
I certainly won’t be in the market for a brain to midi implant. You should keep this dystopian vision to yourself. You could give some very bad people ideas.
And if you can control out…then ‘they’ can control in.
‘MIND INPUT DATA INKING’
CC - congnitive control
Sys-ex - Speaks or itself. (system s’xy time’)
No thanks
I had an mw1 and that was long before the nl1 Well the mw1 is made in 89/94 and the nl1 started in 94. But in 93 there was the big Wave full of knobs!
like Elon Musk?
…no worries…up to now, all even slightest dystopian science fiction ideas became daily reality…
and brain to midi is no such thing…or, as always, just a nice side effect of good old weapon industries left overs, once it becomes a thing that truly exists…
ur aware of the simple fact, that all what we have in use daily…
sampling, harddisk recording, sequencing… u name it, came all from pretty evil high tech inventions in first place…?
every idea can be used for good AND bad…human nature…
and all high tech ideas needed big investments to begin with…and big investments only happen for big profit expectations…while biggest profit were always to be found in the oldest business of human man kind…weapons…
Isn’t the Model:Cycles the actual Nord drum 4 though?
I think the circle has been broken…and the end of the loop isn’t too far off 
fucking humans
This thread started a bit weird and just keeps getting weirder.
I like it.
Weird thread about a wonderfully weird company. 
I’ve been yearning for a G3 with sample memory and CV I/o for years. I have a wall of eurorack, use VCV, miRack, and Bitwig grid. I have dabbled in Reaktor, M4L and Axoloti, but nothing imho, compares to the experience of using the G2. It is still my favorite hardware synth and favorite modular environment. The hardware UI is genius and the software, although dated, is fast, intuitive and fun to use. The combination is what makes this such a classic.
The G2 is something I would love to have but probably never will.
That’s why I hope hope hope for a G3…
But, seems like they don’t care for it.
I’ve been trying to remember how Clavia’s peeps got the beats going at their NAMM booth back in those days, because I don’t recall Clavia/Nord ever making a groovebox.
I think they were spinning records to get those beats.
808…no…Casio RZ-1