I don't own a Nord Piano, so forgive me for entering this part of the forums -- just want to add my perspective to things. Apologies for the quite long post:Dave Ferris wrote:Mr_-G- wrote:Quite annoying I am sure, yet things like that happen. I can think of the Roland red glue, the Kronos keybed, Yamaha non-returning keys, DX7 wrongly implemented MIDI velocity and Roland JX10 buggy sysex implementation (the last 2 never fixed as far as I know). [...]
My first set of keys sit in an acoustic Grand Piano that I've been playing for around 40 years now. It needs some loving care from time to time (it was built some 90 years ago), but with proper maintenance, it still plays well although it's ready for a re-intonation soon. This is still my main acoustic instrument.
My next set of keys was a Rhodes 73 Suitcase model (that I regrettably don't have any longer). It had a somewhat weird and sloppy action, and the tines needed constant tweaking and tuning. It was also a beast to schlep up and down the stairs to our apartment and didn't fit well into my car at that time (and probably wouldn't fit my current car either)... Other than that, it was wonderful
Then came a brand new Yamaha upright (C-108). It plays really nicely for an upright, also after 25 years of playing, but it required several rounds of tweaking to overcome an issue with the "escapement" action that didn't feel quite right as delivered. Other than that, it's still good (but of course needs regular maintenance too).
The onto a Roland JV-80. The action was extremely light and grew very noisy over time (and still is). The pitch bender circuitry also has an "issue", so whenever I power it on, I must bend fully up and down for it to settle correctly around 0 afterwards -- otherwise the instrument doesn't play in tune... scared me a bit first time I experienced this, but the "fix" is easy once you know what it is.
The Yamaha P-150 I got next was played a lot live, and eventually the keys wore out. There is a spring that presses the keys back to the resting position, and it gradually "eats" into the plastic, so the keys start to hang a bit below the normal levels. Apart from letting you know which keys you play the most, it became a bit annoying, so I had to replace many of the keys with new spare ones. Took half a day to fix, and it still plays OK (actually someone else borrowed it two days ago as a quick replacement, when their Roland RD-600 suddenly broke just before a gig). It does have another quirk, though: Sometimes it believes the sostenuto pedal is pressed down (even if nothing is mounted). It is usually fixed by rebooting or plugging an empty cable into the plug and removing it again.
My Nord Electro 3 with SW keys (which came hereafter) has no key problems, but it's a little noisy (as it has always been). It's around 8 years and have seen a lot of playing time too, and shows no obvious signs of wear. I thought it had an issue with the swell pedal circuitry, but it eventually turned out to be the pedal cable.
Then unto my Roland RD-700NX (6 years old now). After about 3 months of playing, the surface of the keys were so scratched that I had white plastic dust on my fingers after playing it... I got the entire keybed replaced under warranty, and decided to go for keys with a more closed surface. The surface on those is still fine. The action, however nice it plays, is actually quite loud -- just tested it again next to some of the others set up here. I think it's the loudest action of the bunch.
I've very recently added a Nord Stage 3 to the family... Surprisingly, it is the most quiet action of the bunch (much quieter also than the Stage 2 EX's I've played). I like the action so far, and also the sound/key connection. It is a little on the light side, but since I've always had my acoustic Grand Piano adjusted to a light action also, it's fine. It also plays easily when alternating with the RD-700NX. I was prepared to take a compromise on the keys (to save weight and just bring the Stage 3 at 19 kg instead of the RD-700NX/Electro 3 bundle at 34 kg total), but was surprised at how well it plays. It's easy for me to control the dynamics, and I can see from transmitted MIDI data that I can use the entire velocity range with evenly distributed notes and also some close, but not all at, the 1 and 127 values.
So the bottom line: Of all the keys I own/have owned, the Nords have so far been the ones that have caused me the least trouble -- of course hoping that the Stage 3 (which has a really low serial number, part of the first batch) will be free of any hardware trouble
Obviously, the Nord Piano 3 should not have had the mechanical problem it appears to have (at least in the earlier batches). But as Dave points out, it's not entirely uncommon that other manufacturers have problems too. My impression is that Nord appear to handle the issues when presented with it (which here for those of us based in Europe usually means a free repair of manufacturing defects within the first two years) -- as Roland have done to me (but not Yamaha, unlike Dave's experience with the P-120).