Nord Lead 3 Now Shipping

(Click for a close-up)

Rear Panel (Click for a close-up)

The long awaited synthesizer from Clavia, the Nord Lead 3 - Advanced Subtractive Performance Synthesizer, is now shipping. Originally shown at the Frankfurt Musikmesse last year, its performance has now been enhanced.

Clavia claims the new Nord Lead 3 to be the world's best performance synthesizer, introducing several new and exciting features tailored for the performing keyboard player. You get, for example, Keyboard Hold, parallel polyphonic glide in legato mode, single-key triggering of whole chords and even clusters of slightly detuned voices for super-unison effects.

Clavia also added monophonic operation with highest/lowest note priority which works like a sort of floating keyboard split when layered with a polyphonic sound. You can also sync the LFOs and Arpeggiator to the global Master Clock or MIDI Clock. The Unison with retained full polyphony has been widely improved and now offers 5 complete detuned virtual voices per note - in stereo.

All these functions, and more, comes housed in a compact and roadworthy metal chassis that weighs less than 6.3 kg. The Nord Lead 3 will certainly set apart in shops, studios and on stage with its innovative design and awesome sound quality. Nord Rack 3, the 19" wide and 5 units high rack version, will start to ship in April.

Technical Specifications

Polyphony

18 notes, 4-part multitimbral.

Performance Controllers

4-octave Velocity and Aftertouch sensitive keyboard with Octave Shift functionality (5 octaves). Keyboard Split (two sections). Modulation Wheel. Pitch Stick with no dead zone at zero crossing. Chord Memory/Stack. Keyboard Hold. Sustain Pedal and Control Pedal input.

User Interface

2 x 16 character backlit LCD and 3-digit LED. 26 rotary encoder knobs with circular LED graphs for instant control. 4 regular knobs and 45 buttons. Big Rotary Dial encoder for system editing, sound selection, MIDI functions etc.

Morph Groups

Four separate Morph groups per sound. Up to 26 parameters can be assigned to each Morph Group. Control sources: Keyboard Velocity, Keyboard Range, Keyboard Aftertouch/Control Pedal, Mod Wheel. When you control Morph groups, the values of every assigned parameter are shown in real-time by the corresponding LED graphs.

Arpeggio

1 Master Clock/MIDI-synchable Arpeggiator per Slot.

Vibrato

Global Vibrato that affects all voices in the sound. Controllable from Mod Wheel or Aftertouch.

Glide

Glide, Auto Glide. Polyphonic Glide (in Legato mode). Rate control.

Voice Mode

Monophonic, Monophonic with Highest or Lowest Note Priority, Monophonic Legato, Monophonic Legato with Highest or Lowest Note Priority, Polyphonic Legato (with polyphonic Glide if you like)

Unison

Adjustable stereo Unison with retained full polyphony. 5 detuned virtual voices per note (2 in the left channel, 2 in the right channel and 1 in the center)

Modulation Section

LFO1 and LFO2, each featuring: Master Clock/MIDI-synchable LFO. 6 waveforms: Square, Triangle, Sawtooth, Random Step, Smooth Random, Special. 12 destinations. Free running/Hard-sync/Single Cycle and Mono modes. Rate and Amount controls. Separate LFOs for each voice.

MOD ENV: Attack/Decay or Attack/Release Envelope with Lin/Exp Attack. Envelope/Repeat modes. 12 destinations. Attack, Decay/Release and Amount controls. Separate Envelopes for each voice.

Amplifier Section

ADSR Envelope with Lin/Exp Attack. Level (Gain) controls.

Oscillator Section

OSC1 and OSC2 with six shapable waveforms each: Triangle, Sawtooth, Pulse, Sine, Noise and Dual Sine. 1 additional slave sync oscillator per oscillator group. Dual Sine mode for 2 or 4 operator FM synthesis. Synchable Noise for formant type of sounds.

OSC1: Shape/Sync/DFM Amount control.

OSC2: Coarse Tuning/Modulator semitones, Fine Tuning/Carrier partial, Shape/Sync/FM Amount and Keyboard Tracking controls.

Oscillator Modulation featuring Distortion, Linear FM, Differential FM, Filter FM, AM/RM, Distortion Modulation and Noise. Oscillator Mix/Noise control.

Filter Section

Single Filter Mode: Lowpass 6, 12 or 24 dB/Octave, Highpass 6, 12 or 24 dB/Octave, Bandpass 12 or 24 dB/Octave, Band reject 12 or 24 dB/Octave, Classic Lowpass 24 dB/Octave, Distorted Lowpass 12 or 24 dB/Octave. Frequency and Resonance controls.

Multi Filter Mode: HP-LP in series 12 dB/Octave, HP-LP in parallel 12 dB/Octave, LP-BP in parallel 12 and 6+6 dB/Octave, BP-BP in parallel 2 x (6+6) dB/Octave, Multi Peak, Multi Notch. 2 x Frequency and 1 Resonance controls.

ADSR Envelope with Lin/Exp Attack, Envelope Amount/Velocity, Positive/Invert. Keyboard Tracking and Oscillator Bypass controls.

Internal Memory

Flash Memory (no backup battery required). 8 x 128 (1024) Programs (single sounds) and 2 x 128 (256) Performances (multi sounds) and OS. SysEx Dumps via MIDI to and from a sequencer/computer.

MIDI

All knobs and buttons for sound editing send and receive MIDI Control Change Messages. MIDI SysEx bulk dumps: single Program or complete Program Banks, single Performance or complete Performance Banks. MIDI Clock hard-sync of LFOs and Arpeggiator.

Connections

4 separate assignable Audio outputs, Headphones, Control Pedal input, Sustain Pedal input, MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, MIDI THRU. Detachable power cord.

Physical Dimensions

870 mm (W), 278 mm (D), 100 mm (H). Weight: 6.3 kg.

(Specifications subject to change)

The Nord Lead 3's price should be around US$ 2,800 or Euro 3,200.