Nord User Forum

[china88]

A: Is there a publication for the C2D that specifies what controls pertain to which organ personality -- as well as what controls are "universal" or generic and can be used with any/all four organ personalities? That would be extremely helpful for a newbie like me (and perhaps others) to quickly get their arms around exactly what controls are used for the B3, Pipe, Vox, Farfisa.

The manual only obliquely alludes to a few controls, but falls far short of explicitly describing this information.

Here are two analogies to this issue:
1. Expecting someone to fly a 747 airplane: The instruction manual says that it can take off (B3), and it can land (pipe); but it doesn't tell you what specific controls you need to use for each of those different actions. Not very useful, is it?

2. Learning a new program language with numerous commands, but no syntax description is provided for how to use those commands.

Customers are not mind readers on how to use this complex product. Clavia should provide details that helps us successfully use it. Knowledgeable and happy customers are their best (and Free) source of promotion for their products, as are unhappy customers.

B: I also discovered that when going from the C2 to the C2D, the Music Stand EX that worked on the C2 was not adequate for the C2D. Turns out that when installed the music stand lower shelf covered all the legends on the top rear of the C2D. I'm surprised that nobody at Clavia thought to check this out.

My Solution: I made two 1" square wood blocks as spacers and put them in between the music stand mount blocks and the back of the C2D - using 1" longer metric screws. This moved the music stand about 1/2" beyond the back of the organ so the bottom tray wasn't covering all the printed legend information on the top rear of the organ. This also permits me to install the keyboard cover even with the music stand installed. However, I found that I had to cut sections out of the back of the keyboard cover so it would slide around the extensions. It would be to Clavia's best interest to offer free upgrades (in the form of thicker mounting blocks and longer attaching screws) for all C2D customers who request it. Having the rear of their C2D facing the audience (and perhaps potential customers) is not going to be impressive when it looks like a "Sanford and Son" kluge. Perhaps even modifying their keyboard cover as mentioned above as "standard" would be beneficial?

C: Another unpleasant surprise was that my half-moon switch which was used on the C2 wouldn't work on the C2D in the low speed - and it wasn't intuitively clear what was causing the problem. Turns out the "default" menu settings were responsible for this. Clavia would be better served by having the half-moon switch set as the Default, rather than something else because most people are going to use the half-moon switch. Thankfully, our excellent support person in the U.S. (Pablo Mastodon) helped me to zero in on how/where to solve this problem.

D: The only thing they can do better is to consider emulating the Hammond X-77 GT. This was a solid state version of the B3 on steroids that I sold and selected the C2 as the replacement. The X-77 GT had two sets of 11 drawbars for the upper keyboard, two sets of 10 drawbars for the lower keyboard, and four drawbars for the pedal keyboard.

E: For the C2D product, they should include Tubular Bells/Chimes. This is because churches worldwide are faced with declining contributions and hefty prices to maintain their pipe organs. Having a C2D address this nicely. However, the lack of tubular bells is a deal-breaker because all worship consists of using tubular bells. They could have a special emulation that offers tubular bells on one keyboard only and in a two octave range. They could put it in the spot of empty program #105 and the church organist could "copy" the favored pipe organ profile into spot #106. This makes it easy to switch from pipe organ and tubular bells.

I believe that if Clavia redesigned their C2D into a "C2De" ("enhanced" version with the above inclusions), they would be the market leader that no one could touch. (are you marketing geniuses listening?)

Beyond these issues, this is an incredible (but still lacking) instrument and for me... a keeper.

[Mike37]

As someone else mentioned, harpsichord samples would be nice addition. A flaw with the interface I've noticed is the preset lights, which only lights up if the drawbar setting is at 3 or higher. So if you program presets with drawbars at 1 or 2, the lights will be misleading. This should've been fixed by an OS update a long time ago.

[pablomastodon]

Hi China88,

A. With regard to publications, the manual really does do a fairly good job of fully describing these functions, although admittedly they do not provide a "cross-reference" between these different model configurations in the condensed format you seem to suggest. The Farfisa, for example, has more limited chorus/vibrato choices than the Hammond. This is described fully and completely in the section on Farfisa, as are the differences in drawbar function (stops on the Farfisa). I'm afraid that your first analogy doesn't fly with me; the second one just doesn't compute.

