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Originally posted by DJFreaq I'm a huge fan of Discovery. An even huge-r fan of the possibility of getting a NL3 Oh and that's hot everyMan.

I actually was not a big fan of NL3 on several occasions. However, I once forced myself to dig deeper into this bitch and I must say that I'm convinced now. I got a great deal on my NL3 rack - $750 - like new, and there's no way I'm selling it. I actually find it somehow... warmer and brigther at the same time than Ti. It can also do some really neat tricks with FM.

Another plus is it is sooo easy to get the patch going - a lot easier than on Ti. Simply because all the controlls are neatly laid out with visual feedback by LED's. No need to look at the menu, dial, menu, dial - you see real time where you att. Plus morphing zones are cool too. Shame there's not much of it there and not much of modulation flexibility as Virus. Overall, highly recommended instrument and I'm taking back all the nasty things I ever said about Nord.

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No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

--Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

The child vocals are extracted from the original or a remix, I can't remember.. but it is sampled directly from the song, it's not an acapella.
There are also some other vocals samples that are from diferent sources..

All is not well organized in the clip but it was done last year, two days after having made the lead sound ...

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Entice

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Originally posted by emc^2 Another plus is it is sooo easy to get the patch going - a lot easier than on Ti. Simply because all the controlls are neatly laid out with visual feedback by LED's.

Precisely. That is why I feel in love. I don't want creativity to be hindered (at least initially when I'm not used to the synth yet, like, if I bought a TI I would be frustrated for weeks untill I could get the hang of it) by trying to find the right menus for this and that.

The Lead is awesome for just having it all laid out in front of you, so you can tweak stuff really fast. Great for live preformance. No parameter hunting.

Ever played with the morph feature of the Lead? It's pretty cool. Granted not as fancy smancy as the TI but heck, it makes awesome sounds and it's easy to use. What's not to like.

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Ive never played the NL3 but I heard its a completely different synth engine to the NL2. I loved the sound of the NL2 though. But apparently quite a few people think the NL3 sounds worse than the NL2 :\ Anyone have any experience of both?

I dunno :-/. Does it sound worse? I hope not. I was hoping the engine would more or less remain the same. The real improvement I thought was the LED based knobs etc, so recalling patches and stuff would be cake.

No need to worry about messing up a patch because the knobs aren't physically in the same position as the patch has them registered at.

:P

It better not have changed. I made some wicked patches on my buddies NL2, I wish I had one of my own.

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Quite a few people on harmony central say the NL3 sounds worse than the NL2 but... :\ There are some genius touches about the NL3 design though. The light up rotaries and the patching of chords to a single key on the keyboard.

But yeah the sub menu shit pisses me off about the Virus too. But thats what you get for limitless modulation powah!

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Originally posted by Derivative Ive never played the NL3 but I heard its a completely different synth engine to the NL2. I loved the sound of the NL2 though. But apparently quite a few people think the NL3 sounds worse than the NL2 :\ Anyone have any experience of both?

I heard the same thing, that some people say that the nl2 sounds better than nl3. But my opinion is diefferent. I had it for a while, and got rid of it, It wasn't what I was looking for, and I bought NL3, which I really like. To me NL3 sounds better than NL2.

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Originally posted by Derivative Ive never played the NL3 but I heard its a completely different synth engine to the NL2. I loved the sound of the NL2 though. But apparently quite a few people think the NL3 sounds worse than the NL2 :\ Anyone have any experience of both?

I actually played all NL's - Nl1, 2, 2x, and 3.

NL1 - something weird about this synth that made rack version and kbd version sound... different. Maybe it was psychological, but I found nl1 kbd to be a lot more "lush" than rack, even though both were maxed out with the PCMCIA expansion/poly card.

NL2 was O-KAY... not much of a difference over fully-expanded NL1.
NL2x introduced more patches and different type of DAC and changed filter a bit. I found NL2x to be too harsh for my ears. It was dirty but not in a good way. The sounds were just too metallic and painful. Without eq - you'd be crying in about 30 minutes of playing it. Overall, I was not impressed and quickly dumped it. It can definitely work for some styles but not well-rounded as NL3.

