Nord Lead 2/3 or a Korg Radias???

J

Jlacck

Guest
Anybody ever have an opportunity to compare the Nord leads and a Radias? I was in Guitar Center the other day (same day I was playing around with the Fantom) and I stumbled upon the Korg Radias. I actually kind of like its sound (especially for bass) and I thought about picking one up as a bass or synth machine... however, Ive always wanted a Nord Lead a well. I haven't heard a Nord Lead in a long time so I forgot what they sound like... however, I do remember being impressed with it. Does any have any feedback on what similarities or differences these two machines have to offer?
 
Jlacck said:
Anybody ever have an opportunity to compare the Nord leads and a Radias? I was in Guitar Center the other day (same day I was playing around with the Fantom) and I stumbled upon the Korg Radias. I actually kind of like its sound (especially for bass) and I thought about picking one up as a bass or synth machine... however, Ive always wanted a Nord Lead a well. I haven't heard a Nord Lead in a long time so I forgot what they sound like... however, I do remember being impressed with it. Does any have any feedback on what similarities or differences these two machines have to offer?
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I would take the Nord Lead 3 over a Radias any day of the week. The sound quality on the Nords is amazing. The Radias can do some interesting things, but it doesnt particularly excel at anything. If you want to hear what a Nord Lead 3 sounds like, listen to the demo on this page:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NORD-LEAD-3-SAM...4QQihZ010QQcategoryZ38071QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Or here:



Or here:



Of course, for me, the Waldorf Q is the best VA, but that's a matter of opinion ;) The Neptunes have one though! :bat:
 
I stumbled upon the Korg Radias. I actually kind of like its sound (especially for bass) and I thought about picking one up as a bass or synth machine
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The Dave Instruments MEK will do much better bass for less money.

The Radias can do some interesting things, but it doesnt particularly excel at anything.
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It can do some really cool vocal stuff, but not enough to justify that pricetag.
 
Kojak said:
The Dave Instruments MEK will do much better bass for less money.
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We're talking about apples and rhinocerii here again. The MEK is monophonic, which is fine for basslines, but I dont think that's all the thread starter wanted to do with it. Or is it?
 
I'm comparing both on bass, I think you'd have to agree that they both do bass sounds.
He said he liked the Radias for the bass sounds, and if he wants bass, the MEK will do it better.
 
Kojak said:
I'm comparing both on bass, I think you'd have to agree that they both do bass sounds.
He said he liked the Radias for the bass sounds, and if he wants bass, the MEK will do it better.
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Yes, but he didnt say that he wanted to use it for JUST bass. If we are talking just bass synths, there are far more specialized options out there than the MEK, like the Studio Electronics SE-1x and ATC-X, or the MacBeth M3x.
 
But they're certainly not at the same price point, thus why I mentioned the price in my previous post.
Are you just making up stuff to argue about?
 
Kojak said:
But they're certainly not at the same price point, thus why I mentioned the price in my previous post.
Are you just making up stuff to argue about?
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*I'M* the one making stuff up to argue about? You're the retard who brought up the MEK in a NL vs Radias thread. :bigeyes:

And yes, some of the synths I mentioned are in the same price range. A new MEK costs about $1200, you can get a used SE-1x for under $1000, or a new ATC-X for $1049.
 
*I'M* the one making stuff up to argue about? You're the retard who brought up the MEK in a NL vs Radias thread.
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I'm pointing out options, you're just being an *******.
 
Wow, I'm sorry to get you two going back and forth about this matter:

Anyhow, yes I DID mention bass sounds as being important but I am also looking for synth sounds as well.

I'd love to get an ATC-1 which as always been on my list for a while (I just can't ever find one on ebay when I'm actually ready to buy one).

I don't know how much the Nord lead's are going for but the last time I checked, a Nord Lead 2 seems to be holding steady at approx. $500-$800. I'm assuming the Nord lead 3's are close to a grand if not over that. Which is what brought me back to the Radias which seems to be going for approx $700-900 for the rack (dont need the keyboard version). I dont know if you guys think its worth it or not at that price, but I haven't had much of a chance to compare the radias to anything else so I can't say.

I've never heard of the MEK until you guys just mentioned it. But doing a quick search on Ebay reveals a $900 price tag... Im quite sure i can DEFINITELY get an ATC-1 quad for that price if all the MEK does is just bass.


Anyway if you guys have any suggestions or other ideas I would appreciate it. Thanks
 
The MEK does do quite a lot of other things as well...actually, I hadn't even thought it as being a "bass synth" in a sense that it's very much suited to doing wonderful pads (even though it's monophonic, the sequencer and the routing/modulation options can make it sound quite "multi-layered") and leads as well.
 
I like the way the radius sounds quite a bit, the filter models are really really nice and the saw oscillators are really tight.

First virtual filter models that i've heard that i actually like, in fact. Not trying too hard to be the stereotypical 24 db 4 poles, but it has some of that flavor for basses if you put it on that setting.

