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 Forum index » Clavia Nord Modular » Nord Modular G2 Discussion
Nord Modular G2 review
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digit62



Joined: Jan 31, 2004
Posts: 5
Location: Antwerp

PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:31 am    Post subject: 3 weeks to go Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Got new yesterday that my G2 will be delivered first week of March.
Taken the time to order a Quiklok Z series rack to build my little setup.
Next week i'll get a brand new Acer laptop, still contemplating on what
interface i'll get to hookup to the notebook(Novation got a new one out which offers audia and midi).
Strange however that Clavia's website stays silent on the new G2 except for the news which is now already 2 months old. The G2 doesn't even have its own dedicated pages yet which strikes me as odd since it would assume you want to promote this stuff as much as possible.
Any reason why they are so conservative? eg. send 2 emails to them requesting information on the dimensions of the G2(since i relay needed them for my quiklok setup and they are NOT posted on the site - same for any other technical info on the G2) but no reply at all to the messages. Crying or Very sad
This again seems weird... Confused

Anyway T-minus 12 days and counting


Happy blips
Digit62 Very Happy
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mosc
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Maybe Greg can send you the measurements. Consider yourself lucky to know your arrival date.

Clavia is notorious for not responding to customers' requests for information and help. They actually believe the Nord Modular Code404 list will take care of that. I'm quite surprised that they have been able to stay in business for these years. Their products appeal to people who become very devoted to them, almost fanatical, despite of the company's limitations. That's good for Clavia, but one could have said the same about Waldorf and look what's happened to them. Sad
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egw
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Yes, I surprised Clavia hasn't posted the manual and other G2 info yet.
Here are the dimensions:
665mm x 280mm x 92mm
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digit62



Joined: Jan 31, 2004
Posts: 5
Location: Antwerp

PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 2:21 pm    Post subject: Le G2 nouveau est arrivé Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

musicshop called today that my G2 is in(and my Quiklok rack).
Have taken the day of tomorrow. Also got a brand new Acer Laptop
to hook upto the set.
Guess i sleep is not going to be on the agenda the next few weeks.

Very Happy Very Happy
Digit62
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mosc
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Happy Happy Joy Joy
Hey, great news here too. Alto Music just called and mine is in too. I should get it delivered here to electro-music.com headquarters on Tuedsay.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

bounce cheers drunken thumleft thumright smurf flower
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egw
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 5:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

flower
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tee



Joined: Mar 04, 2004
Posts: 16
Location: Oxford, PA

PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I’ve been following this thread for a while since I am quite interested in Clavia’s G2 (as many of you) and it endless possibilities and the easy use of it. Earlier in the thread the comparison of the G2 and the Nord Lead’s was discussed and I would like to add a question. I’ve got my eyes on a Nord Lead 3 for a great price, but I am still thinking about the G2. Would it be a complete waste to in the end have both or would they complement each other. I like the tweaking as well as making sounds or using presets from non modular synth.

I’m new to the site and the forum, so short presentation of myself will come shortly.
TEE

arrow Clavia has by the way posted the specification etc for the G2 on their web site
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egw
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Depending on what you're trying to do, you might want to supplement the G2 with another synth. Maybe something with some polyphony. I don't think the Nord Lead is a good choice, all of its sounds should be covered by the G2. Go for something with a different character. There are lots of possibilities. Look at your requirements for playing style, performance functions, size, price, etc.
I use an XL-7, which has lots of polyphony for a good price and a nice control surface.
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Cyxeris



Joined: Oct 30, 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Perhaps some liquidated Waldrof gear would be worth a look at this time. Just a thought.
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djfoxyfox
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 12:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

tee wrote:
I’ve got my eyes on a Nord Lead 3 for a great price, but I am still thinking about the G2. Would it be a complete waste to in the end have both or would they complement each other. I like the tweaking as well as making sounds or using presets from non modular synth.
IMO, the Nords will be too similar in character. I recommend going for the G2 and some other brand of synth to get a different character. Sure, you'll have more to learn, but like music, synths should have contrasts to make your sound palette more interesting.
tee wrote:
I’m new to the site and the forum, so short presentation of myself will come shortly.
Welcome aboard, TEE. Where did you hear about this forum? Looking forward to seeing your Avatar. Howard doesn't like mine. He says it looks "too slick." Wink

BTW, I ordered my G2 at Alto Music and then told Howard that the one he reserved there has finally arrived. Boy was he happy/surprised when I told him the good news!

