nord lead

[Guest spliffnik]

I am looking into keyboards and other equipment, and have heard SOO much about the nord lead... I want to know what separates the Nord lead from the rest and if it is worth buying for a beginner producer like me... any tips are appreciated!

Also what is the difference between the Noed lead and Nord lead 3? What improvements have been made on this?

-bOOm-

spliffnik

[Guest Jikkenteki]

I own a Nord Lead 1 and love it. For a beginner's standpoint, the Nord's strengths are that it is pretty straight forward with out a lot of obscure sub-menus and such, it is fairly wide ranging in tonal abilities and it simply sounds good. Its hard to explain the Nord Lead's sound, but it is all over Infected Mushroom's first three albums. The Lead is good for leads (hence the name), basses, and lots of other stuff, but seeing as it is designed to be more of a lead synth, it takes a little more work to get good pads and such out of it.

 

Another Lead owner I was talking to summed it up well in that the Nord Lead doesn't always give you amazing unique sounds everytime, but just about ever sound you use it for sits just right in a track and is just what the doctor ordered. Probably the best praise I can give it is that I own a fairly extensive collection of good software synths as well as a virus b and I haven't written a track that hasn't had the Nord in it somewhere since I bought it. It won't fill all your needs, but coupled with a few good vst synths like Albino, V-station and Absynth, etc, you would have a wickedly potent set up.

 

As for the Nord Lead 1 vs Lead 3, I know Nord changed the sound engine some in the Lead 3. Many people seem to prefer the sound engine in the Lead 1 and 2 better, but I find nothing wrong with the 3 from when I played with it. In general the 3 simply does more, but it also costs a lot more too. Since you say you are a beginning artist, I would recommend taking the money you would spend on the Lead 3 and hitting Ebay, etc and getting a used Lead 1 or 2 and then using the remainder to get some other quality vst synths like Reaktor, Absynth, V-Station, etc. I think you would get a lot more bang for you buck that way and end up with an very nice setup that would basically cover just about anything you wanted to do.

 

For what its worth,

Jikkenteki

www.par-2.com

[Guest miKeLogic]

You should try the VST clone of the nord lead 2, download demo from

 

http://www.discodsp.com

 

It's called Discovery, and can even load nord lead 2 patches. There's even a psy trance track to download as a demo(!) And it's only 80 euros....

 

Peace

 

miKe

[Guest Cynical]

how much does a nord lead 3 costs ?? I found on the inter net for about U$3000. Is this it ?

[Guest Jikkenteki]

$3000 sounds about right since the last time I looked. You can probably find it cheaper on Ebay, etc if you do some serious hunting.

[Guest Squarepeg]

Hi,

 

I have a nord 1 (classic) keybaord and a Nord 2 rack. The Nord 2 rack particularly is going for very low pricess second hand.

 

I have played with a Nord 3 and the sound seems a little differnt to the 1 and 2 (which sound all but identicle to my ears) though I not quite sure hwo I would define the differnce.

 

It does have a great user interface. I would suggest that the Nord 2 rack might be a good starting point though.

 

I remember seeing the very first Nord lead in the UK being unpacked for a trade show in LOndon many years back. I spent the next couple of years lusting afer one. When I did get one it certainly lived up to my expections

[Guest Squarepeg]

Hi,

 

other and now second only synths that I really like are the Yamaha AN1x and the Waldorf Pulse. The Pulse get's a lot of positive comments but the AN1x is definitly under rated.

 

I just bought an SH101 which I am enjoying a lot right now. Sounds great through a distortion pedal.