Nord User Forum

[jimmyjam]

This has been quite an odyssey; I first had a velocity problem last fall (2022) with the D above middle C, and went in and did the "clean and swap" as described earlier in this thread (such a helpful post by intuit!). I cleaned and swapped the rubber contact that included the D with the one at the very top; the D4 worked fine (for a while), but the one I'd switched still had the velocity problem - it happened to be the highest D. But I considered it a success since I rarely play up there.

Then I started having the problems I mentioned in my previous post: The middle C was getting stuck, and the D above it had started to have the same velocity problem as before. I thought it might be good to try the solution a couple others have - getting a whole new PCB to replace the current one.

So I open it up and find the craziest thing with the middle C - it was getting stuck in the felt pad! Somehow the metal part of the action had opened a gap in the felt - I'll try to post a pic. As a stop-gap (literally), I cut a piece off the end of the strip (it goes the whole length of the keyboard) and glued it in, and that seemed to do it.

Then I replaced the PCB with the new one, and it's working beautifully. The tone and touch seem to be much more consistent with this new board - the original actually had different touch between the black and white keys (I thought I was making that up until I tried it with the new board and heard and felt the difference).

Short story long, if you're having any issues at all with velocity or unevenness in tone, I highly recommend getting the new board. Kawai apparently says it's a significant improvement over the first one, and I can attest to that. You can find it here:https://www.synth-parts.com/en/products/chassis-casing-units/big-units/6413/kawai-rh88b-pwb-assy-kkb-044-2?c=0

I'm far from a mechanical genius, so I can attest it's very doable, especially with the pics from intuit's post. I'd be happy to help anyone through it - I did take some pics.

Of course, there's the issue of why a $4k keyboard should have any of these problems; obviously it shouldn't. But imo there's nothing else like it - action, sound, looks - so I'll stick with it and hope this solves things.

[natfrey]

This is my first post. Thanks jimmyjam for your post on replacing the PCB, glad to know it worked for you. I'm going to go ahead and replace the whole board on my Nord Grand instead of fussing with just a cleaning that might not solve the problem, or just solve it for awhile. And thanks for this link to buy one in the E.U.: https://www.synth-parts.com/en/products ... -044-2?c=0

My question: Does anyone know an online supplier in the U.S. to buy this same part?

I need one for my Nord Grand, as 5 black keys in the middle range are peaking out constantly, totally dominating the other keys, pretty disappointing as the instrument is now out of warranty. I've been procrastinating doing the fix, in the meantime often switching to Acoustic or Classical Guitar, as those instruments don't peak out noticeably! But I miss the pianos, the superb piano sounds on the Nord Grand was the whole point of shelling out the bucks in the first place! I don't do gigs, so it's not vital that everything works right now, but you'd think it should considering it's a pricey Nord.

[ziozeus]

It's been 2 years since I did my cleaning and swapping and now some new and differenti keys in the middle octaves are starting to show the problema again. At the time I bought two stripes of grey (old version) rubber contacts, probably among the last left to be found in wharehouses around the world (found them in Englandf) but I now decided to go for the full pcb which at the time we here in the thread weren't sure about it beeing suitable for the nord grand. Now in synthparts the Grand is clearly shown in the compatible keyboards list together with all his kawai brothers. Better late than never. Also in these years I have seen it going out of stock many times in that website. Guess they are making good money with that item.
What is strange about the grand pcb is that the code on the original mounted one is the one of the updated replacing pcb while the rubber strips are the old grey ones. Seems like kawai gave some kind of Frankenstein object to clavia at the time. Or maybe they were working on it and had to update the rubber still.
Fact is that kawai now stress the fact that grey rubbers are not working good with the new pcb and in fact they only sell the whole pcb, no more spare rubbers (like others manufacturers still do).
See the point?
And I still love her

[ziozeus]

I put the new PCB.
Everything works fine.
Definitely the touch is harder (and less dinamic?) than before. Not sure I like it but I'm getting used to it.
Tryed to "see" the values generated with pianoteq. Harder to reach 127 values while playing. This confirms at least a shift towards lower velocities is happened (i checked some time ago with the original PCB so I can compare by memory now).
I'm on 1.54 firmware. More than before I wouldn't want to move to newer firmwares.
Anyway, this is the GRAND for me now.
Still a great pleasure to play don't get me wrong, just wanted to report for others the better and more rational infos that I can.

