Synth with the quality (not neccessarily sound) of nord lead synths

[kippertoffee]

Hello,

I've used a couple of nord synths in my time, and I loved that fact that the sounds often sat so nicely together, layered well, mixed well. OK, the NL2 has crap filters, but it has a certain charm. Sometimes you want that one monster sound that beats the cack out of you, but sometimes you want four sounds that will play nicely together.

I'm looking for recommendations of synths that have that same sort of quality, if such a thing exists.

Ta!

[glokraw]

Surrounded on all sides by great synths,
I'd be more concerned that there are no bottlenecks or
limitations in the computer setup. With a pro soundcard,
plenty of ram/cpu, feed a great synth into a well crafted effects chain from Guitar Rig (or a competitor) the world is at your feet. You could start with
Zebra, Discovery Pro, and some Reaktor instruments and ensembles,
and post again in a few years Even the venerable Synth 1 carries
it's weight in a great effects setup.
Cheers

[ghettosynth]

I really wish someone who describes sounds as "sit really well together" would describe what exactly they mean by that from a technical point of view. I've tried to get at this in other threads, e.g., the one about the SC plugin, and it's hard to nail down what people mean.

[zerocrossing]

DiscoDSP's Discovery Pro made me toss my NL2 right out the window. Sounds great and the latest build really nails that Nord filter, which I happen to like.

But like Glokraw said, we're swimming in amazing software synth possibilities. I wouldn't even know where to start. You could probably buy a plug in like Mpowersynth and never exhaust it's possibilities. Pair it with Diva for vintage synth tones and you'd have an awful lot of sonic power in your hands. To be honest, the latest offerings from Nord seem laughably timid and kind of boring when you look at what's available in software these days, and they for sure don't sound better than plug ins. They do have nice interfaces though, and that's something.

[Tronam]

Hello,

I've used a couple of nord synths in my time, and I loved that fact that the sounds often sat so nicely together, layered well, mixed well. OK, the NL2 has crap filters, but it has a certain charm. Sometimes you want that one monster sound that beats the cack out of you, but sometimes you want four sounds that will play nicely together.

I'm looking for recommendations of synths that have that same sort of quality, if such a thing exists.

Ta!

I love NL2's filter. It's not "fat" by Moog standards, but has a distinctive character all its own and was a big reason why the Nords sat so well in a mix. I never should've sold mine. I miss those snappy envelopes and immediately intuitive workflow. Never before or since have I been as productive in creating my own sounds.

DiscoDSP Discovery and Synth1 are two of the most well known emulations, but neither quite nailed it, at least not at the time when I compared them.

[zerocrossing]

I really wish someone who describes sounds as "sit really well together" would describe what exactly they mean by that from a technical point of view. I've tried to get at this in other threads, e.g., the one about the SC plugin, and it's hard to nail down what people mean.

Good point. I tend to ignore those phrases as they're meaningless. I do think of synths that sort of complement each other though. For instance, when I'm composing I'll often put "phat" sounding synths like Moogish (emulations or hardware like my Neptune 2) next to a synth like FM8.

My guess is that people who say "sit well together" are probably talking more about the presets that come with synths. I notice a lot of synths come with these giant sounding effects laden patches that more or less leave no room for any other instruments except maybe percussion. If you can't get a sawtooth lead to cut though a mix with the filter all the way open, then the problem isn't with your synth's character. The problem is with your composition/mix.

[recursive one]

Discovery Pro has some elements modelled after Nord. It is not an exact emulation but if you want sounds with "nordish" character in your mixes, people say that Discovery cuts it more or less.

I never owned a Nord but I love my DIscovery Pro, I've managed to recreate some of well-known "nordish" psytrance sounds with it and generally it sounds good and sits in a mix well.

[ghettosynth]

DiscoDSP's Discovery Pro made me toss my NL2 right out the window. Sounds great and the latest build really nails that Nord filter, which I happen to like.

But like Glokraw said, we're swimming in amazing software synth possibilities. I wouldn't even know where to start. You could probably buy a plug in like Mpowersynth and never exhaust it's possibilities. Pair it with Diva for vintage synth tones and you'd have an awful lot of sonic power in your hands. To be honest, the latest offerings from Nord seem laughably timid and kind of boring when you look at what's available in software these days, and they for sure don't sound better than plug ins. They do have nice interfaces though, and that's something.

Yeah, for me, this has been true since they first came out. I was never interested in the nord lead. OTOH, I loved the nord modular. It had a similar degree of synthesis technology, but, at that time, there was nothing that could compete in terms of being both modular and portable. Secondly, because it was modular, you could overcome some of the technical limitations by building your own meta-modules out of the modules.

I never quite understood the fascination with VA beyond the value to people who were gigging and wanted something reliable.

[ghettosynth]

I really wish someone who describes sounds as "sit really well together" would describe what exactly they mean by that from a technical point of view. I've tried to get at this in other threads, e.g., the one about the SC plugin, and it's hard to nail down what people mean.

