Nord Modular G2 Expanded

via this auction

"This is perhaps the most flexible piece of hardware ever made for any studio. It can do everything. It can do the following:

* Synthesizer (strings, organs, weird sounds, basses, granular, anything your mind can imagine, Moogs, Arps)
* Effects (choruses, reverbs, delays, and almost every other kind of effect, as well as many waiting for you to invent)
* Midi (sequencing, delays, data manipulation, recording, totally transforming incoming data, program switching, control surface, arpeggiators, and any combination or mutation of the above)

You don't have to be a synthesis expert to start using it. There are a lot of excellent presets built in, and tens of thousands more to download here or here.

But if you want to get into synthesis, there is no other piece of hardware that offers you more options or depth. The only main competitor might be Kyma, but it is in a much higher price bracket, and is far less intuitive to program.

While you might try using a computer for advanced synthesis techniques, you will find that the seamless integration between software and hardware that the G2 represents is unparalleled. Patching is as fast as thought, and mapping controls to the hardware is lightning-quick.

This is, next to a studio with wall-to-wall modular gear, the most powerful hardware synthesizer available anywhere. And no patch on any hardware synth will compare to a maxed-out Nord Modular G2, with all four program slots full and interconnected, working as a single, incredibly powerful patch.

With the four inputs, and the XLR input with preamp, there is no end to what you can do with audio processing. You can simultaneously transform the sound of a voice and three instruments, all with completely different effects algorithms, and also have a drum machine, bass, and pads — and you might not even be close to making out the power of this synth!

The installed Expansion doubles the DSP power."