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CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection available?

Postby Scorps » 14 Feb 2016, 15:39

First of all, happy valentine's day and excuse me for yelling in an another pitch stick thread I started. I just think it needs wider attention.

Two months ago I created this thread about my Nord Stage' pitch stick not behaving correctly - sometimes the sound would be two semitones flat after switching to a program with the stick activated, until at some point the stick would not center anymore, leaving the sound slightly flat.

I ended up ordering a new stick for 105€ and everything was fine until yesterday, after 2 months and 2 days, the same problem was back!

Not willing to spend another two weeks' food money on a tiny piece of wood and metal, I opened up my Nord again, unscrewed the stick and mod wheel assembly and carefully bent the stick to the right a few times. Fortunately that solved the problem for now, the stick works normally again. I even checked it with a tuner.

However, this has raised concerns about the strength and reliability of these protruding sticks on these red, excellent and otherwise built-as-a-tank keyboards. Even though I was able to fix it for now, having to re-bend the stick every once in a while is not only a hassle, but it will also introduce metal fatigue much sooner than it should come with normal use - the pitch stick is essentially a strip of metal being bent and the amount of bending measured with flex sensors. An another thread was also started about the pitch stick doing tricks after transporting.

I also carry my keyboard in a gig bag. It's a very high quality custom made one with sheets of veneer on both upper and lower side of the keyboard, but it, like all other gigbags, doesn't have a special hole for the pitch stick. I have to admit that I often had the pocket above the stick pretty much full of cables and pedals, but I suspect that I'm not the only one.

Dear Nord users, please be sure to be gentle with the sticks and watch out to not to expose them to big amounts of force when transporting your boards in bags or cases. For a flightcase, a hole can be cut in the padding above the stick, but what to do with gig bags? Clavia hasn't addressed this problem at all, but if, for example, there's a 3D designer who could design a plastic piece that could clip to the stick hole, I would pay for the 3D file and have it printed out as fast as possible.
Last edited by Scorps on 14 Feb 2016, 15:48, edited 2 times in total.
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CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection available?


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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby ericL » 14 Feb 2016, 16:04

That's weird. I have been gigging with my NS2 for five years and have not had a single problem with the pitch stick. I've owned several Nord Leads and they have also been quite reliable.
Nords: NE2, NS2 88, NS3 Compact x 2
Live rig: NS3, Vent, Radial KL-8, Shure PSM-900 IEM Rig, UE18 & UE7 IEMs.
Studio: Hammond A-101 & Leslie 122, Yamaha CP-80, Yamaha S90, NS2, DSI Prophet-6, Vent II, Roland JX-8P.

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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Spider » 15 Feb 2016, 20:44

Yes, such repeated failures are weird.
Are you using a soft bag?
Have you checked if the straps place a strain exactly on the pitch stick?
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby offrhodes » 15 Feb 2016, 21:00

Nowadays I put a piece of stiff cloth over the pitch stick when it goes into the bag (actually the red dust cover that came with the stage) and haven't had any issues with it. Which doesn't tell much, I move it only once a week.

BTW, repeatedly bending metal in itself is no cause for concern, if engineered correctly. Think of the valve springs in a car engine. The deformation is strictly elastic, and they'll last many millions of cycles.
And I was worried - all the way down to the ground
When it comes to holding safety nets
Nobody seems to be around
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Scorps » 27 Feb 2016, 03:11

I'm using a soft bag, but the bag has pretty strong reinforcements (plywood) and protects the keyboard well. It's really weird, considering that the original stick also worked for years... Re-bending it to the right direction did help for a few days, but now it has became even worse and additional bending didn't help anymore. Some Googling revealed that I'm not the only one with this problem. I'm going to contact the dealer again, let's see what happens.
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Scorps » 01 Oct 2016, 02:14

Okay, a little update to the topic. Apparently the reason for the new stick starting to do tricks so fast was my laziness. (Clavia has done a funny cost-cutting - the mod wheel wires connect to the circuit board with a plug, but the pitch stick ones are soldered to the board.) When changing the stick, I didn't bother to solder the cables, but just stripped them, twisted the ends together and covered them with heat-shrink tubing. It was not enough - as the resistance differences that the stick creates are so tiny and the connection wasn't stable enough that way, the pitch started to wander. Yesterday I took out my soldering iron, stripped the wires again, soldered the ends together and now the stick works well. But the protection issue still remains...

EDIT:
Mr_-G- wrote:If you look at the circuitry of the pitch bend mechanism (it is available in the web, Clavia has a patent on it), you will see that there is a resistors bridge (where the 2 transducers form part of it). If you have a minimal change of resistance due to dirt/oxide in the connectors, you will get a change of resistance and an associated change in pitch.
That is why it is soldered, and not plugged. There is no funny cost saving as you say, but a very good reason to do it that way.

Yes, that really makes sense.
Last edited by Scorps on 21 Aug 2017, 10:53, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Mr_-G- » 01 Oct 2016, 13:14

If you look at the circuitry of the pitch bend mechanism (it is available in the web, Clavia has a patent on it), you will see that there is a resistors bridge (where the 2 transducers form part of it). If you have a minimal change of resistance due to dirt/oxide in the connectors, you will get a change of resistance and an associated change in pitch.
That is why it is soldered, and not plugged. There is no funny cost saving as you say, but a very good reason to do it that way.
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Mr. Marko » 01 Oct 2016, 17:09

I cut out and removed foam from my hard case lid in the pitch stick area for this very reason...and I never lay the case upside down when the Nord is inside...
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Scorps » 04 Nov 2017, 20:15

Just came here to check when I replaced my pitch stick... A little less than 2 years and the new stick is doing the same tricks again - upon changing to a new patch that has the stick activated, the sound is approximately 3 semitones flat. :evil: When I touch the stick, it'll be okay again until the next change... How ****ing weak design! I'll try to ask a discount from Nord for the next stick.
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Re: CAUTION! Pitch sticks are FRAGILE! Any protection availa

Postby Kayj_prod » 14 Nov 2017, 15:53

If you're transporting your NS regularly, perhaps you should consider something more than a soft case?

My NS2- bought when released, how old does that make it?- has no such problems with the pitch bend. My original NS never had any issues either. My Nord Wave is even older, has the same design and is similarly fine. I gig regularly, my NS2 has been shipped as cargo between the UK and the UAE (where I am at the moment) a few times and my Wave has been in and out of trucks all its life. They've all been in hard cases. I make sure the foam is shaped to hold the instrument in securely by the end cheeks. There is enough depth so that no pressure can be put on the the buttons or knobs.

I wonder how many people on the forum have had problems? It seems exceedingly unlucky to have two pitch bends fail on you.

Things do go wrong of course. I have had a potentiometer fail on my Wave, but I don't assume that's anything wrong with the design- just a very well used knob!
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