Piano sounds worse on my Electro 6 than my old Electro 4!

[manaje]

I too am a "four to sixer" on the Electro. I didn't notice a change in pianos but I did and do still notice a change in the B3 sound, and it's not for the better.

I spent a bit of time doing online research and getting into the E6 system settings to try and get back that sound I liked - but I wasn't successful. Nord must have changed their organ engine in a fundamental way. They also eliminated the 9th drawbar off during percussion feature which is just malign.

I recently bought a Crumar Mojo Desktop and it sound acres better than the Electro on B3. Electro still kills as an acoustic piano. Maybe my next Nord will be a Piano 5....

It sucks for us loyalists who've been using their products for upwards of a decade, only to be shafted when we want to upgrade and Nord has quietly changed certain sounds that some of us have been using for sooooo long. I get it, they feel like they're just improving and upgrading things, but when it comes to a specific sound (not a hardware feature or parameters etc), people can easily get attached to a sound and it can become completely integral to their production or performance (which the E4 Grand Upright Piano was for me). Many musicians I know only have certain keyboards for just a handful of sounds that they go back to for a lifetime. How Nord simply overlooks this is beyond me. lol I can't stop my complaining, still so frustrated!

[maxpiano]

I too am a "four to sixer" on the Electro. I didn't notice a change in pianos but I did and do still notice a change in the B3 sound, and it's not for the better.

I spent a bit of time doing online research and getting into the E6 system settings to try and get back that sound I liked - but I wasn't successful. Nord must have changed their organ engine in a fundamental way. They also eliminated the 9th drawbar off during percussion feature which is just malign.

I recently bought a Crumar Mojo Desktop and it sound acres better than the Electro on B3. Electro still kills as an acoustic piano. Maybe my next Nord will be a Piano 5....

It sucks for us loyalists who've been using their products for upwards of a decade, only to be shafted when we want to upgrade and Nord has quietly changed certain sounds that some of us have been using for sooooo long. I get it, they feel like they're just improving and upgrading things, but when it comes to a specific sound (not a hardware feature or parameters etc), people can easily get attached to a sound and it can become completely integral to their production or performance (which the E4 Grand Upright Piano was for me). Many musicians I know only have certain keyboards for just a handful of sounds that they go back to for a lifetime. How Nord simply overlooks this is beyond me. lol I can't stop my complaining, still so frustrated!

I read the same type of discussions when Yamaha issued Motif/S90 XS and many said the Motif/S90 ES were better sounding, fatter etc... even when playing exactly the same samples and Voice, which is probably true but somehow inevitable when some HW technology change happens (and many kept and still keep their Motif ES for that reason, which is absolutely OK imho)

[GuyTilde]

Yes but I've done my best to provide actual audio evidence for the difference in the sound. Don't you hear a significant difference between the Mono Electro 4 sound clip and the Mono Electro 6 sound clip? Both are relatively level-matched and are dry other than a touch of Nord Hall reverb. To me it's a night and day difference.

Hi.
I agree with you that the difference is big between the samples of the 6 and the 4. The 4 sounds more intimate, jazzy and the 6 more cut-through.
Of course I believe that you tried a lot of things, maybe equalizing ("soft") in the Piano section, with a little treble boost in the global Equalizer section to brighten the sound a bit? It's astounding how a bit of equalization can drastically change a sound. Unfortunately knowing what frequency to boost or to lower is kind of black magic.

[Gambold]

I confess, I'm laying the groundwork to leave Nord when I do my next primary board upgrade. The move from the Electro 4 to the 6 was not the revelation I'd hoped it would be. In many ways it was a lateral move - there were a few things that were improvements, a few things that were setbacks, but it mostly was the same board. What did not change was any ease of use with the presets, the nature and size of the screen, or any useful hardware features like USB audio or XLR outs.

Given that the upcoming Stage 4 is being priced so high that only institutional buyers can afford it, I won't be going there either. So I recently bought a Crumar Mojo Desktop which I'm now learning, with the plan to hook it up to my next keyboard - which won't be from Nord. Probably Yamaha. Maybe Korg or Kawai....a lot will depend on the keybed.

I haven't seen any indication from Clavia that they are moving forward in any significant way. Their customer service is poor, their communication non-existent, and their product schedule seems to have frozen in time. It was a lot of fun, but Nord is going to lose a customer. I'm sure I won't be the first or the last.

