Nord Wave II ( Feature Wish List )

[rnbw_six]

I love everything about the Nord Wave and have played it since its birth. Its interface is like no other synthesis interface. Everything is clean and sounds great!! But there are a few things I would love to see Clavia bring for round two. All of these wishes are pretty minor things (okay, most of them) and would be great.

Firstly I know the endless encoders with position-indicating LED (from the Nord Lead 3) supposedly would of added another $500 to the price at the time but that was 4 years ago. And that would make the UI even more straight forward, don't you think?

Secondly more voices would be nice. Bring it up to 24 at least. I don't like hearing notes cut out when I am layering stuff. I know it is a sample environment but 24 should be easily possible for the price now days. When it comes to voices, the more the merrier. Then again I could just record and sample the layered sounds. I must be lazy. Oh wait my memory is full, never mind.

Smooth preset transitions. It has got to be possible to let the last preset ring out without that nasty sounding cut. In a live situation I like to use a lot of sounds and sometimes there has to be a quick shift. If Korg Kronos can do it, Clavia can too. (I'm not implying on adding a touch screen like everyone else)

Split keyboard! There is no reason I can't assign slot A to the left and slot B to the right side of the keyboard. I don't want to have to attach a separate midi keyboard.

More slots. A B C D. Okay this one might be pushing the envelope a bit . But that would be cool to have that 8 oscillator madness. And/or 4 -different- sample allocations at once. That would be layering heaven and if you can split the keyboard that would be like having a Nord Wave on both sides with different fully layered sounds. Well, okay maybe they would have to up the total voices to 36 to make that true.

Arpeggiator. Who doesn't love the arps you could do with the Nord Lead 2 or Lead 3.

Rhythmic Gate. Yes, like the one in DiscoDSP Discovery. I want to have a dance party on my Nord.

MIDI CLOCK ANALYSIS! So I can sync my LFO's or delay parameters to my sequencer. Or at least have a tap tempo or something. Also so I can sync the Gate and Arpeggiator
It is 2011, someone will hook this thing up to their computer/sequencer and want time precise full clock functionality.


USB/MIDI. Okay I know you can just go out and get a midi interface. But a direct connection is always faster and more reliable (especially live) than jumping through hoops. If I can see the notes being played on my Nord Sample Editor (which is awesome btw) then I should be able to send notes to a damn sequencer. A simple driver is all there needs to be.

Okay now that everyone is starting to jump on the audio sampling synthesis band wagon it is time to pump up the game a bit in my opinion.

I know that Clavia wanted the sample environment to be a starting point for making sounds, which is awesome, but honestly everyone who has a Wave will load up a straight emulated sound or sounds because it is what they want, and edit it slightly to their liking. People aren't going to upload a sound that they can possibly make into something awesome (maybe experimentally). People upload what they want to hear and then they edit it from there.
Even some of the factory programs are only slightly edited. My point...

MORE SAMPLE MEMORY! I know flash ROM is super expensive. But flash memory has gotten extremely cheap since the Wave first came out. There is no reason Clavia cannot put out 20GB sample memory in that thing. It is cheap.
Don't limit people, give them a playground to make sounds. Upload a 10GB grand piano library if you want. Some people want to be ridiculous with their sounds sometimes. Let it be. The sample environment is what the Wave is all about. Let me upload tons of sounds and start making something completely fresh. I found out on the Nord Wave that sample manipulation is extremely fun, I just want more room without having to swap. I would like to keep all of the beautiful factory samples on and be able to add a thousand more of my own.

The Wave should support REX files. Bring the sequencer into the hardware. It would be an easy way of sequencing without a lot of interface changes. Maybe just a midi tempo sync or tap tempo function. That would be amazing and open up so much possibilities. I could trigger a high quality drum sample right on board and play with it to the tempo that I like. Say I am playing in a band that is not tempo sync'd. Tap the tempo and play the audio sample, boom, on time. Drum machine, Groove box, made easy! Just an idea.


They should at least support multi-samples.

Why can't I upload Clavia piano libraries?

Lastly there needs to be a HOLD function. Triggering samples and not having to hold the key down would be awesome. The release just fades to fast for some long samples. Maybe I want a drum loop to go on forever, who knows. I could at least free up my fingers for playing other things.


I'm going to far now. But a record and playback function would be sweet.
I'm being greedy.

Audio In Jack with realtime sample manipulation. If i can do it with 24bit recorded wave data, couldn't I technically plug in a mic or another synth and route to OSC2. With some sort of audio conversion algorithm. MoogerFooger freqbox can do something similar. It would be ten times cooler than that though.

Okay enough of my ranting.

That is the end of my wish list, feel free to dream with me, or tell me why my wishes are far out there or way to expensive to implement. I think they are all possible. But I can guarantee they won't all happen. I have been thinking these things for awhile though.



-Peace

[Keyboardkid]

haha I totally agree!

[fibreman]

More sample memory would be nice, 20GB is a bit much, another 100MB would be just fine. I'd like the release envelope to stretch to infinite release, and to be able to set the delay to infinite delay. Not a massive deal though. Otherwise I think the Nord Wave is very near perfect. It's limitations are what make it so brilliant.

Cleverly, after you're done with most of the presets and start sound designing with it, you are forced into carving your own personality into the thing. Because there isn't limitless sample memory, you have to get smart with what samples you keep and what you store. You are forced into making decisions as to what you are actually going to use.

No arpeggiator, but there's a midi in - easy!

The lfo sync issue I think should have probably been fixed, a mere quirk though.

The lack of the LED-surrounded encoders I actually prefer, this means you have to use your ears rather than your eyes.

The voice stealing isn't terrible. I've been brought up on 4/8 note poly synths though, so I tend to compose around this sort of thing.

Honestly, if I had wanted an endless array of features, I'd have bought a V-Synth

[rnbw_six]

You are right on so many levels. The wave is how it is supposed to be which makes it sound unique. But that does make you wonder what they will do for the next lead product.