Cheers,

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Cyxeris



Joined: Oct 30, 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

djfoxyfox wrote:
[Looking forward to seeing your Avatar. Howard doesn't like mine. He says it looks "too slick." Wink


That's the polite way of saying it makes the rest of us look bad. So much so in my case that I prefer to not even use a pic of my face most of the time. Wink

I've always deliberately overlooked the Nords. They always came across as being "too popular" for my tastes. This one has grabbed my attention somewhat. Perhaps because it now seems more like a mainstay than a popular thing to get.

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tee



Joined: Mar 04, 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for your responces, which sort of took me down the road I was already taking. You've mentioned various options worth concidering and I thought I thought the Access Virus C out there too. Any comment? After this I guess i should move my posting to a more fitting forum space.
TEE
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mosc
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Tee, welcome. If you are a keyboard player consider something like the Kurzweil PC2x, which I use, or maybe a Yamaha Motif. If you want a rich palette of pads, pianos, organs, insturmental sounds, percussion, and even a few sampled leads, then get a sample or wavetable based device as a compliment. The Virus is another VA device.

If you aren't interested in the keyboard type sounds, then don't get a second synth. The G2 should provide all of the VA you'll need. Focus you time on it.

Contrary to what many people say, I don't think the Nord Modulars have "a sound". The patch makes the sound, not the insturment. That's not true of some of the older synths, like the original Moogs or Buchlas for example. They only had a few modules and no processing capability. The Nord Modular and the G2 have so many modules and an infinitely variable way to hook them up, that there is no characteristic sound, per say. The G2 even has phyiscal modeling capability. In fact, just to make this point, Rob Hordjic went so far as to make a Nord patch that emulated a vacuum tube!

The G2's primary weakness, IMHO, is the lack of presets. To me that is no problem, but I can see that this is not the best insturment for people not interested is patching. If that is your case, the the Virus, ION, Andromedia or a Waldorf might be places to look.
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Tim Kleinert



Joined: Mar 12, 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 4:43 am    Post subject: Questions... Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hi. I'm interested in the G2 too -very much so- and have some questions that maybe somebody here knows an answer to:

1) The G2 has 4 slots, meaning four part multitimbrality. Is the DSP power shared dynamically around these slots? Or does every slot have it's own fixed and allotted amount of DSP power?
I heard something about every slot having it's own DSP, 4 DSPs in total, but I'm not sure...

2) Same thing for memory. Does the total of DSP memory (2.6 seconds of audio) have to be shared among slots? Or does every slot have this amount of memory?

3) I've read many comments on the G2 not being big on polyphony. I'm just wondering what kind of voice figures I'm about to expect.
Let's take something like an basic analog synth patch of the complexity of a NordLead1. What would you estimate the amount of voices? Or a 4-operator FM patch? Just that I have some kind of idea...

I also read that the max polyphony is 32 voices. 32 per slot? or for the whole synth?

4) I also heard Hans Nordelius say something like "it can hold up to 8 DSPs...". Does that mean that it is possible to upgrade the instrument with additional DSPs?

Sorry for these maybe plain questions. But I've studied many reviews and articles and nobody spells it out really specifically.

D'be grateful for some info.

Nice site here, by the way. Thanks for being able to use it.

cheers,
shoshin
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egw
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

There are 4 DSPs, but they can be shared dynamically. Or at least semi-dynamically. When the patches are loaded, the resources are allocated across them to allow more polyphony for the patches that request it. Once allocated, these resources remain that way until the patches are changed. So it is not dynamic on a per-note basis, like some synths. A patch has to fit within 100% of a DSP. Additional voices can use the other DSPs.

