Nord User Forum

[sloades]

I have a Nord Electro 3 (73) SW and the top F* key is not working fully. It plays the note perfectly when I use Organ sounds but there is no sound when i use any other piano/synth/sample sounds. I have cleaned the contacts using compressed air bit still no progress. Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

[Mr_-G-]

Perhaps the contact is still not clean, or the carbon contact (in the rubber bubble, or in the circuit board) is worn out.

[pablomastodon]

MR. G is correct, as usual, on this point. Assuming that you correctly completely disassembled the instrument in order to reveal the contacts beneath that rubber bubble, if simple compressed air does not do the trick, then try a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl to clean the surfaces. Important to remember to clean all four black ovals on the circuit board PLUS the two black dots on the underside of the rubber strip.

If you connect your instrument to a midi monitor of any sort (or simply record the midi data stream into your DAW and inspect the detail view), you will see that the piano notes are actually playing -- at a velocity of zero, which is why you can't hear them.

if you start to see shiny copper peeking through the black ovals on the circuit board, replace the entire contact assembly -- your old one is toast. Some years ago someone on here posted some info about buying some special paint-on carbon stuff for revitalizing such things, but I believe that stuff is wicked expensive and even more wicked toxic. Those parts are NOT expensive. In the US complete contact replacement (upper and lower halves) runs around $100 plus shipping for 73 note action. That's a small price to pay to restore to new condition after 7-10 years of use.

NOTE: replacing those contacts will probably disturb the factory velocity response calibration. If you really want to restore to original condition, complete replacement of entire keybed assembly is called for. But many musos will not possess the nuance of touch to ever notice the difference. AFAIK, no other keyboard maker using Fatar keybeds bothers to calibrate them in this manner.

Bless, Pablo