Decision time: used Electro 4HP or new Electro 6HP?

[luts1976]

Okay people.

Looking for your thoughts.

I have the opportunity to buy the Electro 6HP for $3332 AUD.
I am also looking at a second hand Electro 4HP for $1300 AUD.
A significant price difference of just over $2k. Alot of money.

So, I've been tossing things around in my head.
My general advice to people buying stuff is.. ask. what is it that the instrument will be used for 99% of the time.

My answer to this question is., as a super portable piano for gigs where I play acoustic piano and EPS, with the option to use organ as well.

As far as I can tell, the Electro 4HP does all that stuff quite well.

The Electro 6HP is is some 6 years ahead and hence has more capacity to do just about everything.

It's 3 sound engines are able to be split and layered unlike the 4HP which is essentially 1 sound at a time.

When I think deeply about how I will use the Electro I can see that sometimes it would be cool to be able to split and layer, but this probably fits in the 5-10% region of usage.

Most of the time, I see myself playing one sound per song, and if required switching patches within a song.

Maybe I'm writing this to clarify things more to myself. The 4HP is very tempting at that price.

I'm in the rare situation of actually being able to afford the more expensive board.

I will play the used 4HP later today. It has been advertised as 'as new' barely used.

The thing I will be focussed on most is the action. When I played the 6HP the other day the action was fine which was a surprise to me.

Often I have an issue with something I don't like.

I wonder if the 4HP and 6HP actions are essentially the same?

The other thing I noticed is.. far less space storage in the 4HP for pianos.
The 4HP doesn't offer true Sympathetic String Resonance either.

An interesting conundrum. The practical side of me says to just go with the 4HP as it will do most of what I need.

Your thoughts? Any experiences playing both machines? Cheers.

[Tasten-Bert]

Hi,

at these price points I‘d go with the 4.

If this will be your first nord it‘ll give you lots of opportunities to discover the nord world, it will give you sufficient memory space even for more than one large piano sample, it will give you a great organ sound which I loved at my electro 3, and it will leave you with a keyboard which is supposed to keep its value for a long time to come as it‘s already a good deal.

Good luck, cheers from Germany, and let‘s pray for a peaceful world

[StrangeAeons]

A 2000$ difference's quite compelling. What makes Nord keyboards great is, amongst other things, the fact that they age really, really slowly. Most of the Sound Library's compatible with the Electro 4: for example, the only piano you can't use is the White Grand, all of the others are fine. If splitting and/or layering isn't crucial for your usage, you won't miss much going with the Electro 4, functions-wise. The action's most definitely the same: if anything changed in the last years, it ought to be minor details since nor Nord, nor Fatar officially made any improvements or changes.

What might play a much bigger role in your decision is memory. I own an Electro 6, and whilst I don't have any issues with its limitations, I have been forced to make some decisions, such as keeping just three good (that is, XL) acoustic pianos in order to have enough room for everything else (EPs, Clavs and so on). But the Electro 4 HP features a meagre 380 MB for the Piano Library and 128 MB for the Sample Library. It really isn't much, although you'll still be able to load up many medium-sized samples which are perfectly fine for live usage.

If I were in your shoes, since you explicitly mentioned you can afford a more expensive Electro, I'd look for a used Electro 5: you'll surely still save quite a bit compared to a brand-new or a used Electro 6, but enjoy more memory and some split/layering capabilities. You probably don't need the Electro 6's expanded multitimbrality, but a few months down the line you might end up regretting your choice because of the inability to even create a simple piano+strings layer. I wouldn't underestimate the age factor either: that Electro 4 could be as old as ten years old, and the older the instrument, the sooner it'll fail.

To sum it up:
1- Open the Nord Library webpage and make a rough estimate of how much memory you need (that is, which samples you'll be transferring on your Electro): is the Electro 4 HP enough?
2- Consider whether you can give up on layering or not.
3- If the answer to any of the aforementioned questions is no, then you should buy an Electro 5 or 6.

[harmonizer]

The inability to run the V2 piano libraries would be a deal breaker for me.
The Electro 5 and Electro 6 can run the V2 piano libraries (the Electro 5 without being able to use the new filters?).
I would not buy a used Electro 3 or Electro 4 today (I own an Electro 3).

[cphollis]

Wow, not cheap. I had an Electro 4D, great solid bread and butter board, great tone, etc. Not fancy, but neither is an acoustic guitar.

The only reason I'd buy something other than the NE4 is if I saw myself "growing into" new capabilities, and I wouldn't see enough of that in the NE6 as compared to the NE4. Now, put a used NS3 as the other option, and then there's plenty of room to grow into if you're so motivated.

[luts1976]

Well, I did go and try the used NE4 HP.
My previous post was talking about weighing up the relative merits of each purchase.

The used NE4HP for 1300 or the new 6HP for 3300.

Firstly, the lady increased the price on the 4HP to 2000 before I even got there.
She had a lot of interest and assumed it would sell for more.

So, the equation was now 2000 vs 3300. Quite a difference.

The 4HP was virtually unused as described.

The first thing that I noticed was... a clunky action.
So, as it had been virtually unused I consider this action to be brand new.

It’s quite different to the 6HP. Absolutely.
So, regardless of heresay the actions are v different.

Compared to the 6HP the 4HP is a noisier action and more unruley.
It’s hard to put my finger on it for a description of a feeing.

The 6HP action feels v regulated and smooth. A quiet action.
There’s no clunk.
It somehow feels less springy and much more expensive.
I would compare it to the difference in handling between a standard sedan and
a luxury car.
The 6HP is smoother, more even, silkier, less noisy.
The car analogy fits here.

The surprising bit is how different the two actions are.

Anyway.. this has pretty much sealed my choice for the newer model.

[StrangeAeons]

Fatar only makes a few kinds of keybeds, each with a specific action. According to Nord's website, both the Electro 4 and 6 HP feature "Velocity sensitive Hammer Action Portable keyboard": if Fatar improved anything between 2012 and 2018, it couldn't have been anything major. The explanation is simple. Unlike a guitar, a keyboard can look as good as new even after several years of intense use, if handled with care and not used for live gigs frequently: I've sold, and bought, instruments that looked like they were just unboxed. That Electro 4 had definitely been used a lot: quite a lot, much more than the average user. The fact that the lady that was trying to sell you the keyboard tried to hike the price and didn't even tell you how old the instrument is a sign of bad faith. In my opinion, a used Electro 5 would fit your needs (as I wrote in your prior thread, even an Electro 4 might, but its limitations don't really make it the most appealing of options), but you need to try out several used ones in order to appraise the instrument's actual age and mileage.

[Tasten-Bert]

Would have been better to continue within the first thread. Maybe a moderator can move it??

[luts1976]

I have just contacted the lady selling again. She assures me she bought the 4HD new and I actually believe her.

She's barely used it.

The action is significantly different. So, regardless of what the literature suggests, side-by-side they are considerably different (the 4HD and 6HD).

It's an academic point anyway because the relative use of each used keyboard renders the action different on every instrument.

Anyway, I am glad I went and played the 4HP.

Yes, a used 5HP does make more sense than the 4HP. However, rare to find and even rarer to find with few miles on the clock.

I think I will bite the bullet and invest in the 6HP.
These boards seem to retain value better than most other brands.

[Tasten-Bert]

The HP keybed version might be rare on the used market because it’s already the least sold version among the new ones. Do you insist on HP? Have you ever tried the standard SW version? I am a piano player with a real piano at home and must say that I prefer my electro 5 SW‘s keybed to any HP I tried even for piano tunes. If my main goal would be a piano like keybed I‘d definitely look for HA versions.

Cheers from Germany