Until I have my ideal engine (which may never happen), I remain devoted to my Nord G2X, one of the greatest synthesizers ever made.
Alas, it has been unsupported for years now, and as of Mac OS X Catalina, the desktop editing software will no longer run on a Mac.
On 2020-09-03, I sent Nord Keyboards a short note via their tech support form, begging them to release the editor software's code.
I've been using my G2X for over a decade now and have never ceased to be delighted by it.
I'm filled with frustration when I think about the fact that upgrading to Catalina will mean I cannot run the G2's editor on my main laptop.
I know there are workarounds (run Mojave in a VM, buy a Windows machine, and so on), but I wanted to ask whether you've considered releasing the source code for the G2 editor? Or any other courses of action to keep the editor working on OS X?
The community has done some amazing work in reverse-engineering the USB protocol and building an open source editor, but for all that effort it's not nearly as smooth or functional an experience as the original editor is.
If we had the original app's code, we could do what it takes to get it running on Catalina and future versions of the OS.
Without it, my beloved G2 will eventually be consigned to the garbage heap, a thought that fills me with dread. For me, there's still nothing on the market that competes - I suppose Symbolic Sound's Kyma is the obvious place to go, but the integration between the G2's play surfaces and the editor is just immediate, playable, and magical in a way nothing else I've encountered is.
I love this instrument dearly. It has taught me so much about sound and music I would not have learned without it, and I hate the idea of it devolving from a glorious synthesizer to an unused pile of metal and plastic. Even though there are workarounds for the moment, the time will surely come when the remaining OSes break compatibility with something the official editor depends on.
So, please - hear my plea. Give the community what we need to keep the G2 alive and well, in all its glory, while the hardware still functions.
Even if nothing comes of my request, I would also like to say "thank you". You have made the best keyboards I've ever had the privilege to play, and even if the G2 does fade into irrelevance and obscurity, I will always be grateful for the wonderful years I had with it.
Thank you for your unending hard work to make such beautiful instruments, and thank you for the obsession with quality and details that has meant the G2 editor has worked well on OS X long after it ceased to be supported.
I doubt it will sway anything, but I thought I should at least make the appeal.