Nord User Forum

[Meggia]

For the past 9 years I’ ve been using a Nord Electro 3 on stage, in association with a keyboard for piano and sinth sounds. Since I own a Hammond C3 (which I no longer carry around due to the weight), I really miss a 2 manual organ.
I have sometimes thought of a Hammond skx since it has an extra voice section, but honestly it has very poor organ sounds in my opinion. Nord Electro surpasses this by a lot. Now I wonder why Clavia doesn't produce a C2d with piano voices plus a few extras ! Hoping that our fantastic swedish friends don't decide to leave the C2.

[eibinger]

Hi Meggia, I really understand what you mean.
But please be aware: The newer Nords are not always the better Nords!
I have a hammond, too and I had (4 times) a hammond sk1. (btw: In combination with a neo-ventilator the hammond sounds great)
And I changed my Nord Electro 5d with a Stage3-compact. Result: the organ sounds worse and the leslie-sim sometimes sounds like a vibrato.
The electro-sound had been warmer and I had to improve the hammond-sounds in the stage3 for a long time.
So please expect no wonder if a newer Nord-Organ would be offered!
I would look for a piano-midi-module or perhaps an iPad/iPhone-app.

[Meggia]

Thanks Hlaalu for pointing me to the right topic. As expected, no one knows what the future of C2D may be. For sure a Nord Electro dual manual could solve these problems too. Science fiction ? Perhaps Clavia has no interest in such a solution.
Thanks Eibinger, I heard a lot of people saying like you :
“the Nord Stage 3 organ sounds worse especially in comparison with the NE6”. This is the reason I haven't bought a Stage 3 yet.
A midi-module could be useful if connected to the NED to get a richer palette of sounds. There remains the question of a 2 manual keyboard ,that a hammond player often cannot do without. Unfortunately, Die Frankfurter Musik Messe will not take place again this year. However, I hope for important news from Clavia.

[FZiegler]

Maybe not important, but Musikmesse Frankfurt was postponed for October, 22-24, not cancelled.

[Meggia]

Thanks Fziegler for the news. Right now I'm reading that this event will take place in parallel with the international Buchmesse. Finally an awakening of culture and commerce after the Covid-induced lockdown. Since we will all be vaccinated, Clavia will certainly celebrate this return to normal life with a new release.

[anotherscott]

For the past 9 years I’ ve been using a Nord Electro 3 on stage, in association with a keyboard for piano and sinth sounds. Since I own a Hammond C3 (which I no longer carry around due to the weight), I really miss a 2 manual organ.

A possible solution...
This is much lighter to carry around than a dual-manual would be, and the keys are almost as close to each other as they are on a dual manual. That's a Vox Continental on bottom, with most of its controls covered, since for this kind of use, you don't need access to those controls during live performance. There are rubber stoppers under the front of the Nord, so that the Nord's weight doesn't rest directly on the controls of the Vox so as not to risk damaging them. I did leave just the very lowest part of the Vox's top panel accessible, just for patch recall. I've set up those buttons to be able to recall the Vox sounds I prefer to the sounds in the Nord (not its organ sounds!), and one button is set up with a silent sound, so all I have to do is hit that button and (since it's a Stage) the Dual KB button on the Nord, and I'm in 2-manual-Nord mode. Getting/adapting the right stand is an important part of it, too. But it does produce a very easily transportable 2-manual Nord, with the additional advantages that the Vox has a particularly nice feeling action, and a bunch of really nice sounds of its own. For example, I like its EPs and brass better than Nord's. And if you were pairing it with an Electro rather than a Stage, it would give you additional functions you don't have in your Nord, like monophonic lead line synth sounds with portamento and a pitch bender. It's a very lightweight board, available as either 61 or 73. There are other lower tiers you could come up with, but I think this is an especially nice one.

[Spider]

Since we will all be vaccinated, Clavia will certainly celebrate this return to normal life with a new release.

Not to quench your optimism (and go off topic), but I seriously doubt that by October any significant part of the healthy, sub-60 population will be vaccinated. 2021 will still be a year of waiting and patience and online concerts and trade shows, maybe in 2022...

[anotherscott]

Nord has never been about maximum tweakability, and I don't see that changing. A multi-contact emulation could be feasible. But I don't know how many people will pick a Hammond over a Nord (or Mojo or Viscount) for that alone. BTW, the cheapest 2-manual Hammond with multi-contact is the XK5+XLK5, totalling $4900 and weighing quite a bit as well. I expect that they will put the multi-contact feature in a more portable and lower cost 2-manual board at some point, but who knows when, or what it will cost.

[anotherscott]

BTW, the cheapest 2-manual Hammond with multi-contact is the XK5+XLK5, totalling $4900 and weighing quite a bit as well.

That's because so far it is the only one.

It's also in the A3 configuration, and an even better implementation is in the B-3 Mk II which uses 9 actual contacts.

Regardless, the real point is that, at least near term, at its price, any dual manual Nord is not likely to find itself going up against any dual manual Hammond that has multi-contact simulation.

3 physical contacts for the XK-5 and just the use of velocity (standard 2 contacts) for the SK Pro. At least this is what it seems from the early info that's been circulating. And while one could rightly argue that physical contacts are more realistic, the huge advantage of velocity based multicontact simulation is that it relies on an existing (and cheap and light) hardware. In theory a simple firmware update could backward-implement the trick for any older standard 2 contact keyboards too.

The problem with using straight velocity for this is that velocity in a 2-contact system is completely undeterminable until the key is depressed past the lower sensor... which means you lose your high trigger function. That's why I don't think this is strictly a 2-contact-velocity-based thing. If velocity is involved (which I don't think we know for sure), there is still probably some other kind of calculation (or randomization) going on.

The problem is that the SK Pro is new and I think nobody yet knows whether its multicontact emulation could turn out to be a feasible compromise, or whether one really needs physical contacts for it to sound good.

Just from the demos I heard, I expect it will be a nice feature.

[anotherscott]

The A-3 is the XK-5 plus the XLK-5.

Close. The A3 lower manual is slightly different from the XLK5. But it is functionally identical, it's a cosmetic difference. (In the tradition of old Hammonds that differed only cosmetically, like B3 vs C3!) I suspect you need the A3 lower manual if you intend to mate it with the A3 base, but I'm not sure.

The B-3 Mk II is a monster, but it's now old and I guess its core sound itself has been surpassed as clonewheel technology was improving. Also, considering it costs more than a real Hammond

I think that institutions (e.g. churches) may prefer to buy a new B-3 MK II than a used "real" (tonewheel) B3 that would come with no warranty and a likelihood of some amount of on-going maintenance, even if the latter saves them some money up front.