Nord 3: can someone compare it with the virus line?

[F5D]

I guess one reason why the NL3 is discontinued is the huge popularity of Virus synths which come with hundreds of popular preset sounds. Nord leads don't have any trance/dance-presets. Many people buy virus because they don't know how to program synths. Nord leads can do great sounds too but you have to program them yourself. Access have noticed this and they sell well. In fact it seems that Access is the only company which pays for good preset sounds. Roland, Korg, Alesis, Clavia etc. have quite poor or unpopular preset sounds which means that only real synth freaks or people who can program synths buy those synths because of the synth engine, not for the presets.

[Summa]

Some years ago I had the NL3 for a few weeks to write a review about the synth, charater wise the NL3 differs much from the Virus, less hiss and the a rather harder right in the face type of sound even without the use of distortion.
Function wise it differs a lot too, for instance with its four operator FM mode and its 4 Morph Groups that can be controlled by Velocity, Mod-Wheel, Aftertouch/Pedal, Keyrange, to change up to 26 parameter per group at once.

Also soundprogramming is pretty easy due to the circular LED graphs, that show the actual setting of the sound you chose or the range of the morph groups, that way it's a pretty good beginners synth...
But it's only 4 times multitimbral and has no onboard FX-Section...

[NeoMetric]

I have a Nord 2 and I'll never part with it. True it has no FX, and Virus presets are full of them, so it's hard to compare apples and oranges. Still, I love it. The Nord engine is warm and fuzzy, ez to use and forgiving. The straight forward routing, editing and storing of patches makes it an ideal first analog synth IMO. If you have the bread for a virus, sure; but, expect to be fustrated for bit.

[mr.e]

I thought nords are virtual analog ?

anyways just wanted to say I heard many rumors that the nord 3 is more for pads and thing of that nature and the filters on the nord 2 are much more aggressive I heard.