Clavia Nord Rack (1st)

Playing the factory program No. 1 "Saw Brass". Directly connected to Yamaha SPX2000 and chose "MONO DELAY". No sequencer used. For the final note, I stepped on the sustain pedal to extend the note and move the modulation wheel up and down.

Same sound as above, but recorded on a different date. The effect is "Vox Reverb 1" of t.c.electronic Firewor X. The sound of the sawtooth-like brass is as it is, and the modulation wheel changes filter cutoff instead of vibrato. I connected Roland's EV-5 to the pedal jack of the nord rack and played it so that I could raise the modulation wheel with my foot. That's what the last wow wow sound. I used a KORG wavestate with only 3 octaves to play. After recording, I was surprised at the low floor noise of the nord rack. It exceeds -80dB.

Even though it is a strings program, it is not a fluffy sound. Similar to the above Saw Brass, the modulation wheel changes filter cutoff.

I started playing with the pedal (same as the modulation wheel) fully pulled, and gradually stepped on it. It is a squishy filter. It may be Prophet-5 style. I'm not confident because I don't have a Prophet-5. However, the sound of the nord rack is clear and does not shake, so that point may not be analog-like.

Sound using an oscillator sync. At the sync function of nord rack, the pitch of oscillator 2 is synchronized with oscillator 1, and when the pitch of oscillator 2 is shaken by the envelope generator, oscillator 2 makes a squeak. I wonder why this sound is "string" and "pad". The usage of terms may have been different in the 90's.

This sound is saying shuwa-shuwa. I think the sound is reminiscent of expensive old analog polysynths like Prophet-5 and JUPITER-8. It sounds like digital because there is nothing wrong with it. It can be said that analog-like plus digital-like are breaking new ground.

I wondered where the portamento was, and when I turned off the AUTO button and twisting the PORTAMENTO knob, it sounded different from this recording. Does "quints" mean to remind you of Prophet-5?

The sound of oscillator 2 set 5 degrees above oscillator 1. It seems that portamento added a little.

Raising the modulation wheel increases the FM amount. It's difficult to find a good boost with the expression pedal, and my play is not working well. In Nord Rack's FM (Frequency Modulation), osc 1 is the carrier and osc 2 is the modulator. In this tone, both oscillators are pulse waves, and the sound is quite different from DX7's sine waves. If the oscillators are set to triangular waves, it becomes DX7-like. The manual says "For classic FM sounds, use triangle wave on both oscillators."

When I played the Weather Report songs with my band, the first song was Birdland, followed by Black Market. I think they were songs for synth bass.

UNISON is turned on at this tone. Since the OUT MODE is set to "1: Mono / UNISON stereo", you can listen the spreading in stereo. Unison Detune can be set from 1 to 9, but here it is set to 5. OUT MODE and Unison Detune cannot be set for each tone. The Nord Rack I have has 12 voices, so even with unison, I don't have to worry too much about the sound interruption.

I started thinking that I should record 1 to 10 of the factory program, but I felt that there were few variations, so I recorded three programs more. Nord Rack's program from 1 to 40 is rewritable, and from 41 to 99 is not. 41-99 may be the true preset.

With this tone, raising the modulation wheel applies LFO1 to the filter. It's a nice shake.

Raising the modulation wheel raises the FM amount, and the sound of hitting a tree gradually turns into metal. I was impressed that the sound of hitting a tree seems to be made well only with a triangular wave and LPF.

A lead sound with one sawtooth wave. At first, I set the destination of the modulation wheel to LFO1 for vibrato, but then it was too much. And I couldn't use LFO1 for anything else. If I put the morph on amount of LFO2, it would be better. So I made this method my standard. I added "100 Prime Time Delay" of t.c.electronic Firewor X. The same effect was used at 3 recordings below.

From the upper program, I changed sawtooth wave into a pulse wave and the filter is edited. The previous tone used a 24dB per octave low-pass filter, but here I chose a 12 dB per octave type. Korg and Yamaha's old synths used the 12dB frequently. ARP Odyssey, the white early type was the same. When being nostalgic, I often choose a 12dB filter. This tone is still in poly mode and no portamento. You can enjoy a variety of flavors by chosing mono or legato.

