discoDSP have been around for quite a while. They seemed to spring up pretty quickly after VST came into being. Evidence is still there – the appearance of Vertigo is still Ye Interface Of Olden Times – while Discovery has the latest haircut. I recall the time when it wasn’t obviously a Nord. Then became a little Nord, increasingly Nord, and now Full On It Bloody Is A Nord.
Guilty as charged your honour.
So what is the appeal in a virtual analogue from the last century? The name more than anything – I once had a Nord G2 and it never really got excited about anything. It was happy but lacked enthusiasm and I sold it. Whereas Discovery is extremely enthusiastic. For a start it’s fucking loud. They’ve set the output level at about +12dB and your first job is to turn it down. (That loudness is a bit of a trick to make you think it’s more ‘powerful’ – be sure to compare it to others at equal volume when testing it.)
Looking at the pictures above you can see that this imaginary Nord is actually a later, more svelte and curvy edition. And Discovery is in general more advanced than the Nord 2. Especially in having a bank of sampled oscillators at bottom right. Lots of other virtual instruments have a sample section but somebody has gone to some lengths to pre-cook a big bunch of them ready to go, if not always in tune.
As with the Nord four layers can then be stacked up to make huge sounds. There’s also the morphing feature where you set the knobs one way, take a picture then move them elsewhere. Everything works as you remember and as the processor in your computer is about 100x faster than the one in the old keyboard you can turn on over-sampling and get very convincing analogue grunge and tumult.
It easily outclasses many other virtual synthesisers (Knifonium, Ultra Analogue) and has a bit more affordance than Vacuum and the Korgs – although the pro version probably cost more than them. Vacuum might still win.
I’m a huge sucker for anything that combines an oscillator and a sample to give you that slightly uncertain complex tone. All up I would go for it.
” I once had a Nord G2 and it never really got excited about anything. It was happy but lacked enthusiasm…”
Yes, the G2 seemed shockingly polite after the G1. I think you would have more fun with that (or a Nord Micro Modular, which has the same engine).
They were great things but they aged very quickly. Getting 6 voices out of the red box when the computer doing the interface was capable of far more… that just became silly. Another thing was the midi was an awful pain in the arse.
Also, one’s fingers may become musclebound from turning the NM1’s potentiometers. So that is not a plus for using hardware either.
Also, one’s fingers may become musclebound from turning the NM1’s potentiometers. So that is not a plus for using hardware either.