nord wave sounds

[bluemoon]

I was asked to record some sounds from the nord wave. These are just some random notes thrown in, recorded straight to the computer.

You can get an idea of how it sounds. But have in mind that the sounds are programmed to my taste...I'm sure there are a lot more timbres to be taken from it.

http://pixmusic.net/audio/wavesounds.mp3

[ignatius]

nice sounds. nice programming. thanks for sharing.

[yolkboy]

how's the nord wave working out for you, compared to the lead???

Nice organic sounds here.

For some reason ive never considered the wave... whats the consensus?

[ark]

I don't know about consensus, but I thought long and hard about the Wave and decided not to buy one. I suspect the Wave's good points are well known by now, so I will just mention the aspects that talked me out of buying one.

1) Not enough sample memory. It has 180MB, which sounds like a lot, but the pre-loaded library takes up 160MB of that already, and there are many more samples available at the Nord website. So there's not nearly enough memory to store all the samples that Nord makes available, let alone adding your own.

2) Strange sample organization. The obvious answer to (1) is to decide which samples you want to use for a performance and load those. However, my understanding is that patches refer to samples by number, which means that there is no easy way to determine which samples are not in use by current patches. If you change a sample that a patch is using, it changes the sound of that patch, so replacing any sample might change the sounds of your patches in ways that you did not anticipate.

3) No multisamples, or so I understand. A sample can have a separate sound for each note, but not for different velocities. So, for example, you can't have a patch that sounds like a flute when played quietly and a trumpet when played loudly. You can cause velocity to affect filters and such, but not to change what samples are playing.

4) No pickup mode on front-panel controls. Suppose you're in a live situation and you want to increase the attack time of what you're playing. The moment you turn the attack knob on your envelope, the attack time jumps to the current knob position. So if the knob is in a position that doesn't correspond to the patch, the sound has just changed abruptly. What the Wave really needs is the kind of rotary encoders that appear on the Lead 3 or G2--or at least a way to set it so that turning a knob has no effect until the knob's physical position passes the current setting.

5) Aftertouch controls vibrato, period. I don't think there's any way to make it change the filter cutoff frequency, for example.

6) I don't think there's a patch editor. Sample editor, yes, but no patch editor.

None of these issues is a deal-breaker by itself, but together I think they were enough to talk me out of buying a Wave, even when they were on sale during the hiatus between USA distributors.

I am hoping that someday Nord will make a product that combines the modular capabilities of the G2 with the sampling capabilities of the Wave -- I'd buy one of those in a heartbeat.

[carbon111]

Though quirky and slightly flawed, as the above poster points out, the lush sound quality and immediate UI have made the Nord Wave an indispensable synth for me. There's nothing out there like it!

The ability to use Phase Modulation (Yamaha-style FM) in conjunction with samples has allowed me to get a palette of organic "hybrid" sounds unlike any other synth I have ever owned.

I made THIS DEMO entirely with the Nord Wave.

[bluemoon]

I think ark is spot on on some of the things that are annoying on the wave. There are still other bits like not having syncable LFOs, or not being able to reset them with note on.

There are also limited mod destinations. For example you can't modulate osc mix with any of the LFOs. I usually use this a lot on my sounds.

otoh, the sound is imo pristine. It's by far the "best" digital sound I've ever heard on a synth. You can go at least 2 octaves higher than in any other synth I tried without getting nasty aliasing.

And the FM modulations are super well defined. You have to ear it in person and through good speakers to really appreciate the quality of its sound. Also, the transients are super fast and punchy. When you hear it through a PA you can really tell the difference to other VAs. It's just sharp and fast. Not mushy and boomy.

And it offers quite unique synthesis possibilities. James was talking about PM with samples and it's really something that should become standard in future synths. You can pick an e-piano sample. Just one sample, no layers or anything. Now you can PM a sine wave with this sample. this imparts the character and attack of the sample on the sine. Now you can modulate the amount of this modulation with velocity. So out of a simple static sample now you have an expressive sound you can play with. Of course that it'll never sound like a 200Mb rhodes multi sample on kontakt, but it opens the possibility of creating new and expressive sounds.