Good point. I tend to ignore those phrases as they're meaningless. I do think of synths that sort of complement each other though. For instance, when I'm composing I'll often put "phat" sounding synths like Moogish (emulations or hardware like my Neptune 2) next to a synth like FM8.

My guess is that people who say "sit well together" are probably talking more about the presets that come with synths. I notice a lot of synths come with these giant sounding effects laden patches that more or less leave no room for any other instruments except maybe percussion. If you can't get a sawtooth lead to cut though a mix with the filter all the way open, then the problem isn't with your synth's character. The problem is with your composition/mix.

That's one explanation, another less charitable explanation is that it's often said about synths that are a bit on the thin side, especially when it's said about a synth sitting well with itself.

But I take your point on reverb drenched presets, or, simply presets that are really a mini soundtrack.

I would like to put my fingers on a better technical explanation though, if such a thing exists.

[Tronam]

I really wish someone who describes sounds as "sit really well together" would describe what exactly they mean by that from a technical point of view. I've tried to get at this in other threads, e.g., the one about the SC plugin, and it's hard to nail down what people mean.

I can't speak for the OP, but my impression of the Nord Lead was that it needed very little EQ or post processing to sit well in a mix and could cut through even dense arrangements very clearly with little effort. It might seem quaint by today's standards, but it was pretty extraordinary at the time; the first "virtual analog" (a term originally coined by Clavia). People often complained about it lacking a huge, bassy sound in isolation, but it was probably intentionally tuned that way to better fit in electronic dance music mixes of the time.

[ghettosynth]

I really wish someone who describes sounds as "sit really well together" would describe what exactly they mean by that from a technical point of view. I've tried to get at this in other threads, e.g., the one about the SC plugin, and it's hard to nail down what people mean.

I can't speak for the OP, but my impression of the Nord Lead was that it needed very little EQ or post processing to sit well in a mix and could cut through even dense arrangements very clearly with little effort.

I understand what people mean in that sense, but it's not saying anything technically. Why does it need little EQ?

I guess by comparison, what needs a lot of EQ, and what are you EQing?

It might seem quaint by today's standards, but it was pretty extraordinary at the time; the first "virtual analog" (a term originally coined by Clavia). People often complained about it lacking a huge, bassy sound in isolation, but it was probably intentionally tuned that way to better fit in electronic dance music mixes of the time.

The nord lead, while a successful product, wasn't well received among analog aficionados. It's not clear to me what you mean by "intentionally tuned", I'm not really buying it, TBH.

Don't get me wrong, it was passable, but for dance music analog filters were still DE-rigour. In particular, people were purchasing external filters to sweep mix busses or the sounds coming out of MPCs.

As I recall, it was mostly accpeted by the mainstream crowd who didn't view used analog as an alternative. So yes, there weren't any real new analog polys at the time and so if you wanted new, and you wanted a better synth than what romplers had, and you wanted knobs, it was pretty much your only choice. For anyone that was using analog heavily though, it wasn't taken as seriously as you seem to imply.

[recursive one]

Nordlead was very influential for certain music genres. E.g., the sound produced by its FM engine was used all over the place in psytrance starting from early 2000's (it's one of the sounds that are well recreated by Discovery Pro btw)

[Ingonator]

Comparing the "build quality" of software synths to those of hardware seems to be impossible and both could have bugs that have to be solved with an update. In terms of the interface plugins often seem to be superior except with fully knobbed hardware like e.g. the Nord Lead synths.

In the past i had owned a Nord Lead 2X, a Nord Modular rack and a Nord Modular G2 engine.
After a whie i found that the overall sound of those was not really for me.
At the time i owned those i also had a Virus KC and later a TI desktop which i prefered (had both Virus versions for some months).

Finally all those were replaced by a combination of a Waldorf Blofeld (including samples of the Virus TI Hypersaw...), a Waldorf Pulse 2 and a Novation UltraNova (and a bunch of great plugins...).

[Tronam]

That's one explanation, another less charitable explanation is that it's often said about synths that are a bit on the thin side, especially when it's said about a synth sitting well with itself.

But I take your point on reverb drenched presets, or, simply presets that are really a mini soundtrack.

I would like to put my fingers on a better technical explanation though, if such a thing exists.

I wouldn't call the NL thin, but it definitely didn't have the low end rumble of something like a Minimoog. The tempered low end did help prevent muddy low/midrange buildup though. It also had extremely fast, snappy envelopes allowing for really sharp plucks, percussive sounds, cutting leads and it could do those distinctive "rubbery" leads and bass sounds. It may not have been embraced by vintage analog enthusiasts, but it was an enormously popular and influential mainstream instrument that was all over modern electronic music of the time.

[ghettosynth]

Nordlead was very influential for certain music genres. E.g., the sound produced by its FM engine was used all over the place in psytrance starting from early 2000's (it's one of the sounds that are well recreated by Discovery Pro btw)

Ugh, trance, but ok, fair enough, point taken. I remember trance in the 2000s picking up VAs in general. Oh, and yes, I get that psy-trance isn't the same as acts such as Rank-1, but it's still not my cup of tea.