A word about factory presets on the NordLead

Wout Blommers · Last edited by Wout Blommers on Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:17 am; edited 1 time in total

Mostly people are scrolling a bank of presets like searching in a box pencils to find the color they like... Just playing the same tune and chord progression time over time again, but in my opinion it doesn't work that way. One can't assume somebody else (the sound designer) already knew what you wanted to play. So, if you are not worlds best synth programmer, better read the following advise...

First of all take your time!

Give the preset the opportunity to guide you in a musical direction. Play riffs high and low on the keyboard and play chord progressions. Make sustains and staccato notes. And suddenly you'll find a piece of music which matches the sound very well, special to your ears.

If nothing happens, when it's beauty is still hidden, start to tweak! Mostly the Filter Cut-Off and the Filter Envelope Amount will do a lot to the sound, the Osc Mix too. Change the FM amount and try out the tweaked sound as above.

When I find something I like, I record it on my computer. The next day I listen again if it was as good as I thought the day before. (And sometimes a rejected sound is the best some months later)

When the G2 was still in Alpha state I was listening to some professional keyboard players who were testing its sound. The first sound made it to a hard rock lead solo, where the second was used in a small Mozart like piece. And it all sounded great. (The samples were used on a CD of a sneak preview of the G2 published by the German Keyboard magazine.)

To study the settings of the NordLead, I recommend the Editor created by Lars Bjorndahl, which can be found at
http://nm-archives.electro-music.com/020_NordLead2/023_Miscellaneous/NordGenerator_Editor/
When connected to the synth upload the Program using [Shift+Dump One]

Keep also in mind the NordLead is a retro synth, which means some of the presets are very good to use in 1980-1990 songs. And I'm sure the sound designer played the program too and it sounded great to him/her.

Working like this keeps you out off the streets for months Wink

Wout

fischek · Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 81 Location: Belgrade

Thanks for this. It can be dissapointing when you first start with the Nord Lead if you are not a profficient subractive synthesist Smile

For me, being an inexperienced sound tweaker, it felt like the synth is full of endless variations of one sound.

You've given some great tips on making instant changes to the sound when using cutoff and resonance, but it would also be great if others would participate with their advice on how to tweak sounds (using filter envelope, etc.) both for beginners and intermediate users.

If nothing else, it would be useful if you could suggest further reading about the subractive synthesis for the beginners. Thanks again and as always you're doing a great job on this forum.