A basic analog or FM style synth patch should yield you around 12 voices (that's with 33% dsp usage). With 50% usage you get 8 voices, etc. When I get around to it, I hope to create a list of the dsp resources used by each module. BTW you can play with the editor for free, to get a feel for the G2, but it won't display the usage numbers (or make any sound) unless you have a G2 attached.

The old NM had an expansion board which doubled the number of processors to eight. We all hope that this will happen too with the G2. But no announcement yet from Clavia.

BTW the polyphony calculations can sometimes be misleading. You can create a patch with multiple oscillators doing different things, e.g. sequencers and drum machines, but it still only counts as one voice unless you want to play chords on the keyboard.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I've had my G2 for about 3 days now. I'm more impressed with it than I thought I would be. I is certainly more than just a new version of the NM. It's suitablity for live performance is much greater.

The most impressive thing to me, or maybe I should say the most unexpected thing, is that it is a fabulous tone mudule for use with a keyboard. As a keyboard player I find the G2 is much more usefull than I thought it would be. Forget the 3 octave keyboard here, use it with a good midi controller keyboard. But the sounds it can make are just glorious.

You can think of it more than a polyphonic MiniMoog, or a Rhodes emulator, or a Clav, or B3 type organ. You can make just splendid pads, lead synths, electro pianos, vibes, mallets, bells, and much more.

A great thing this synth has the the ability to layer the four slots. I know, a lot of synths can do this. In the G2 there is a performance mode where controllers from the individual patches can be assigned to a global knob map. This is really like controlling all four patches at once from the front panel. Very powerful.

My remarks I made in an earlier post in this tread about you needing another module for your keyboard work are hereby retracted. Especially when they come out with the expander module, this is a keyboard players machine.

If the G2 isn't enough for you, then get two.
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Tim Kleinert



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

egw -thanks for the insight.
But I don't understand how 12 voices use 33.3% and 8 voices use more than that (50%). Strange logic...

hey mosc -you mention the G2 as sort of a "rhodes emulator". What's the polyphony like with such a patch?

What about the memory -those 256 kiloWord (2,5 sec)- does that exist only one time, or four times? (once per DSP?)

Can one tweak morph ranges from the keyboard or only via editor?

sorry for pestering with questions... I'm just very interested.
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egw
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

What I meant was that a patch that uses 33% of a dsp will give you 12 voices.
Memory works the same way, the 4 processors each have 2.5s.
I believe you can tweak morph ranges from the panel, as well as doing all editing functions except adding modules or patch cords. But I never do editing from the panel - it's much easier through the editor. I only use the panel for real time functions.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

shoshin wrote:
But I don't understand how 12 voices use 33.3% and 8 voices use more than that (50%). Strange logic...

It depends on how complex the voices are. It's not like some synths where there is a fixed architecture. When you program it, all you are doing is selecting things - waveforms, envelopes, processing algorithms, filter settings, etc. Here, you actually pick what modules are used and where they go in the signal path. So rules of thumb about polyphony are maybe not applicable.

shoshin wrote:
hey mosc -you mention the G2 as sort of a "rhodes emulator". What's the polyphony like with such a patch?

I was using that as an example. If you only use one slot, then certainly you could expect 32 voices. I'm an old hand with analog synthesis. I started in 1968 with a Moog Modular. We didn't have lots of resources then, so we learned how to make patches that were very expressive with few resources.

A lot of people when they start to learn the Nord Modular create very complicated patches that run up to the processing allocation. It seems that if there is power left to use then they use it. This creates some pretty bad sounding patches, and polyphony is limited too. These same people sometimes complain that the Nords don't have that classic analog sound. It's not the instrument, its the musician.

shoshin wrote:
What about the memory -those 256 kiloWord (2,5 sec)- does that exist only one time, or four times? (once per DSP?)

I'm not sure about this. I'm still coming up the learning curve.

shoshin wrote:
Can one tweak morph ranges from the keyboard or only via editor?