I think it _sounds_ better than the nord lead series, but its got some other doodads that aren't on the nord so you have to judge whether or not you need those.

I was never impressed with the bass capability of the nord instruments, it just seems like the oscillators are almost too grainy to get any kind of condensed hard bass sound or full thick bass sound out of.

as for the Mono eveolver keyboard, my experience with the regular evolver has pleased me as far as lead capabilites, but not bass. Nothing better for cutesy synthpop leads that i do, but i'd sooner reach for my DX9 that the Mono for bass sounds.
 
Whats a DX9 anyway???

Okay how about this:

If you had to rate these synths for their bass or synth capability's on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best, how would you rate them?

1.) Korg Radius
2.) Nord Lead 2x/3
3.) ATC-1 (or SE-1)
4.) MEK
5.) (some other synth that goes for approx. $1000 or less used on ebay)
 
Now this would be the apples and oranges kind of thing we were talking about before. You'll need to decide a little more specifically what you want before you can really start narrowing it down.

And just to note, I've used an evolver, and it can get some really killer basses, I don't know why you guys wouldn't like them.
 
>>>>Now this would be the apples and oranges kind of thing we were talking about before. You'll need to decide a little more specifically what you want before you can really start narrowing it down.<<<<


I apologize if I wasn't clear enough on what I was looking for, but I thought I mentioned that I was looking for bass and synth sounds. Are you asking me what "type" of bass or synths sounds I'm looking for?

Anyway I'll just say this: I did NOT like the Waldorf Pulse as its bass sounds were just not my cup of tea. No matter what I did to try to tweak it, I couldn't get rid of that "bow-wowish" growling tone that it had. So anyway I'm not interested in modules or synths that have that type of characteristic. (My perferences would be smooth solid basses with depth and a little edge to it)

As for synth sounds... obviously it would help to have something that could give me a wide range of synth sounds from the bright and aggressive to being smooth and mellow if needed.
 
I bought the radias and did not like it after I dug into it fully! Took it back and got the little phatty! I know, there different, but Moog is Moog right? I buy new gear to fill holes in my setup, whatever gear I can get at the time that fills a hole
 
Jlacck said:
Anyway I'll just say this: I did NOT like the Waldorf Pulse as its bass sounds were just not my cup of tea. No matter what I did to try to tweak it, I couldn't get rid of that "bow-wowish" growling tone that it had. So anyway I'm not interested in modules or synths that have that type of characteristic. (My perferences would be smooth solid basses with depth and a little edge to it)
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Did you try turning the resonance knob all the way down? :rolleyes:
 
I apologize if I wasn't clear enough on what I was looking for, but I thought I mentioned that I was looking for bass and synth sounds. Are you asking me what "type" of bass or synths sounds I'm looking for?
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Well I just wanted to make sure you'd be alright with a monophonic keyboard. If all you want is bass and monosynthleads, then one of the mono units will probably give you better sound for your money, but putting the polysynths in there is what makes it an unfair comparison, because they are designed to do more, so they aren't going to do mono as well as something that's designed just for monophonic use.
 
>>>>Did you try turning the resonance knob all the way down? <<<<

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Yep, in fact I never liked the sound of the pulse with the resonance knob turned up anyway. I always kept it at zero or close to it... I even played with the Filter envelopes to see if i could take take out the "Bow wowish sound". In the end after having it for half a year (if not a full year) I just decided that its sound just wasn't what I was looking for so I sold it.

Now I've read somewhere (I think it was in one of these threads on here) that the Dave Smith stuff sounds similiar to the Pulse on the low end. If this is so, I'm sure a Dave Smith Instrument would be right for me either.
 
i just went got done going through and comparing synths in the same price range and checked out all the models described pretty extensively.
I liked the Nord Lead 2 because it seemed fairly intuitive towards different and interesting sounds. It is a grainy bastard though and it's got no onboard effects. These things are all fine but you just have to know what you're getting into and if that's what you're looking for.
As far as the Radius was concerned.. I spent about 20 minutes on that thing and was not very impressed with it at all. It was not very tweaker friendly.. and I don't know how exactly to quantify this but some synths just seem to go nice places once you start turning knobs... like they are setup in a way that lends itself to doing interesting things when you start editing. The Radius was horrible at this, whenever I started deviating from the presets it just started to fizzle out. It seemed like it had it's sweet spots but once it got away from them everything just turned to crap.
I tried others in this price range and above (moog's Dave Smith's, Juno's, Oberheims) and I finally settled on an Access Virus b desktop. I love this things sound. The onboard effects are good enough and enough of them can be run. Editing it with sound diver is really easy. The thing I like best about it though is it goes beautiful places when tweaked. It's really hard to make a bad move with it. Almost every time you turn a knob it turns out something interesting. So that's the one I picked.
The one thing I didn't check out though is anything from Waldorf, so take my opinions with that in mind. I'd heard alot of great things about waldorfs but the only one's i could find were rack versions with 3 knobs on the front and a tiny digital menu... an editing nightmare to say the least.
 
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