Nord User Forum

Hi, does anyone have any experience with the Vox Continental BK. I’m not sure whether to get a nord electro 6D or vox continental 73 BK. They both seem pretty similar specs wise however the Vox has a modulation wheel and a better synth engine. Any advice appreciated?

Hi Dan,

I do remember that I played it one or two years ago at a large shop in Berlin and that the organ sound did not beat my electro 5. Since I love Deep Purple, no way. My personal view.

Cheers and good luck

Oh okay thanks! Did you like the action?

I must admit that I don‘t remember anymore how the keybed felt, so I thought it’s only fair that I keep my mouth shut about this. Only thing I can say is that I would have remembered if there had been strange feelings. I played for half an afternoon so it seems to have been „normal“ to me.

Cheers

Sonically, I'd say Nord beats Vox in tonewheel organ and acoustic pianos; Vox beats Nord in electric pianos and orchestral stuff like strings and brass, etc. And yes, Vox is much better as a synth, with an actual VA synth engine (not merely sample playback like Nord). I also think the Vox has the better action.

The Vox slider at the left is multi-purpose, but is usually pitch bend. When playing a synth sound, the 9 LED strips can be switched from "drawbars" to synth functions, that's where you get something more like a modulation wheel, along with filter and envelope controls. The Vox also has mono lead synth sounds including portamento, which you something else you can't do on the Nord.

OTOH, Nord advantages include: splittable outputs (you can send organ out one jack, other sounds out the other); 416 recallable user patches instead of 64; about twice as many built-in sounds; the ability to swap in different sounds from the Nord libraries; the ability to load custom samples; much more flexible split/layer function; better display, showing you your patch names etc.

Would you say that the vox would be a better decision then the nord at that specific price range in your opinion then?

Dan12 wrote:Would you say that the vox would be a better decision then the nord at that specific price range in your opinion then?

It really depends on how you weigh the differences I mentioned in my previous post. (And others, like the obvious difference between drawbars and touch sliders... and I'll also mention that operating the touch sliders can be a bit finicky.) I mean, to some people, the ability to load custom samples, or to be able to (for example) change the octaves of the sounds you're playing on each side of a split are huge benefits, while other people may feel those are things they can easily live without. (Another one I didn't mention, the Nord has an internal power supply, that makes a big difference to some people.)

If going with the Vox, I'd be inclined to look at a smartphone app to call up sounds, because the lack of a text display on the board can make it hard to be sure you've called up the right sound. Unless you're going to memorize what sound you have in what location, if not smartphone, you'd at least need to tape up a printed cheat sheet.

Personally, if I was using the board mostly for tonewheel organ, I'd lean toward the Nord for its better organ sound, its more complete set of organ controls (for things like percussion, CV, overdrive) and drawbars. If I was looking for more of an all-arounder, but didn't really care about splits, I'd probably lean toward the Vox for what is (to me) its better action and mostly better sounds (except for the tonewheel organ and acoustic piano, where the organ is probably a bigger difference than the piano, especially since piano response is one of the things I prefer about the Vox' action). Other than organ, I generally just found the Vox more enjoyable to play. But if my use were mostly tonewheel organ, I could look at it differently.

One other thing I might do if I were using the Vox is look into using it to trigger an external organ sounds, like the VB3m app that works on most smartphones. But neither the Nord nor the Vox have flexible MIDI implementations, so it might take some effort to find a way for it to work smoothly, i.e. when switching back and forth between internal and external sounds. That said, lots of people are perfectly satisfied by the tonewheel organ sounds in the Vox. So it could be you'd be perfectly happy with them as is, or might only notice a deficiency if you were actually comparing to the Nord side by side.

In the end, it all depends on what aspects are most important to you. Same as if you were to compare to a Yamaha YC or a Hammond SK, whatever. All good boards, all the right choice for some people.