Nord User Forum

[cphollis]

One of my rigs is positively ancient? Nord Piano 2, Nord Electro 4D 61. Both have been superseded by more modern and spiffy Nords, plus offerings from other vendors which aren't shabby in the least. My current gigging setup should be way better, in theory anyway?

Dug out my ancient rig today, and fired it up. A pair of QSC K8.2 as floor monitors behind me on the floor. Took me a while to dial in the amplification. Also took much longer to wipe the NP2 of all the small piano samples and load up three of the large ones. Good call on my part.

OMG, what a joy! The acoustic and electric pianos out of the NP2 were total ear candy. The B3 emulation out of the 4D was emotional as always, as were all of my samples. The leslie sim was killing it . Total absolute ear candy! Yes, it was in the quiet harmony of my living room vs. the fog of war on stage, but still?

The point of this post? Yes, we all lust after newer, better toys. But DAYUM these older boards would bring game in any setting I could imagine. So clear, so emotional. Yes, the amplification helped.

Strange conclusion? I have two each of the NP2 and NE4D. At one time, I thought I needed them. No longer. I'll sell one of each. But I'm hanging on to a pair. I could play these boards for the next 20 years, no problem.

I love having this emotional connection to my boards. My wife is even getting into the game, e.g. "why are you selling these, they sound so good?". Well, I have another set of them

[Quai34]

I agree on that, I don't have a Stage 3 yet but it will be like you a bit, having two set up that are close, one based on the Stage 2 plus a Nord Lead 2 and one on the Stage 3 alone or with a Prophet....
I'm like you, I cannot part with the Proteus or the Matrix, they sound so good,,,,and they are way older than any Nord...

[anotherscott]

Over the years, I have updated from the Electro 3 to the NS2 to the NE5D to the NS3. But my changes were prompted by a desire for other features, not out of dissatisfaction with the sounds. Not that there haven't been some sonic improvements as well, but of course Nord's always excelled at allowing older models to have access to newer sounds, so the sonic differences over the years are smaller than those of many other boards.

[Joepno]

I hava a Nord Stage EX and a Nord Stage Revision B (Classic), 6 and 8 years old I guess. The Classic is in our rehearsal room, no lugging around, copying changed presets from the home machine no problem. I do not have much RAM for the alternative XL-pianos. But whenever I try one of the newer AcPianos, after 15 minutes I switch back to the simple Steinway Concert Grand. I am afraid I am so used to it, that I cannot adopt to anything new. Lack of transpose-setting saved with presets? No problem, I am using iMidipatchbay. Lack of sustained sounds when switching to a new sound? No problem, I use the morph function with the wheel. Lack of modern brass or sax samples? No problem, SampleTank or bs-16i from iPad will do. Certainly, I would love to have all the new functions and additional RAM of a Nord Stage 3, but having to change all the programming of Setlistmaker and/or iMidipatchbay which I use to switch the Nord for me does not justify the replacement. But switching to a pair of K8.2, like cphollis did, is very tempting... Maybe with those monitors I would begin to enjoy the quality of the newer AcPianos? Today I am using Yamaha HS7 and sometimes JBL EON G10.
One thing is for certain: Each additional year of age of the 2 Nord Stages I am getting ever more satisfied with these great products and their quality and durability.

[GeeDeWee]

My Stage 2 88 is still my perfect board. I play in a rock band (no covers) and love the EP's and organs. Also love the synth section, which sounds very 'organic' if you know what I mean.
Sure, the Stage 3 offers four times the amount of RAM, seamless transition, song mode and and a completely different synth section. But do I need all that? Well no, to be honest.
Two or three L-sized Grands/Uprights that I like and that vary in timbre, is more than enough for me. Seamless transition can be dealt with by using morph. Song mode maybe is nice, but Bank A with my song presets works fine.

But most important, I have become attached to my Stage 2, maybe like a guitar player becomes attached to his or her guitar. It seems to me Clavia just makes instruments where even keyboard players can become attached to (maybe more than a lot of other board from other brands). That's a big to Clavia IMO.

[magpie85]

I still regularly use my NE3HP at church. Its such a blast and when I moved to a new church the congregation were blown away by the addition of my Nord to the band mix. I love the B3 organ (even though I can't play for toffee) and the EPs give me much joy. I prefer them over any of the other EPs I've played (Roland and Yamaha) and can play them for hours.

I will forever be thinking about getting a new board, but until my situation changes such that I have expendable income I'll keep loving my NE3HP

[Rusty Mike]

The nice thing is that, while features have changed over the years, the sound set has remained constant. This has been a huge reason why older Nords are still great to play, and contributes to their value retention.

I have an Electro 4D that I gig with regularly by itself. It doesn’t have a lot of memory for the pianos, but is certainly usable. The organ and pianos sound great, and it’s a breeze to carry. It’s perfect for the duo I play in with a trumpeter, where space is very tight in the restaurants we perform.

[danrv]

My Stage 2 HA76 is only 3 years old so ‘new’ for me. Also glad to have the HA action on a 76.

[someclevername]

I bought a Nord Piano (original) as I needed a "piano" in a hurry and couldn't afford anything bigger. A few months later a Nord Stage 2 came up at a price I could not refuse. I love them both and I don't see a lot of reason to upgrade to the newest ones.

The only feature I want that I don't have is seamless patch changes. For the life of me I cannot work out why it took so long for this feature to become standard, Yamaha I'm also looking at you. It's so useful yet the only keyboards I can see that could do it 10 years ago were the Kurzweil PC3 series and Korg Kronos.

[stiiiiiiive]

Kurzweil K series instruments have featured that since the nineties.