Early low-priced analog synths often had sawtooth and square waves, but omitted triangular wave. The reason may be that it is possible to create a similar tone with a square wave. But after all, the triangle wave is hard to throw away./p>

With the Nord Lead/Rack, the volume of the two oscillators can only be adjusted with the "Mix" knob, and the oscillator output cannot be reduced to zero. This tone was created by making noise with Oscillator 2 and raising the resonance to the full. I forgot to use it in this recording, but I applied the modulation wheel to LFO1 and set the modulation destination of LFO1 to the filter. It makes possible to apply vibrato.

It was fun to make a kick sound, so I saved the kick program in number 4. I made snare in number 5, hi-hat in number 6, and crash cymbal in number 7. I could use them simultaneously by using 4 slots and 4 MIDI channels. I prepared 4 tracks with Apple Logic and play notes. I didn't use any effectors such as reverb in this recording. I can't use the "Percussion Kits" feature on my Nord Rack 1.6, but I'm happy to see that it still produces drum sound.

Strings made by detuning two sawtooth waves. With the morph function, modulation wheel made LFO2 vibrato. LFO1 has a Prophet-5-like setting. Random and maximum rate creates noise. The destination is filter cutoff (pictured below). Roughness can be added by raising the amount. The effects used in the recordings from here are all t.c.electronic Firewor X's "64 Vox Reverb 1".

The same program as above, with the unison button turned on to give a stereo feel. Unison Detune in the system settings is set to 2. It's a little disappointing that it can't be set for each program.

A cello made by FM (Frequency Modulation) . Oscillator 1 and 2 are set into triangular waves and the same frequency. At first I was thinking of making strings sound, but it didn't work so well. I decided to make solo cello. I played with my right hand only, so I raised the modulation wheel with my left hand to apply vibrato.

Brass using sawtooth wave. Too much vibrato I made. So I feel sick. In this recording I used oscillator 1 only. Oscillator 2 is set one octave lower, so if you mix it, it will be a little thicker.

Strings using PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). I added a little detune between two oscillators. PWM is often too strong at low keys and too weak at high keys. Nord Rack does not. Unique.

Unison turned on with the tone above. The Nord Rack unison is a bit tricky. But it's an attractive feature.

If you need a flute, you should try triangle or sine wave. It is necessary not only to produce the original waveform, but also to make it dirty in some way. I mixed the noise with oscillator 2, made LFO1 random and made it faster to make something noise-like, and modulated the filter with it. Oscillator 2 noise can be filtered by turning the Semitones knob. I'm impressed with how good it is. Velocity modurates filter envelope generator. The effect is appropriate. I respect the person who made the Nord Lead/Rack.

A clarinet made in much the same way as the flute above. The waveform of oscillator 1 is a almost square wave. I played the school song of Hamamatsu City Shijimizuka Junior High School. I wonder if members of school bands are still playing the national anthem, the school song and marching music at the Monday morning assembly.

Oboe can be created by reducing the pulse width of the square wave. However, this time, the charamela-like sound did not come out very well. Maybe I should have adjusted it a little more. The lower keys sound like a bassoon, and as it gets higher, it becomes an English horn and becomes an oboe.

Few 20th century Japanese analog synths had an oscillator sync function. I think it was only JUPITER-8, JUPITER-6, MKS-80, and MONO / POLY. That's why, for me as a Japanese synth boy, oscillator sync is an unfamiliar technique, and I still don't feel like I can do it well even now. I think Keith Emerson used sync lead sound with his Moog modular.

I tried to raise the pitch of Oscillator 2 with MOD ENV to make a human voice, but it didn't work well. I mixed it with Oscillator 1 to give a detuned feeling to the begining.

I played the factory preset "5 Resonance fade pad". The theme is shown at the memo above. I overdubbed something that looked like a melody at higher keys. I also overdubbed control change #1 by pushing the modulation wheel. The effects are SPX2000's "MONO DELAY" and t.c. electronic Reverb 4000's "Studio Spring". In addition, the dbx Quantum equalizer cut the high frequencies quite a bit.