[maxpiano]

The move from the Electro 4 to the 6 was not the revelation I'd hoped it would be. In many ways it was a lateral move - there were a few things that were improvements, a few things that were setbacks, but it mostly was the same board. What did not change was any ease of use with the presets, the nature and size of the screen(...)
It was a lot of fun, but Nord is going to lose a customer. I'm sure I won't be the first or the last.

Well, if you say you didn't notice the nature and size of the screen change between NE4 and NE6 (not to mention multitimbrality, split and seamless transition)... yes maybe for you it is time for a change, as apparently you need something radically different than the current Nord product line.

[Rusty Mike]

I certainly can empathize with a lot of the frustration here, and have had an itch to upgrade my Stage 2EX for rehearsals/gig. The challenge is in trying to find a replacement that checks all the boxes. I know those boxes are different for each of us. For me, in somewhat order of importance:

1. Weight - under 30 pounds definitely, but the closer to 25 the better
2. Quality of the piano sound - while the Nord sounds are very high quality, I've been struggling lately with small sound nuances in the piano samples. Some of it is me and my tinnitus
3. 76/73 keys - No need or desire to carry an 88
4. UI/UX - something intuitive and easy to work with
5. Keyboard action - no need for world class action, as I'm not good enough of a player to tell the difference. Plus it's exclusively for live use and I feel nuance takes a back seat in most cases. But it has to be of decent mid-grade value or better
6. Reputation - I may want to sell it in the future and don't want trouble finding a buyer

I've also resolved myself that I'm 99% piano, so other sounds are much less important for this use case.

That makes for a very short list of contenders. Some have already been crossed out:

• Numa X Piano: had one here for a few days and spent about 6 hours with it. Checks boxes 1, 3, 4, 5. The TP110 action is certainly tighter than the TP100, but still similarly heavy feeling. I could live with that though. The UI is crazy good, and it's a very flexible architecture, with a few niggles. However, the pianos sound brittle and artificial to me, and are not sounds I can live with. It also came with 6 non-working keys, so I'm a little spooked about quality. I'm guessing it would also be tough to resell here in the US because Studiologic is not a popular brand.
• Crumar Seven/Seventeen: I love the retro look of both of these and they do fit the weight criteria. But, the acoustic piano demos I've heard sound funny in the lower registers, a bit too artificial. They also still use the TP100 action, so no upgrade there. The UI is just a bit awkward and I think they would be very hard to service and resell as they are not well known in the US.
• Dexibel: very similar to the two above in many regards.
• Yamaha YC73: Too heavy and too organ forward. The piano sample options are very small compared to its CP brother.
• Stage 3 HP: Not a significant enough improvement over my Stage 2EX. And I have absolutely no use for the synth section

That really only leaves the Yamaha CP73. It checks pretty much all of the boxes, albeit being a tad heavier than my Stage 2EX HP. I was put off when it was first introduced as it had only Yamaha piano samples. The latest OS update added a Steinway for a different sound profile, along with a few more pianos with character. I would just have to get my head around carrying almost 29 pounds of instrument.

NAMM is in a few weeks, so I'm going to hold tight to see what might be introduced. I highly doubt the next Electro will be introduced anytime this year, so as not to steal the Stage's thunder. There is also no guarantee that Nord will move to the TP110 action anyway, and even if they did they still might tinker with it. If Roland comes out with a 76/73 version of their RD88, that will be worth a look. If nothing looks good, I'll order a CP73 to test.

[cphollis]

@rustymike, I know you're trying to stay at 30 lbs or less, but the NP5 checks all your boxes at the "cost" of being 34 lbs. You said you're 99% piano. That means I'm pretty sure you will like this board as I do!

[Rusty Mike]

@rustymike, I know you're trying to stay at 30 lbs or less, but the NP5 checks all your boxes at the "cost" of being 34 lbs. You said you're 99% piano. That means I'm pretty sure you will like this board as I do!

Don't mean to derail this thread. I'll get back on the Electro in a minute.