[jimmyjam]

Welcome, Natfrey - This has been up for a while, so I don't know where you are; but I've had my new contact pad(s) in for a few months now, and they're working great with pretty much daily playing. It is strange that there doesn't seem to be a distributor for it in the US, but I've not found one. I don't know if you saw the thread on the felt, but I also had to replace that, and got it from the same place. Great inventory, but of course a little slow if you need it right away - though I never asked him for expedited shipping possibilities, which there might be.
It still rankles me that we have to mess with this on such an expensive keyboard; and I still don't know whether it was just a bad batch that went through at some point or a fundamental design flaw - it seems most don't have the problem. But the fix is there.
If you haven't installed it yet, do heed the several warnings to be absolutely sure to get all the connections back together the same way! A couple of them are tricky, but one hair off and you'll need to open it up and do it all over again (the connections, that is - the pad itself goes in pretty easily).
Happy to answer any other questions based on my experience.

[FZiegler]

Thanks for the tips jimmyjam and everyone else who's shared their experience with this hot key (LOUD key!) issue on the Nord Grand. I finally got around to ordering from synth-parts in the UK and swapped out the two PCBs. It was tedious but not terribly difficult. After screwing on the two replacement units under the keys and tightening nicely, I placed everything back into the case and pulled down the top cover. Before tightening the rest of the many, many screws on the outside, I thought I'd first do a quick sound test in case I messed up with one of the connectors and maybe find no sound at all or something. I was glad to hear clear notes ringing through the headphones and that the old hot keys were now good. But what a bummer to find NEW hot keys, about 4 white keys in the mid-range!

But wait, there's a good ending. I decided either to sell the piano as is at a huge loss, or I could swallow my indignation for Nord (the hot keys started shortly after 1 year warranty expired) and pay professionals to repair it. Either way, I needed to tighten all the remaining screws for shipping it away safely. I did so and after placing it back on the stand, thought I'd plug it in again and relive my grief of hot keys slashing the inner ear. It blew my mind that now all the keys were perfect! Tightening up all the final screws on the outside somehow removed the hot keys! I feel like I'm discovering the Nord Grand for the first time all over again, such beautiful pianos in the thing.

To summarize: swapping out the two PCBs was not too difficult, just heed the warnings and helpful tips on this forum. Observe carefully how the old board comes out to help you put the new one in.

Important: You may have hot keys if you test the Nord Grand before tightening all the outside screws! I hope it works for you, and thank s again to all the helpful contributors to this forum.

[geeimcee]

I had this problem with a Nord Piano 2.
I took it apart and cleaned the pressure pads and reassembled the unit. The problem moved to other notes.
I marked the affected notes and exchanged the pressure pads with some in a part of the register seldom used. This solved the problem.

[JeffLearman]

Evidently there are two unrelated problems here. One user above said the problem went away with a firmware upgrade. That would be specific to Nord products (and maybe to his specific product.)

The other is a common problem. This can happen on just about any modern keyboard that uses silicone rubber contact switches with "carbon pill" contacts (which is all of them, as far as I can tell.) The good news is that it's an easy fix, especially on Nord keyboards, which are amazingly easy to open up and disassemble (at least, the Electro 2 and Stage 2 that I opened up were. Nord Grand not quite so easy.) The procedure is shown in pictures in an excellent post above. It applies to all Nord keyboards (at least, the details when you get to the contact switches. Getting there will differ somewhat between products.)

Each key has two or three contacts (three for piano keyboards with "fast repeat" feature.) The time between top (or middle, with fast repeat) and bottom switch closing provides the velocity. If the top switch doesn't close at all, and so only the bottom switch closes, the note is played at full velocity, on many (most? all?) keyboards. (If I were designing it, I'd pick velocity 64 or maybe 80. But nobody asked me!) If the bottom contact is bad, you get no note at all.

There are Youtube videos on how to fix these. The first step to try is to just get to the contacts and clean them with a pencil eraser, or Q-tip and alcohol. If that doesn't work, try swapping with a neighboring key and if the problem moves, just buy some new carbon pills.