The Nord Piano wishlist

[Boatguy]

MIDI controllers for basic control of external DAW and boxes.

Balanced outputs.

[AlexVA]

Definitely want the Ivory feel keys -- very disappointed they did not include those on the Piano 3.

[Boatguy]

1) Ditto on the ivory feel keys, plastic is too slick.

2) The program banks are setup entirely backwards, an artifact of some long gone board; organizing the five keys into positions x1-x5 in the four program banks makes no sense. There should be five program banks, each with forty programs, corresponding to the five quick access program keys (aka Live keys). Holding down the "1" key and then twisting the knob to go through all the items stored in x1 is crazy. Why not have Bank 1 which contains all the programs accessible by the "1" key and then I can just twist the knob to go through all those programs, with one hand!

3) We should be able to rename sounds/sample files. The factory names are inconsistent (just look at the naming of the 8 factory e-pianos) and make poor use of the available display space.

4) I agree on the Balanced outputs (why require yet another external box).

5) I also agree on the need for some basic DAW controls (which of course could be standardized as a panel across all Nord boards).

6) The NP3 should have used USB 3.0. The marginal cost is nothing on a $3,000 board and the performance improvement is huge. It's absurd to have to sit there for 10-15 minutes to download a large piano. And if the issue is flash memory which is slower than USB 2.0 (a definite possibility), then they should have used faster flash. The beauty of the Nord instruments is the flexibility of moving pianos / samples in/out, but it needs to happen in a reasonable amount of time. Of course the third solution would be to just add more storage. It's sorta of weird that the minimum on an iPhone is 32GB and the NP3 is touted as a break through with 1GB. By the time the NP4 comes out an Apple Watch will have 8GB.

But now we'll have to way for the NP4 which history suggests is at least 3yrs from now...

[hernan1304]

3) We should be able to rename sounds/sample files. The factory names are inconsistent (just look at the naming of the 8 factory e-pianos) and make poor use of the available display space.

Pretty sure you can do that through sound manager (I could be wrong, but I remember deciding recently to not rename the sounds because then I wouldn't remember which sound on the library it corresponds with).

[hernan1304]

I just bought an expression pedal to use with my NP3. Weirdly you can control Effects 1, but not Effects 2 with it. I would like the option to control all the 'effects' sections with the expression pedal, ESPECIALLY the amp section. For example, playing some White Stripes using an e-piano (think something along the lines of "I just don't know what to do with myself"), I wish I could go from a clean sound to distorted in the heavy parts, and back again. So controlling the amp section with the pedal would be awesome. Seems like an easy add, and an odd omission. Maybe even could be addressed through software and I could set it using the Pedal menu?

[derrellpiper]

Mostly what boatguy said, though the instant voice switching imposes memory requirements that I understand. I think it holds enough samples but it really should have been USB 3.0 and I'd like the ivory keys too.

[Synthnut]

The wish! Nord dumps Fatar!

[derrellpiper]

Ivory keys. I'm pretty satisfied otherwise.

[Synthnut]

There is nothing more awkward than a real piano player trying to play a 73 or 76 note keyboard with E for the low bass note, what guitar idiot decided this is what the low note on a more portable piano should be??? transposing either end just makes it worse! piano players need those lower notes---- C to C= 73 note is perfect, and intelligent transposing would now work as well, wow! imagine that!
Nord, please have the balls to consider/implement a change in what a 73 note board SHOULD be.

Maybe this should be posted on the Stage and Electro wish list!

[michael_C1]

It's been said already. I'd love to see a far better action than Fatar makes on an instrument this expensive with such great sounds. Yamaha, Kawai and Roland produce their own actions, why can't Clavia do the same, or else have an action made to their specs. I'm assuming it wouldn't be cost effective, but one can hope.

I'm likely in the minority, but I like the Yamaha GHS action which is fairly light just fine, more than I like the Fatar TP40. That action is in Yamaha's 'bottom of the line' P series digital pianos starting at $450. That's crazy! But of course the sound is nothing much.

People can argue that the TP40 is better than the low end Yamaha actions, but compared to the Fatar TP100 (which is in the Nord HP's), the lowly Yamaha GHS action is so much better it's ridiculous. Currently, I midi up my Nord Electro 5 to a Yamaha P35 and while it's not ideal it's pretty good.