NL3 - now, here's a synth I gave 3 chances to and genuinely exploited the crap out of the beast. the folks that try to compare it have not done a good job with programming it. I'll try to snap some sounds I created with it and let you be the judge. The closest competitor to Nl3 is Virus. If it only had the modulation and FX section like Virus, NL would be a hard decision to make between virus/nl. I am personally blessed to have both - Ti, and NL3 and both have their place. There are things I can do with NL that I cannot do with virus at the moment. even though both employ pseudo-FM synthesis, NL just seems to do a better job with it. Virus has a great formant section going for it, so it's easier to get the "talking" sounds out of it, where as NL3 is virutally impossible to get it done (due to lack of modulation matrix).

I hated NL3 first time I bought it, so I returned it. I had it again sometime later - and again, returned it. 3rd time - I got it for a steal and decided to test it out to its limits before I dumped it. After I did, I said "there's no way I'll sell this b!tch".

If you already have invested into decent FX unit and EQ, it's amazing what it can do. Even without these two - it's stellar. Even without filtering/eq'ing - it's the warmest NL to date. I cannot praise it enough. It even makes Virus sound "cold" in some areas.

I made some wicked moog-ish sounds, evolving pads, even a pad sound that sounds like there are ice droplets in the background.

I'll make a demo sometime later and post it here - let your ears convince you. NL3 is my baby at the moment...

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No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

--Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

I'd be interested in hearing your soundclips - I have only played the NL2X and I loved the sound of it. I didnt think it sounded metallic but I havent played any other NLs to compare it to. The 24 dB filter kills bass though with resonance - Even a little bit. All filters do to a greater or lesser extent (and depending on the number of poles and the configuration). But I just noticed it acutely on the NL2X. It didnt really detract too much from the synth though.

Also - your sig emc is sooooo true. I'm back to work in the civil service in 8 hours, just like Vibrasphere.

Ok, as promissed. Here's an MP3 demo of NL3 (some sounds). As you can see I'm a bit partial to pad sounds.

The following demo contains no processing, no FX, just pure NL3 with only one patch using arp. The rest of the sounds that even though sound like they have ARP - they don't. It's LFO

njoy.

Here's a description:

1. JaPan LFOarp - no arp, just lfo and some fm synth to create "arp" feel with lfo 2 controlling panning and create detuning

2. Fripp-ish - clav sound to reflect nylon/steel gutar or clav (depending on how you feel)

3. 3rd Pad from the sun - filter is controlled by LFo1 with some FM for de-tuning, towards the end amp attack and filter are tweaked

4. Out_Z_blue Pad - Soft pad with nice bell-like upper octave sound.

5. LFO pad - low register creates LFO-controlled "peow peow peow" type of sound, upper register has ring mod sound to it

6. NoLFODelay - patch uses no arp or FX, delay-ish type of sound is produced by LFO1 (take a guess who was my influence for this pad ) I'll give you a hint - his name starts with "J"

7. SolarFlare - again, detuned pad with LFO controlling the beating and filter

8. Ba$$Line - 80's euro style bassline with arp

9. Moogish - Moog-like lead/bass patch with some mod wheel for "vibrato" effect

10. Water piano - piano-like sound with some delay-like filter

11. Comet Pad - pad with sort of icicle-drops in the background

Please forgive any mistakes - no sequencer was used - just recorder straight in Soundforge. File is 18MB!

www.cynep.com/sounds/nl3_demo1.mp3

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quote:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

--Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

quote:

Originally posted by emc^2 10. Water piano - piano-like sound with some delay-like filter

COMMMMMMMMUUUUUUUNNNNNIIIIICAAAAAAAATTTTTIIIIIIIIOOOOONNN.

That melody sounds awefully familiar to that cheesy Armin track. Which *sigh* I love. I know this is off topic, but was that HIS original melody, or did he just jank it off some classical composer?

Anyway. Those are great sounding patches. I'm getting closer and closer to grabbing an NL3.

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