B. I am not privy to internal Nord discussions on such issues, but in this instance the music stand and bracket design pre-dated the C2D development by several years. It was inherited from the C2, which was inherited from the C1. Yes, this is a detail which merits some attention, but I suspect that their focus was more on the instrument itself than the music stand or the dust cover. Also, I strongly suspect that there are engineering considerations there which should not be taken lightly. Extending those brackets out 2.5cm will result in a significantly longer moment arm on the load transfer point between the music stand itself and the points where those brackets mount to the instrument chassis. A few scant bits of sheet music will not present a big load, but some may start loading up their music stands with multiple hymnals of considerable weight. Over time, this will weaken those joints and perhaps cause failure.

C. The half-moon switch is an optional accessory and may stretch some musos' budgets further than they wish to go. It simply makes no sense to create a default factory setting which assumes that folks will be purchasing that optional accessory. The factory default setting works with the instrument as is out of the box, which is as it should be. Can you imagine the outcry which would ensue if this were the other way around as you suggest? People would feel as though they were being pressured to buy the accessory.

D/E. Reasonable people can differ on what is better and what is not. One of Nord's primary goals here is to keep it simple and not clutter it up with lots of, dare I say, bells and whistles. There are plenty of other companies doing that already. Plus, Nord has other models which will happily produce all the bells and whistles which one can imagine (and which will allow the user to easily create new bells and whistles of her/his own imagination). Also, I think it is fair to say that "all worship consists of using tubular bells" is a highly disputable statement.

Bless,

Pablo

PS -- welcome to this forum!

[neolithic]

"I believe that if Clavia redesigned their C2D into a "C2De"

Wait for the "C2D2"!! That one will do everything, and make coffee. Or of course, the "C4", ("3" is already taken, you see) a new clone which simply explodes with authenticity. Or the "CNU", in all the old familiar places. The "C6", of course, comes with a package of Dramamine in case you get queasy. If that happens, buy a "CQ". You get to the gig, and the organ finds it's own way there. The "CU" of course, takes it's own videos.

Naturally, the Nord factory will not confirm this information, I'm sure you can appreciate why.

[pablomastodon]

that Mooser....tsk, tsk...

Pablo

[Spider]

that Mooser....tsk, tsk...

Pablo

must be an undercover Clavia agent.

He clearly has insider information.

[pablomastodon]

I thought the documentation was quite good, I didn't feel like I had any additional questions after going quickly through it. As far as certain settings, you simply have to try them out and see the difference they make. The half-moon setting in the C2D advanced settings is mentioned in the manual.

[tacitus]

A lot of people have what I can only describe as 'manual blindness' - and find it very difficult to locate information in 'text-book' format. I spent many years in IT and while I've always been able to find what I need in a manual, many people really do find it difficult. That said, the one thing I sometimes fail to find in documentation is a categoric statement about something you can't find out for yourself without far too much trial and error - things like what gets lost if you lose power, or whether stereo outputs get properly summed to mono. Stuff you can find out, but probably not quickly or easily.

I do recognise that these are things a lot of people won't be worrying about too much, but I can, for example, find out how loud it gets by turning up the volume a lot quicker than I can find out how catastrophic a power cut will be ...

While we're talking possible improvements, it would be nice to have easily deployable sound sets to replace the baroque organ samples, but again this is going to be a niche interest. The music rest issue is certainly there, but I should think a lot of players have their own stands anyway - I do have the Nord music rest but I already had a wide music stand when I bought it and still use the separate one sometimes.

What I would like is a frame of some sort that links the Nord keyboard stand with the Pedal keys 27 and a stool so that I can set up with pedals and a stool without having to line everything up manually to be sure the pedals are in the right place.

[Mooser]

<i>"that Mooser....tsk, tsk..."</i>

Have I revealed too much, Pablo?

[pablomastodon]

if it were April 1, I would say that the new unit was C2D2 and they were doing a marketing tie-in with upcoming Star Wars movie...but it's not so I won't

pablo