Nord User Forum

[TomS]

Hi to all. What does this model sound like in comparison to the C1? Thanks. Tommy

[Hanon_CTS]

Bump.
I'm curious too.
There aren't any Nord stocking dealers within 200 Km of me.
I'd love to hear someone's experiences with the C2 over the C1.
Particularly someone that has owned a real tonewheel Hammond.

[jazzystu]

I've owned several hammonds, from a 40's BC to a 70's C3. The Nord is actually a much of a muchness. I have sold all my old kit and now run an EX88. I don't have a problem with the weighted action and organ, it's fine.

Although I had several 6 pin leslies, for laziness or whatever, I used to run them through PR40 speakers and the sound of the EX88 without the leslie is very similar. I also bizarrely ran it through hifi speakers (I think through the reverb out on the amp) and it's very "headphonesy". People forget the Hammond is a raw signal generator with a certain amount of background noise, key click and hum. I don't think there is much difference between either of my main hammonds, the early 60's RT3 (C3 with 32 note pedalboard) whitecap had a softer sound and more crosstalk between notes, it was what they'd probably call battered. It was a nadge noisy and pretty imperfect. The later C3 I had which had the red caps was a lot cleaner, it was less noisy, but still was non-digitaly. It was similar, but brighter, brighter percussion and brighter chorus, the whole thing was cleaner. It was much of a muchness, more like recording quality.

The Nord is in a similar ballpark, but without the crosstalk of the early one.

The speakers were what made the difference, I used to swap tubes around and had a 61 PR40 which was more grunty and raw than the later "quiet" one. All of it was understressed and the only thing muffling the clarity (which was almost rude through headphones) was the 6k rolloff. The leslies didn't have this and were noisy. I had a 145 and a 147. Much of a muchness and the same amplifiers. I played around with the tubes in them and got a variety of different results, mainly with the harshness of the overdrive. The 145 was noticably more "punchy" soundwise, almost boxy.

From listening to both organs (dirty whitecap and clean redcap) through headphones, they are a much of a muchness, what it boils down to is the boxyness, the quality of overdrive and the choppiness of the leslie miking.

The short answer is to run the nord through a leslie and I doubt that a lot of people would be able to tell the difference. The EX88 has the boxiness of the 145 in the leslie simulator, you hit the button and it goes boxy and compact, the rotary is quite subtle and quite subtle, a real leslie is a lot more "dynamic".

I can only assume that the C1 and C2 have EQ and noise to give you the difference between a clean late organ and a dirty noisy one, however, it's a small adjustment to a noisy, proper leslie. The Hammond PR40 speaker is a piece of HIFI, the leslie isn't and is pretty rude really. I recapped mine and fitted a set of bottle tubes and it was still noisy and rude.

The key difference, if you opened the "gate" up full and gave it some beans, by the time you were getting a really sweet overdrive, it was really really really really loud. It's nice to have an overdrive without waking up the whole village.

I think the crux of the matter is with the speaker simulation. The overdrive is pretty good, you need to turn it up loud and get that animation, that's what happens when you whack the nord output into a big transistor leslie. I wouldn't bother paying the extra and getting the "it's making the neighbours windows vibrate" levels of volume in order to get "that" overdrive sound from a valve leslie.

However, with the leslie, I used to have about 3 preamp tubes ECC82A's or something and they made the most difference to the sound. I had a sweet one which used to give a lovely overdrive blur.

It was all heavy and it was all a hassle. I think a nord organ with a real leslie is probably in the order of getting the job done.

Plus, with the synth on the nord stage, you can put a sine wave in place which doesn't fold back on the bottom octave, to give you the old Model A, B, BC, D super bass sound, which rules through a big system.

That's what I think about it. Sorry, I haven't played a C1 or C2, but you probably get the idea.

[Ritchie333]

As I understand it, the C1 has the same organ engine as the Stage Ex, while the C2 has the same engine as the Stage 2, plus it has all the pipe organ stuff thrown in. However, I reckon unless you're playing in a jazz organ trio or gospel choir backing, covering all manuals and the pedals (which is presumably the sort of market that the C2 is aimed towards), you'd realistically be hard pushed to notice any difference.

I have certainly played real Hammonds and real Leslies at full volume. In the dim and distant past, before I had an Electro, I had a chopped Hammond M102, Marshall valve preamp and Sharma rotating speaking cabinet, which was a realistic compromise between a) a tolerable sound b) something that was practical (just) to transport to pub gigs and c) not hacking off the neighbours by having to crank the amp to 11 to get a decent overdrive on it. I stopped all that the minute I got the Electro and have never regretted doing so, no matter how tempted I am to think it would nice to spin real air or pull proper drawbars for a change at some of the larger gigs.

I do remember if I cranked the volume on the M102 through this rig, I could hear a faint trebly background tone, which was the sound of the tone generator just running on idle. I wonder if that's what the "battered" mode is trying to reproduce.

Incidentally, I never got on with the more popular B3 / C3 / A100 Hammonds - I did have an A100 for a few years, and flogged it as I just found the M102 layout easier to handle when changing drawbar settings while keeping my hands level instead of having to lean over the swell manual. I'm sure I'll be shot for saying that, but hey....

[Cbas]

Just to clarify:

Organ Gen.1: Electro 2, Stage Classic, Stage EX (the Stage got a minor improvement over the Electro 2)
Organ Gen.2: C1, Electro 3 (The electro 3 got a minor improvement over the C1)
Organ Gen.3: C2, Stage 2

I would say that Gen2 is a huge improvement over Gen1, but Gen3 is only a small improvent over Gen2.

Have fun.
Cbas

[flmc59]

I have both C1 and C2

I always use the leakiest TG modell on both.
On the C2 i set click to max.

The C2 has a vastly improved note off click modelling.
The C1´s note of click says plopp
The C2 says fzzt just as the note on click.

The C2 has improved bass TG callibration in the last octave.

The C2 in a 145 Leslie with added real drawbars is a dream to play.
Check out the Ocean Beach drawbar addon or do is I did build your own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5a9ByZQcWo

On my youtube channel you can find comparisons between the C1 and the C2.

For those of you that run VST then The VB3 vst plug has an excellent Leslie simulator.
It is cheaper than a Ventilator.
The Hammond simulation of the VB3 is nice but since it is midi in introduces lots of latency compared to the lightning fast responce of the Nords internal sound engine
Regards Frederick