Clavia Nord LeadWith the Nord Lead, Swedish synth manufacturer (or at that time, digital drum manufacturer) Clavia coined the phrase "Virtual Analog". This means having a bunch of digital signal processors calculate the sound in real time and deliver it to the listener by means of D/A converters. Without entering a pointless discussion about whether analog sounds better than digital, we can still admit that this kind of instrument really doesn't fit into SHotQ's ideological framework (compare "Old Jass on Old Synthesizers"). Thus, sometimes it doesn't feel quite right to use the Nord Lead, especially now that we have such a solid set of real analogues. Still - there's no argue that the Nord Lead is a very competent synthesizer. There is no other synth in our arsenal that can do all the things the Nord can, and the Nord can do a lot of stuff that none of the other instruments can manage. Therefore, we should not feel ashamed of our digital black sheep, but enjoy its resources and clever features! In the walkthrough below we will pretend that the instrument really has oscillators, filters, etc - just to make the writing easier. SHotQ's Nord belongs to the first generation of Nord Leads, and is expanded to twelve voices. In brief, this is a polyphonic synthesizer with two oscillators (with sync and FM), a multi-mode filter, amplitude- and filter envelopes as well as a simpler modulation envelope for pitch and FM amount, plus two LFOs (one of which can serve as an arpeggiator, due to digital magic). The synth is multitimbral with four parts, but this is not a feature we use much in SHotQ, being "hands on-musicians" of the old school. One of the best innovations is the nice "Morph" feature, allowing any combination of parameters to be continuously adjusted with the mod wheel or velocity. For example, you could set this up so that playing harder closes the filter, increases resonance, adds some filter modulation from the LFO and raises the pitch of Oscillator 2. Or something else. Another nicety is the little wooden Pitch Bend stick. This is unique in that it has virtually no "zero zone" in the middle - instead a very advanced industrial measuring device is used, allowing the pitch stick to recalibrate itself continuously. Or something. Any way, the result is a stiffly spring-loaded stick allowing for extremely subtle vibratos or bends to the exactly right pitch, even with a pitch bend range of ± 1 octave. The best there is, as far as we've seen We have used the Nord Lead a lot. Good examples of the Morph function include the trumpet solo on "Stampede", where the fluttering attacks of the notes are made with the mod wheel, set to control the arpeggio amount and filter cutoff. The gong stroke in the beginning of our first opus "Limehouse Blues" is an example of using the Nord Lead multitimbrally (four different sounds at once). And let's not forget the bizarre drum sounds it can produce - listen to the drums under Rambergs solo (also Nord Lead btw) on "Caravan"! |
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