The original Nord Modular has earned critical acclaim from day one and is firmly rooted in a dedicated niche market. However, after the initial ravings the interest in the instrument slowly ebbed away and at the end of the day Clavia didn't sell as many Modulars as they would have wished. So in 2003 Clavia decided it was time to announce a successor, the Modular G2, which has recently evolved from prototype status and hit the music stores.

The G2 is not simply a successor, it is in fact a whole new instrument. At first sight, the standard keyboard version looks more like a member of Clavia's Nord Lead line: the keyboard range is three octaves now (was two octaves on the keyboard version of the original Modular), the modulation wheel, pitch stick and the distinctive rotary knobs with their red LED indicators will look familiar to Nord Lead 3-users.

There's more: apart from the standard keyboard version, the Modular G2-line comprises a rack model sans any controls or displays (obviously aimed at studio owners and sound designers) and the huge five-octave keyboard version G2X that looks like a giant monster when compared to the small housing of the original Modular or even the Micro Modular, the highly popular downsized version of the previous model.

The G2-line uses more powerful DSPs than its predecessor and, like the old model, it offers room for an optional voice expansion board to double polyphony. That's not all, of course: Clavia have developed the G2 with the live musician in mind, that's why it features a new control layout that is more straightforward than the old model's and sports four extra LED-displays above the rotary knobs to give enhanced visual control over the settings of a patch. Another hint at the proposed way of using the instrument is the dedicated XLR-microphone-input that will in most cases feed a vocoder- or effects-patch. Talking of inputs: there's four now compared to two on the original Modular.

How about the new software? That's been improved, too, though the changes are not too drastic when compared to the "classic" Modular software: there's virtual oscillators, filters, vocoders, mixers, logic modules, sequencers a-plenty, plus basic effects and a MIDI-Out module (missed by many users of the old Modular). All in all, a great construction set for ambitious sound tinkerers that is presented in a neat, almost a bit minimalist, graphical layout. To add a bit of colour, the modules can now be colour-coded to get a better picture of a patch.
 
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