Nord User Forum

Let me start by saying that I LOVE Nord products and, overall, am their biggest fan. Been using 'em for over 20 years. Having said that, I REALLY wish the company would acknowledge and address the problem of the contacts getting dirt (or whatever) on them and causing velocity issues or dead notes. It's happened at least 5 or 6 times with my NS2 in the past 3 or 4 years. The standard response is "It's a Fatar keybed just like many other keyboards out there...blah blah blah". The problem is that I've owned dozens of Rolands, Yamahas and Korgs thru the years and never once had a dirty contact or bad note issue with them. I have a 20-something year old Roland XP-30 that I still travel with on the road and never have to worry about a bad note on that old dinosaur. There HAS to be something in Nords' construction that allows the contacts to be exposed to junk. Just tonight I noticed my C# below middle C exhibiting a weird velocity issue. My afternoon tomorrow will be taken up taking it all apart and cleaning it off.....once again. Sorry to come off so negative here, but I just wish this achilles heel could be remedied. Such incredible instruments. Peace of mind is SO important when you're a traveling musician on the road and show up to do a throw-and-go festival.

Already had that problem with my brand new NS3C... One upper F# key was acting up then it started working again... Piece of dirt or something... Hope it doesn't become a issue... Although it's still under warranty... I Would hate to open a 6 month old expensive board...

100% agree. My first Electro 5D SW61 has a faulty note straight out of the factory. Returned.

The next one was fine for about 18 months then the 'third' sensors on some of the keys stopped working properly. On top of that, Sound Technology refused to sell me a replacement rubber sensor strip because this would mean the board was no longer properly calibrated. They'd only sell me the full circuit board with the strip attached which was about £150 from what I remember.

I tried to fix it with some rubber strips I found online, it's ok but they are not the exact match to the faulty ones. Those keys are now slightly stiffer.

Huh. Interesting. Anecdotally, my Electro 2 73 hasn't had an issue in fifteen years, and my Stage 2 compact didn't either in the four years I owned it. My Stage 3 compact has been fine in the 1 1/2 years since I bought it.

Seems that there different advices about Nord contacts...

In my case i always had problems whith all my Nord , 2, 2EX, 3compact they have the same contacts like my three old Roland D50 having the same problem..

Nord should contact .Fatar to take care of that !

Like Analogika my Electro 2 73 has had no problems in the 15+ years I've had it, nor has my 18 month NS3C. Fingers crossed that stays the same

Interestingly, when I used to tour with the Circus of Horrors back in 1995-2002 with my Kurzweil K2000 (which is still working after 25+ years!) I used to have to open it up and clean the contacts (which were similar to those in Nord's keyboards - Kurzweil used Fatar keybeds and appropriate contacts too), after every tour!
Mind you, we used to have smoke machines going off every 15 minutes in the show, not to mention the finale, which had the whole stage full of people waving fire torches!!

I currently gig (using the NS3C) in fairly dust (and smoke!) free environments, so I'm wondering if anyone who's having these keyboard-contact issues regularly plays at outdoor festivals or other locations where there may be a fair amount of dust or smoke flying around...

All you have to do is a YouTube search for something like “Yamaha Keybed clean” (or Roland, etc.)... DOZENS of results, with hundreds of grateful responses. Not buying the “Nord is worse” narrative here.

Just another experience, I have had 5 Nord keyboards since 2011, Electro 3, Wave, NS2, NS3 and A1 and never had a single contact issue with any of them.

-dj

Since owning my first Electro 2 in 2004, I've been opening my Nords to clean dirty contacts. The dirty contact issue usually develops immediately following a gig at a smoky venue. Do you smoke, or do you rehearse/perform where smoking is allowed?

I'm not into not buying Nords ... love them and update them across the years !

Never had any problem whith yamaha DX7 since 30 years ago, used in the same situations ,( maybe hard ...)
Not the same type of contacts !
Just tired to open and clean contacts