I appreciate the advice Chuck, but it's a non-starter. Seriously breaks Rule #1

I carry my entire rig (keyboard, stand, speaker, bag-o-cables/pedals) in a single trip. Right now, it's at about 61 pounds total. The Piano 5 is 7lb. heavier that the Stage HP, which puts me close to a 70-pound load. I'm in good health, but I'm 62 and not getting younger. Adding something that heavy will require me to rethink the way I lug this stuff.

Big band is a different vibe from pop/rock setups. With the exception of the drummer, 16 people carry their stuff in one trip. The elapsed time between in-the-door and downbeat is no more than 15-20 minutes. Half that at the end of the night. Quite often I'm out the door before the trumpets.

Brings me back to the Electro. I love having a piano action in a 25-pound package, and still think the Electro 6 pianos sound clearer and better defined than the Stage 2EX (just did another side-by-side comparison this morning). I owned an Electro 4 before the 6, and can't really recall a major difference in the sound quality between the two. While I'm still not happy about Nord's arbitrary Drawbar 9 cancel hubris, the Hammond emulation sounds great to me, and I appreciate the extra features of the E6 over the E4.

I also agree that the HP action is sloppy and noisy, and I'm not sure I want to buy another product with it, despite being used to playing it, particularly in a live situation. I'm not sure it's any better or worse than the Balanced Hammer action on Yamaha's CP73, which I hope to try out to tomorrow afternoon. If NAMM yields nothing new and exciting and I can't connect with the CP73, maybe I'll give the Electro 6HP another consideration for a while.

[Gambold]

>yes maybe for you it is time for a change, as apparently you need something radically different than the current Nord product line.<

Well, I'd like to see some evolution in product lines that have been more or less the same for decades. They dumped the organs so you'd figure/hope that we'd have seen something other than the same Stage/Electro/Piano models which really don't change much, despite years of waiting for updates.

There is no question that Nord has the best piano samples. At least to my limited testing. I haven't played the newer Yamaha stuff but I've written off Korg, Roland and the rest as just not as good. But my needs extend beyond just awesome acoustic piano samples. Those are great, but in a performance environment other things help too. Like:

--XLR outs. Ok, I can use the DI box but it's yet another thing to not forget and carry around. And there have been not a few times where the "sound guy" has struggled.

--A decent, updated, and easy to use preset system for performance. This would include a larger screen with dimming capacity and maybe even (shudder) color. Even more radical - a preset interface to IOS so I can make selections there and not on the chiclet buttons.

--The ability to split the keyboard with the same class of sounds - i.e. Piano and piano, sample and sample, organ and organ. Also the ability to pick my own split point, thank you very much. Why I can't do this after 6 versions of the Electro is beyond me.

--USB audio. Call me needy. And call me old-fashioned, because it's 2023 and Nord still hasn't "discovered" this.

--Wireless. This is a bit of a reach, and I can live without it. But if not wireless, then a way to use IOS devices with the Sound Manager or Sample Editor. I mean come on, let's get off the PC, Clavia.

--Did Mr. Nord's daughter marry a Fatar? Are they permanently wed to this company until the sun finally runs out of hydrogen? It's just a question. I'm not as sore about Fatar as some are, but again - it all speaks to a lack of evolution on Clavia's part. Same old same old.

--Better MIDI. The Nord is seriously flaky with the Crumar Desktop. That could be partly my own inexperience with using MIDI but I keep having to restart things to get connections to stay active.

--Another color. Ok, I had to thrown it in there, even though asking for this one is a hanging offense. But offering instruments in a couple different case colors wouldn't break the bank. Black, silver, white...why not.

--Accessories that aren't impossible to find, and when you do, aren't priced like bottle service at a Caribbean resort.

--An end to memory being an issue. This may be too expensive but how about 10GB on every keyboard and we can load all the XL samples and forget about all the downgraded ones we get stuck with using.

[Arjan P]

--An end to memory being an issue. This may be too expensive but how about 10GB on every keyboard and we can load all the XL samples and forget about all the downgraded ones we get stuck with using.

The memory on Nords being an 'issue' has nothing to do with cost but with the memory architecture within the Nord. I've had it explain to me by a customer rep in the past and can't exactly recall, but Nords apparently have a unique memory setup that is radically different from other brands. I have no clue how that could be changed - or if it could be changed at all, while still keeping the advantages of the setup (that must be there, otherwise they wouldn't have designed it like this)..