So I think this is the right synth to explore new hybrid sounds. It's also a pretty good VA and you can get simple FM sound from it, but I think it shines by blending all this together and creating new synthetic vibraphones or really nice wide layered string sounds that have both samples, osc and crazy modulations between them.

If you only want synthetic sounds then then the limited modulation capabilities don't make it such a strong contender. If clavia implements true wavetables and a mod matrix it'd become a dream synth...I'm still hoping this is what's taking them so long to come up with the new OS....fingers crossed!

[ark]

Originally Posted by carbon111

Though quirky and slightly flawed, as the above poster points out, the lush sound quality and immediate UI have made the Nord Wave an indispensable synth for me. There's nothing out there like it!

I'm not disagreeing. Despite the disadvantagies I cited, I thought it was a tough call. However, given the general state of technology, I think it is entirely possible that Nord will bring out a revised Wave with much more memory and perhaps some of the aforementioned problems fixed as well--in which case I will be glad I waited.

[detritusdave]

Could never understand why they put so little memory on the Wave. I'm always right up to the limit with it, and there's always extra stuff I want to include but can't. But it still pretty much gets used on nearly every song.

[ark]

Originally Posted by detritusdave

Could never understand why they put so little memory on the Wave.

I asked them. The answer is that it's very fast on-board flash memory, so it's expensive.

[tomorrowstops]

Just so I'm clear, the Wave is the only board Clavia offers with the ability to import basically anything, correct?

I'm currently looking to condense my live rig, which consists of an Electro 2 73, and Akai mpk49/laptop. I use piano/rhodes/organ sounds, and getting a little more into both analog synth sounds and pre-recorded sample triggering.

I'd love for the Wave to be able to replace all of this. I really hate relying on my Macbook, and in general, having such a complex setup. This is all in addition to a guitar rig.

Any input would be appreciated!

- Nate

[CfNorENa]

Originally Posted by carbon111

There's nothing out there like it!

With the possible exception of the Blofeld keyboard (or module with sampling option) -- which could perhaps be seen as the "poor man's" alternative to the Wave.

[bluemoon]

Originally Posted by tomorrowstops

Just so I'm clear, the Wave is the only board Clavia offers with the ability to import basically anything, correct?

I'm currently looking to condense my live rig, which consists of an Electro 2 73, and Akai mpk49/laptop. I use piano/rhodes/organ sounds, and getting a little more into both analog synth sounds and pre-recorded sample triggering.

I'd love for the Wave to be able to replace all of this. I really hate relying on my Macbook, and in general, having such a complex setup. This is all in addition to a guitar rig.

Any input would be appreciated!

- Nate

if you want a 2nd keyboard with the full flexibility of a synth then the wave is probably a good choice. But if you just want to play some basic synth sounds/samples and only want to carry 1 kbd with you then another option is to upgrade to the nord electro 3.

It can load samples just as the wave, the only difference being that in the electro you can only had fx to them.

The downside is that you'd have to work on you synth sounds. You'd probably need to make your own sample programs etc...and of course you'd never have the full expressive power of a full synth...But if you only want to play some simple synth sounds I think you could probably get a way with it.

But the NE2 + the wave would offer the best of all worlds imo...

[HomeProducer]

Originally Posted by bluemoon

I was asked to record some sounds from the nord wave. These are just some random notes thrown in, recorded straight to the computer.

You can get an idea of how it sounds. But have in mind that the sounds are programmed to my taste...I'm sure there are a lot more timbres to be taken from it.

http://pixmusic.net/audio/wavesounds.mp3

very nice, indeed!

Actually, can you at least trigger the LFOs to the keys (which results in an independent LFO per voice)? I miss that on the NL2.

[bluemoon]

Originally Posted by HomeProducer

very nice, indeed!

Actually, can you at least trigger the LFOs to the keys (which results in an independent LFO per voice)? I miss that on the NL2.

not really. You can use LFO2 in single cycle mode..it resets with note on...but it only works as a rudimentary envelope generator...

[Jarkko]

Great sounds! Very inspirational.