Nord User Forum

Hi there. I have a Nord Piano 2 with probably less than 40 hours total use - never gigged and I'm the original owner. I had the knocking sound and tried the felt solution. I thought I had it licked - it sounded fine when the top of the the piano wasn't secured, but once I tightened it all back up, the knocking sound continued in the C4 to C5 range (primarily the E4 and A4). This isn't me, but it's the same noise, a knocking sound on the key return in the same octave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUHPvHwYB9M).

I did email Nord, but I didn't get any response at all. Does anyone have any other ideas for stopping this noise? I originally purchased this as a piano for gigging, I have another Yamaha Stage Piano (and a backup for that) for daily practice. I have owned a CP33 and have played it for four hours a day for 12 years and have had to replace the felt and one key on it, but it plays silently. Of course, the Nord sounds are far better, but the knocking sound drives me crazy and renders it useless.

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere on the forum (I did search before posting). Thanks for your time,

Brian

Hey guys, I'm getting this noise on my middle c now. It sounds exactly like the video in the first post. My unit is 4 years old but I barely touched it for three of those years. I just now started getting back to it and within a few weeks it has started. there's a bunch of pages to read through, but I wonder if since 2019 anybody else has had this problem or is there any official fix for it? Thank you

Well I read the full thread. Maybe I can get clavia to send me the felt. If they don't, I guess I am done with them as a business.

I want to add that I went through three Nord electro 3 73 units a few years back. Sweetwater of course is awesome, they took two returns until I finally got one that had an even key bed - literally the height of each key was different. I suspected that something might have happened then their warehouse because two of the boxes were damaged. However in light of this thread I'm thinking now maybe they just have crap quality control at Clavia. So anyway, I have no problem fixing something like this myself. I encounter harder problems in my daily life living on a boat. The thing is though, I expect them to make this right by going out of their way to send me replacement felt. Yes the unit is 4 years old, but it falls below the serial number threshold mentioned in prior pages and has very light use. Therefore, this is clearly a design flaw. If they cannot deliver on that simple requirement, I am absolutely never going to patronize their company again.

Try to contact the US distributor - you may do it via the Clavia Nord support page or directly: https://www.nordkeyboards.com/distributors.

What, even with a 4-year-old unit? Actually I think I bought this one from Kraft music. I wonder if they are as good as Sweetwater in terms of support

Edit: oh yeah I already emailed them yesterday American music and sound

OK well the fix is a $27 strip of adhesive backed felt with part number AMS-40647 - can be found from a few places like Sweetwater, FullCompass.com, instrumentparts.com.

Has anyone actually gotten one of these? If so, I'm wondering just how thick is it. I'm certain I can find a comparable strip for a few bucks. Some of these sites have some crazy markups. Like a fuse that you can get from digikey for less than a buck - for $14

You have an expensive instrument that needs a simple, cheap fix that you can do yourself. If I were you, I'd shell out the $27 for the real McCoy and be done with it.

Felt does not only consist of some external mesurements. It's a question of material and mesh, too. If ever you want even handling of your keys, you might also need to change it for all keys.

FZiegler wrote:Felt does not only consist of some external mesurements. It's a question of material and mesh, too. If ever you want even handling of your keys, you might also need to change it for all keys.

Correct, the fix is for all keys - the strip runs lengthwise under all of the hammers. Although I doubt how important some aspects are for the LOWER felt, which is the problem here and which only serves to absorb the energy of the falling hammer.

lawman wrote:You have an expensive instrument that needs a simple, cheap fix that you can do yourself. If I were you, I'd shell out the $27 for the real McCoy and be done with it.

Agreed - I actually moved ahead with purchasing because I considered the chance that I'd have to experiment with depth since this probably will affect how the hammer behaves, possibly with consequence to the ability to retrigger a key within a certain amount of time (which is supposed to be one of the features of the TP/40 keybed). However, AMS got back to me and said that Nord wants to replace the strip for free after all. So that's cool of them, and my opinion which was about to be negatively reinforced is looking up They never know if a customer has a lot of disposable income (I do), so it is a good customer service move on the part of a company to treat all customers with equal care. Lately I have encountered so many companies who have very short-termed thinking when it comes to customer service. I am pleasantly surprised! I like to see things handled the way I handle my own business. So many reasons to be happy this third week of January.

For what it's worth, I will report back with measurements in case this issue is more difficult to handle in the future. You never know how the world will play out.

Just for the records, my Nord Piano 3 has no key knocking noise issue, but the seller had to send me three units to reach this result.