colourisred wrote:As long as there are no really new features available e.g. physical modeled pianos, ability to include VST plugins,
loading samples from SD cards, more advanced string resonance algorithms ... , the release of a new STAGE hardware is
superfluous for people who don't need 25 pianosounds - I think it's the majority of users - at the same time.
Many issues could be addressed with a new class of pianosamples (e.g. typical other brand stagepiano sounds, a sample
containing only "soundboard and felt components" so that the player can morph between "wooden warm and brilliant",
... and why no decent MONO?).
And even velocitylayering (at least two layers) could easily be achieved by adding some MIDI eventmapingfunctionality.
For all this NO new hardware is required. But I see that CLAVIA has to sell hardware ... this demands beside a new
modell number some additional features. Therefor extensive OS improvements for current models will not happen.
If you want VST plugins, you'll end up with something like the Kronos, which is, quite literally, a Linux PC running nine different VST engines, tied together by a mixer interface, MIDI mapping, and an arpeggiator/sequencer engine.
Both the technical concept and the interface are the COMPLETE AND TOTAL OPPOSITE of what nord has been doing since they ever started building keyboards.
And to claim that "NO new hardware is required" to achieve such functionality is beyond ridiculous. It would require a complete and total redesign of the entire machine, starting with the whole sound generation, DSP, and the entire interface. All to completely destroy the reason why people are buying nords in the first place: because their interface makes them f*cking amazing live keyboards. (They sound great, too, but so do many other keyboards, including the Kronos.)
To achieve velocity layering would require a sample engine capable of playing back several samples and adding graceful velocity fading between them. I would LOVE to have this, and it is the lack of this functionality, in fact, that means that I have to keep bringing my Motif onto stage with me, but to suggest, again, that this could be added to the existing hardware is just silly.
Same with the "decent mono" — it would require a redesign of the sound engine to go beyond the current plain summing (and all its annoying phase issues).
I'm hoping for the functionality (except for the VST stuff — I've got a laptop for running laptop software, and that's best left that way), but to think that this is just some firmware update that nord is withholding out of greed or spite is…dumb.