Absolutely. That's one of the great things about this synth. Virtually any parameter in the patch can be easily assigned to a control surface knob or midi cc, or both. Even thought there are only 8 rotary encoders and 8 switches on the control surface, there are 15 pages of assignments that are very easily called up by two push buttons. That makes for 120 parameters per patch that are controllable from the control surface. Also there are 8 variations per patch. Variations are like preset, or snapshots of the settings on all of the 120 possible knobs. The G2 was intended to be a performance friendly instrument. In this regard, they succeeded.

shoshin wrote:
sorry for pestering with questions... I'm just very interested.

Don't worry about it. If we didn't enjoy talking about electronic music we would be doing something else.
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Tim Kleinert



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 3:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks very much for the info, guys.

Concerning Nord apparently lacking 'analog sound': This kind of statement is always made by people who don't know what 'analog sound' is. For them, it is a mysterious and holy term. If you try to talk to them about it scientifically, it's as if you are committing heresy. I was like that too...

...until I discovered how a NordLead3 (which I just had sold to a friend because it didn't sound 'analog' enough for me -too bad) could sound damn close to an Obie if you abused the LFOs for simulated voltage jitter, incorporated slight mistracking and tweaked the filters right.

So, now I'm wiser.

Understanding the sonic characteristics of analog circuitry is actually one of the reason why I'm interested in the G2, since the modular architecture is most suited to model these components -multiple saturation stages, voltage jitter, mistracking and so forth.

Another is physical modeling. I heard there's a basic waveguide module and more modules are planned. Great.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 7:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Great point about the subtile mistracking and voltage jitter. There was also hum, noise, and distortion in every module. Also, as I discovered just recently when I started playing my Moog Modular after several years, there were weirdnesses when the voltage controlled modules were driven beyond their design limits.

When I was demonstrating the G2 to Zynth a few days ago, see: http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-1597.html, I set up a very simple patch: a sine wave of constant frequency (about 500 Hz) and amplitude being modulated by a sub-audio square wave of constant frequency and amplitude. This gives a two note tone.


Each transition of the frequency of the sine produces a small click. On the G2, there was a tiny difference in the sound of each click and this seems to cycle through about every 6 or 7 transitions. At first I thought this was a bug in the G2, but then I realized is was truly an artifact of the patch. On the G2 the oscillators are rock steady, 24 bit at 96 KHz. The clicks sound different because the modulation is changing at a different point in the sine's phase each time. The square and the sine are probably related by some factor of 6.

I set this up on the Moog after Zynth left and you can't hear this because

1) there is some slew in the square wave
2) there is some slew in the pitch change of the sine
3) the frequency response of the Moog is considerably rolled off compared to the G2
4) there is frequency instability in the two oscillators
5) there is a lot of hum and noise to listen through.

Like you say, I could patch the G2 to emulate all these errors.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 11:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

shoshin wrote:
What about the memory -those 256 kiloWord (2,5 sec)- does that exist only one time, or four times? (once per DSP?)

I looked into this. It seems the memory is one for all. If you have a patch that uses 75% for the RAM and you load another patch in another slot that uses 50%, the second one will not play.
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digit62



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 2:05 pm    Post subject: Burning the midnight oil Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Not getting enough sleep lately. Sad
The G2 is awesome. Very Happy
Excellent manual - the editor is a dream to use - you can get lost for hours tweakin' away.
This baby has got it all - fat, screaming, esotheric and especialy weird !!
It definitly separates the men from the boys.
Could this be the ultimate modular Question

Gotta run
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 7:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Burning the midnight oil Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

digit62 wrote:

Could this be the ultimate modular Question

At least until they make the G3. too much coffee

But sure to let us hear some results when you get them...
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digit62



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:34 pm    Post subject: anyone in for a 48 voice - 24 oscilator patch? Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hi all,
just picked up news fm the Clavia website http://www.clavia.se/News/G2Expansion.htm

seems that they will be shipping an expansion card as of April which doubles the polyphony which is cool of course Very Happy but...

somehow you gotta feel a bit cheated since my feeling is they should fit these machines with max features when it ships and not cash in on expansions afterwards. Confused

anyway will order it this weekend

blip
Digit62
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