The Usual Suspects Nodal Red 2x is a free Nord Lead 1/2 synth emulation with the DSP56300 plugin (in development).
In the previous article I talked about Xenia, the latest emulation from the team at The Usual Suspects. Like the other synths, it is based on an emulation of the Motorola 56000 chip.
Now, surprisingly, a video gives a teaser for the developers’ next plugin. This time, they take us to a famous red Swedish synth.
The usual suspects Nodal Red 2x
Nodal Red 2x is a free cross-platform plugin that emulates the Nord Lead 1 from 1995 and the Nord Lead 2 from 1998. So, almost thirty years after the release of the first Nord Lead, an emulation is imminent.
It is important to note that this plugin does not emulate the engines of both synths, but only the Motorola 56300 chip.
The Nord Lead/Rack 2x uses two Motorola DSP56362 at 120MHz and one Motorola MC68331 at 25MHz. The synthesis engine is identical to that of the Nord Lead 2 and can also load Nord Lead 1 presets. This demo was created using several instances of Nodal Red 2x in development (version 1.3.18) and external delay and reverb FX.
Usual Suspects have given the plugin a very authentic GUI. To me it looks extremely similar to the Nord layout. The oscillators are in the middle, the LFOs and mod envelope on the left and the filter and amp envelope on the right. A browser is located on a separate GUI page.
You need to be patient to try out the Nodal Red 2x plugin. This is just a teaser/preview; it is still under development.
First impression
What I’ve heard so far in the demo sounds pretty damn good. I’m excited about the first beta versions.
The Usual Suspects Nodal Red 2x release is announced. Join their Discord server to stay updated. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, CLAP and LV2 plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux and Windows.
Further information will follow here: DSP56300
Plugin News
Free plugin news
