Along the lines of what others have said, no, the Nords can't do exactly what those other boards can do; in fact it's rare that ANY board does exactly what some other board does. Even the Nord Stage 3 doesn't do everything that it's little Electro 6 brother does. But whether it can serve your particular purposes equally well is a different question.Roty34 wrote:I am currently in possession of a Korg Kronos LS and a Yamaha Montage 7, managed by Camelot pro IOs...Can the Stage 3 (76 or 73) and add possibly a Nordwave 2 (or other controller) do exactly the same job?
Roty34 wrote:my groups are pop / rock cover (piano, organ, brass, strings, synth). I don't use sequences but samples, a lot of splits (although I think I will have to change my working method)./quote]
Overall, Nord Stage 3 will be better at organ than Kronos than Kronos/Montage. Kronos/Montage will be better at brass and strings than NS3. Kronos will be the strongest of the three for synth functionality, but the Nord will be the strongest of the three for real-time synth control. NS3 will be weakest at splits, in terms of how many sounds you can split at once, more freedom in terms of which kinds of sounds you can split in what combination, and being able to assign more precise split points.
If you're simply trying to duplicate what you're doing today with lighter gear, Nord is probably not the best choice. There are other lightweight boards that are closer in functionality to the Montage (like Yamaha's own MODX7), and there are also other lighter boards that are arguably closer in functionality to a Kronos, at least depending on which aspects you emphasize (you could find a Korg Krome EX 73 or Kurzweil PC4-7 or Roland FA-07 to be closer to a Kronos than the Nord is, depending on how you look at it). The reason to get a Nord Stage 3 is that you're willinng to trade-off some of the things those boards can do because you want some other advantages that are specific to the Nord, like more/easier immediate hands-on controls, better organ, the ability to easily load your own samples (and process them through synth parameters), a very large range of different kinds of piano sounds you can download into it, etc.
ajstan wrote:This looks like the perfect question for @AnotherScott, but here are a couple of ideas:
- The MODX7 could replace your Montage 7 at a significantly lighter weight and I believe it can load and play all Montage 7 programs. The MODX does not have aftertouch.
- The Korg Nautilus could replace your Kronos, but I'm not sure how well it plays Kronos programs and what the differences are.
Yes, Nautilus is a strong contender for "Kronos Lite," -- my only reservation is that the 73 is only 7 lbs lighter than the Kronos LS, so the weight savings, while certainly noticeable, is not as substantial as these other options. But yes, if it crosses the threshold to "light enough," that's another viable alternative for sure.
Aftertouch is hard to find in a lightweight multi-function board. You're right that the MODX doesn't have it, and also neither does the Nautilus. That's a nice feature on the NS3. Of the other alternatives I mentioned, only the Kurzweil has it. It's one of the things that prompted me to mention it.
