Clavia might have got a too quick move on releasing Nord Lead A1 and deprived themselves of extra profit they could get with their recent Nord Lead 4. Well, maybe they wanted to grip the audience with two great products at once. Great but quite different so both of them have their own line of fans and in this review we’ll touch upon their architectural and sonic basics.

Analog generator waveform is far from being perfect – it’s unstable and suffers from inevitable voltage-brought deformation. Many of the analog filters are unsteady – you might hear some noises, phase shift or self-oscillation. But these very drawbacks make the signal so brisk, lively – well, actually, alive indeed. Digital developments helped to tame analog sound, cut it into samples, increase polyphony, give you a synthesizer equipped with the functions which were simply unobtainable in analog instruments. In 1990s instrument manufacturing companies got highly interested in analog modeling technologies development – they were eager to re-create those smallest details of electric musical instrument circuit behavior.

When companies equip their cult instruments with a professional keyboard and at least the basic controller set featuring their brand parameters they can easily entice any modular system die-hard fan as well as any touring musician. They don’t aim at the target audience they literally shoot each and every one who’s ever been into professional music. We’ll review the coolest stage synthesizers which used to shake the market and keep on doing it right now - Roland Jupiter-80, Radikal Technologies Accelerator, Access Virus Total Integration 2, Clavia Nord Stage 2EX, Kurzweil PC3A and even that marvelous beast John Bowen Synth Design Solaris!