Ride the (Nord) Wave

In pursuit of analog poly greatness, it's easy to overlook a LOT of other synths, particularly VAs. I'm not an analog purist by any means, but VAs have usually just been something I ended up trying because of easy access or latent curiosity; not because of any great need for 20 voice pads or complex multitimbrality. And that means a lot of them have simply gone under my radar for a loooong time. So in an effort to be a little more au courant, I made an educated decision last year to buy a NEW VA: the Roland Gaia 2. A few things didn't really click with me and so rather than return or sell, I thought about checking out something I'd actually been curious about for a long time, the Nord Wave 1. In a case of wonderful serendipity, someone wanted the Gaia and had a Wave to offer and ta da, I had a Wave. 

I am no stranger to Nords. I had a NL2R when they were still somewhat fresh (so fresh actually that I kind of forgot what I even thought about it, "dry" is my only lingering memory--although not what I would call it these days). A few years ago I was able to grab an NL1 keys. I was impressed with how zappy and sharp it was, but it also felt too bright and aggressive for my needs (and ears), so didn't stick around long. But aside from those two, I had never used another Nord until the Wave showed up.

Unlike all other Nord releases, which always just seemed to appear and then disappear into the haze of my mental ether, I actually remember when the Wave was announced. I also distinctly remember feeling let down by the fact that it didn't sample. In all other aspects it just looked like another Nord Lead (and a very expensive one at that) so I let it pass by and become yet another red vapor in my mind. Well hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20 in my itinerant synth voyage and I realize now that the lack of live sampling in no way diminishes the great power of this machine. 

What is the Wave? Well, actually, it's easier to say what it isn't: it is NOT a Nord Lead. And not just that, it's a strange outlier in the Nord canon entirely. Firstly, all of the Leads have particularly bright oscillators, by which I mean the frequency spectrum has very little roll-off right up to 20 kHz (and beyond). Ignoring secondary issues like aliasing, that simply means there is a lot of high-end frequency content. Whether you can hear it or not, it's there, and for some folks this is too much. It can cause ear fatigue and, if you have hyperacusis like me, ear pain. 

The Nord Wave 1 has a very steep frequency roll-off that starts around 10 kHz. This is comparable to what you might see in an old Oberheim, and that roll-off creates the illusion of "warmth" because our ears are more sensitive to high-frequencies. Without them we hear the lower and mid-range better. So right off the bat you have oscillators that are closer to what you find on many analog synths (though not all). 

The standard Nord Lead LP filter is also pretty consistent across all models. It has no resonance compensation, so as you increase resonance, you get a very large drop off in bass and the fundamental frequency. Some people (i.e., people born before 1978 who also rely heavily on the terms "fat" and "raw") whinge about this; I actually love it. This is how early Moog filters work, and later on, many Roland filters. It forces the upper harmonics to be emphasized in a way that synths with resonance compensation usually don't; this is a nice and distinct sound. It also makes sounds easier to place in a mix. But yes, I also do concede to the Fat posse that it does make sounds become "thinner" overall.

The Nord Wave's filter has quite a bit of resonance compensation and bass-loss only really starts well passed halfway on the dial. Up until then, you retain the bass and fundamental tone, while boosting whatever frequencies are at the cutoff. The resonance band is also wider than the Lead, so you just don't pick out individual harmonics the same way as on the Lead, instead you get more of a resonant sheen. A neighbour and synth enabler suggested this probably works better for sample content and I agree. Regardless of which type of filter resonance you prefer, the Wave's stands out in Nord-land. 

So the combined effect of "duller" oscillators and less aggressive filtering ends up creating a bigger, classier sound (akin to what I found on the Xpander/M-12). "Big" and "classy" usually aren't part of the Nord Lead lexicon but they are absolutely part of the Wave's.

Then you have the wonderful cornucopia of oscillator types, which Nord has never fully recreated in any other synth: standard waveforms (all with waveshaping), static digital waves, stock and user samples, and 1/2/3-operator FM oscillators. For the latter, sweeping the shape parameter immediately opens up a huge number of standard FM tones, well before you've even touched the PM/FM switch and decided to use a sample as a complex modulator. The FM range is definitely less than on the Leads, but is that a major loss when you have so many flavors to mix? It can easily sound as analog or digital as you want, but without ever gouging your ears with piercing digital rage. 

Then we have the weird filters. Most of the comb/multi/vocal variants got transposed onto the NL4 as global effects, and I can understand why (the comb filter does a bang up job as a phaser and that doesn't need to be per voice). But I love them as per voice filters on the Wave. The Multi filter is particularly raunchy. And did I even mention that all filter modes can be switched between 24/X dB or 12 dB? This makes the BP filter really open up, ditto for the weird filters. 

Here are some other aspects I love.

Just enough modulation: two LFOs and the mod envelope go a long way on this thing. And it's always the right amount of whatever you need. There were definitely some modulation source deficits on the early machines and probably around the time of the NL3, Nord figured out they need to up that aspect a little. I rarely if ever wish I had some extra mod routing; even basic negative filter envelope can now be achieved using the mod envelope. And if I did ever hanker for one extra routing, I'm far happier not being overwhelmed with lists and lists of mod sources and destinations. Less is truly more.  

There's no arpeggiator/sequencer: Whoo! For those of us who have zero interest in repeating notes outside of inebriated "jams", it's nice to not have this kind of feature taking up real estate (like it does on all Sequential synths, for example). I'm also always perplexed by people complaining about the lack of an arp in 202x. Who are all these arp users and what brand of arp-heavy music do they make?* (*Rhetorical question)

There's also no multitimbrality: Phew. I appreciate that this was a big draw for folks in the halcyon days of MIDI and hardware sequencing. And perhaps it still is for live performers. But for DAW-centric folks such as moi, it's just another thing that take up real estate that is never used (and I hate paying for features I don't use). The simple A/B layer function on the Wave is perfect for easily creating more nuanced and evolving sounds, or simply massive pads, but I wouldn't even miss that if it was gone. No arp and no brain taxing multi this or that are satisfying reminders that this is a synthesizer first, and a performance machine second (although, ironically, Nord call it a performance machine... for flexing synthesis muscles, yes). 

Effects: The delay is fine and the reverb I could live without, but the chorus (which appears in lite form on Leads as a type of stereo unison sound) is really an essential feature for livening up some of those drier FM/digital wave sounds. It's an over the top but also character-free chorus that adds huge width to the sound. Which is exactly what you want a chorus to do in 2024. The distortion (which became a per voice effect on the NL4) is also handy at times for adding a touch of dirt. It also responds to the gain level of the patch so you can dial in very small amounts before you even touch the actual knob.

So yeah, there's a lot to love about the Wave 1. Whatever you want it to do, it does it, and it sounds dang good while doing it. I saw someone say that if it had no special qualities at the parameter level, the combined effect made it an excellent doer of all things. I agree with this, but as you can see above, it really IS unique in its own way. It's not simply a Nord Lead with samples, it's a Nord freakin' Wave. Don't ignore for another 15 years like this author did. 

Post-script: Attentive readers will notice that I haven't mentioned the Wave 2. Everything I've read indicates that that is really the performance synth of the two: less synthesis options, more of the usual 4-part Lead multitimbrality. PLUS it seems to have the same bright frequency spectrum of the NL series (confirmed with some handy spectrographs made by a user on the Nord forum). All of that makes it less interesting to me than the 1, but hey, check in with me in a few years :D