New Nord Electro 6

[jacowannabe]

Most appalling thing about the Electro 6, compared to the 5:

They've taken away the setlists; and replaced it with something called "Pages" ... which basically boils down to the contents of the memory banks being displayed in groups of four. They say "there are 8 memory banks, so you can use pages to build setlists of sorts within the normal memory banks - one page per song, which is sort of equivalent to how you can work on the E5", but it's not the same at all (if the people at Clavia are explaining it right). If you want to use a standard piano in, say, 10 of your songs you have to make 10 copies of the same piano patch and place each copy on its own page ... then when you realise "my standard piano has a bit too much reverb" you have to edit all 10 copies.

On the E5, you edit the sound in ONE place, and the edited sound appears in every song that includes that patch. Way superior to the new way.

I'll be keeping my E5, thank you.

[ericL]

Most appalling thing about the Electro 6, compared to the 5:

They've taken away the setlists; and replaced it with something called "Pages" ... which basically boils down to the contents of the memory banks being displayed in groups of four. They say "there are 8 memory banks, so you can use pages to build setlists of sorts within the normal memory banks - one page per song, which is sort of equivalent to how you can work on the E5", but it's not the same at all (if the people at Clavia are explaining it right). If you want to use a standard piano in, say, 10 of your songs you have to make 10 copies of the same piano patch and place each copy on its own page ... then when you realise "my standard piano has a bit too much reverb" you have to edit all 10 copies.

On the E5, you edit the sound in ONE place, and the edited sound appears in every song that includes that patch. Way superior to the new way.

I'll be keeping my E5, thank you.

I'd be really surprised if it works that way and Nord would take a step back in terms of taking away the ability to set "pointers" to various programs. Maybe the name of the thing has changed, but can't imagine them causing someone to make 10 copies of a sound and so forth. They've got a couple of years now of the OLED display between the NE5 and NS3, so I'd hope this is an evolution that may even be more flexible/usable than the prior versions. I'll check it out at NAMM and see how it works.

[jacowannabe]

Most appalling thing about the Electro 6, compared to the 5:

They've taken away the setlists; and replaced it with something called "Pages" ... which basically boils down to the contents of the memory banks being displayed in groups of four. They say "there are 8 memory banks, so you can use pages to build setlists of sorts within the normal memory banks - one page per song, which is sort of equivalent to how you can work on the E5", but it's not the same at all (if the people at Clavia are explaining it right). If you want to use a standard piano in, say, 10 of your songs you have to make 10 copies of the same piano patch and place each copy on its own page ... then when you realise "my standard piano has a bit too much reverb" you have to edit all 10 copies.

On the E5, you edit the sound in ONE place, and the edited sound appears in every song that includes that patch. Way superior to the new way.

I'll be keeping my E5, thank you.

I'd be really surprised if it works that way and Nord would take a step back in terms of taking away the ability to set "pointers" to various programs. Maybe the name of the thing has changed, but can't imagine them causing someone to make 10 copies of a sound and so forth. They've got a couple of years now of the OLED display between the NE5 and NS3, so I'd hope this is an evolution that may even be more flexible/usable than the prior versions. I'll check it out at NAMM and see how it works.

I couldn't believe it either, thought they had just renamed it - but as weird as it seems, this is the way it was explained by the people from Clavia.

[anotherscott]

I hate to say it, but I could imagine Nord removing the Set List functionality, because my feeling from posts here is that it was one of the things that most confused people about the 5, and Nord is very much about maximizing simplicity rather than maximizing functionality.

[hammondking]

Gain vs. Volume.... Hate to tell you, but they are both volume controls - it's just that one of them is stored in the preset, the other is not. This allows you to boost the "gain" (actually, volume) of a particular preset, in case that sound was quiet or you want a preset that's louder than the rest.

However, I used it in a different way. I like to leave my master volume at about 2 o'clock, so that if necessary I can crank it during a solo or whatever. Depending on amp settings or stage volume or whatever, sometimes I need to send a hotter signal to the amp or PA, which I could do with the Gain (this is only really applicable for Live presets, not stored presets). I do like to have that extra control as necessary.

I guess it just gets more complicated in the NE6, with 3 separate gain controls, to replace the master gain and the U/L fader on the NE5. I am not a big fan of the U/L fader, so I would probably welcome the change, but I can see how it might make my life more complicated in some cases.

[ericL]

It could be that many users did not have a use case for a Set List with multiple programs per Song, so this idea of "Pages" with pointers for Programs seems to be basically the same thing except they call it Pages rather than Songs. Maybe? Just a guess.

[jacowannabe]

I hate to say it, but I could imagine Nord removing the Set List functionality, because my feeling from posts here is that it was one of the things that most confused people about the 5, and Nord is very much about maximizing simplicity rather than maximizing functionality.

I had no idea people felt that way about it. To me it's _the_ thing that makes the E5 a fantastic live keyboard. An E6 without setlists feels like a downgrade from the 5 to me, regardless of the other improvements.

[jacowannabe]

It could be that many users did not have a use case for a Set List with multiple programs per Song, so this idea of "Pages" with pointers for Programs seems to be basically the same thing except they call it Pages rather than Songs. Maybe? Just a guess.

No, the pages don't contain pointers. Pages are just groups of 4 patches in the internal memory banks, displayed together.

[anotherscott]

I had no idea people felt that way about it. To me it's _the_ thing that makes the E5 a fantastic live keyboard.

I could be wrong, it's just an impression I had.

An E6 without setlists feels like a downgrade from the 5 to me, regardless of the other improvements.

Well, at least you can get (I think) all the benefits of the E6 and still have the setlist function by upgrading to the NS3 instead of the E6. But yeah, it is irritating to lose things in an upgrade. It was irritating to lose clav EQ on the NE5. It's irritating to lose some of the organ settings if you upgrade from the NE5 to the NS3.

[cgrafx]

I guess it just gets more complicated in the NE6, with 3 separate gain controls, to replace the master gain and the U/L fader on the NE5. I am not a big fan of the U/L fader, so I would probably welcome the change, but I can see how it might make my life more complicated in some cases.

Not more complicated, Less complicated. One volume/gain control for each section that is stored with the preset (organ, piano, synth) and one Master (just like before) that controls the overall output of the NE6.

So now instead of trying to balance sound through the Upper/Lower mix when you want more of the piano or synth or organ, you can raise or lower each one individually. Much more intuitive to have separate volume for each section rather than a convoluted mix knob.