NORD STAGE 4 officially announced for February 16th 2023

[spalding12]

I'll be curious about the enhancements to the vibrato function. On the NS3, there were global settings, and I found I could either set it for the natural sounding vibrato I wanted on an acoustic instrument sound, or the wilder vibrato I might want on a synthy sound, and it was frustrating that I couldn't specify the setting individually in different programs for the sound at hand.

which is dumb in 2023 because memory is cheap
and quite frankly when someone's willing to spend $5800 on a keyboard that same person would spend $300 more to have three times the memory

As analogika said, the kind of memory Nord needs to work the way it does is not cheap. I doubt that raising the (already very substantial) price of the NS4 by $300 would get us anything like three times the 3 GB (2gb piano, 1gb sample) memory that's in the NS4.

no one wants to have less than a full quality sample installed because of memory limitations

You can have the full quality sample of any piano (and then some)... you just may not be able to have the full quality sample of ALL of them. The way most companies deal with this is by not continuously coming out with new large piano samples you can load into your old instruments. That's a good way to make sure nobody ever runs out of space!

2 GB of piano samples is reminiscent of keyboards from 20 years ago

. Also, the underlying software architecture might not support addressing more than 2 GB, it could require a complete rewrite/reengineering of the system. Also, you need room inside the board to accommodate the extra circuitry. Everything looks like a no-brainer until you're the engineer trying to do it.

Everything you say is true
but it's been six years
this is 2023
everything is updated in a nanosecond these days
the fact that they arrogantly don't change things that need to be changed makes no sense
I don't want to hear about only 40 people working at the company
hire a bunch of high school students to do it as a project
that's not even a joke
you can't give people outdated electronics and memory in 2023
you say they'll sell everyone they make
I say they won't
they'll stay afloat
until they don't
this is a forum of mostly fan boys (and girls)
but in the general population you will see in the coming days if people are going to be best off
and i predict THAT will have its repercussions financially for them
time will tell
I'm interested to see what all the youtubers will say

[spalding12]

Nord is not innovating anymore - they are matured, like old wine. The Grand is pretty much a gussied-up Piano. There is nothing NEW on it, save a better, outsourced keybed.

Nords are the best digital keyboards out there but you will pay a premium for that quality. Nord is the way to go if you want a variety of interesting and decent acoustic pianos.

Agreed
but it would be nice to be able to load all of them at their full resolution
at the same time
2023
or at least more than you could six years ago
or for that matter, 12 years ago
that's not good
no matter what the excuse may be
the fine wine analogy doesn't cut it with me
not for my $6000

My post was more a kind of insider, addressed to Gambold

[Winds]

So far I do agree that the NS4 seems more suitable for owners that do not currently own a Nord and considering to get their first one, or more for studio use. Live use I guess could be good depending on the situation and user.

However for users like myself that tend to use multiple patches, and have a strong need for setting patches in order, with the removal of SONG mode, I'm extremely likely to not consider a NS4.

[mozart999uk]

Just curious. Some people have been mentioning a possible price drop in the future. Is that something that happened with the NS3? Is it worth waiting before ordering? 6 months? 1 year?

I had a stage 3 88 on order but UK supplier has just confirmed that they wont be getting any more in now.

I don't recall prices dropping after the initial Stage 3 release but some retailers did offer "open box" units for less. With the Stage 4 priced significantly higher, I think resale value for Stage 3 models will stay strong for some time.

[spalding12]

Opinion: so far I'm not blown away by the videos. All of the artists are incredible players indeed, but most of the videos are focused on sounds that earlier Stage models could easily create.

[maxpiano]

There was no keyboard 20 years ago that had nearly that much. Or even 10 years ago, except for Kronos (which as maxpiano put it, is a " "PC in a keyboard chassis"). Even today, there are no Yamahas or Rolands (though Roland emphasizes their modeled V-Piano rather than large sample sets). Dexibell only recently broke 2 GB with the new S10, their previous boards maxed out at 1.5 GB... which they still boasted about because, in fact, even that was still more than most of their competitors. The S10 has 3.2 GB, so that's now about the same as the NS4, since the S10 has one memory pool for all of its samples (instead of the 2 GB for piano section, 1 GB for other).

BTW, to get an idea of what the kind of memory Nords use costs from other musical instrument manufacturers, here's a Yamaha memory expansion board that uses the kind of memory needed... $139 for half a gigabyte. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... lash-board . Now, if it were built in from the start instead of an expansion board, it would presumably be less... and it might (or might not, as analogika said) be cheaper to do it now than when they designed those boards years ago. But just to use that as a starting point, if you wanted to triple even just the piano memory from 2 GB to 6GB at that rate, that's over $1100 more. Would it be less if built that way today? Probably. Would it be 75% less? I'd say probably not. Also, the underlying software architecture might not support addressing more than 2 GB, it could require a complete rewrite/reengineering of the system. Also, you need room inside the board to accommodate the extra circuitry. Everything looks like a no-brainer until you're the engineer trying to do it.

Hmm...the Kurzweil Forte had like what 3.5 GB? Don't remember when it was released exactly but IIRC way before NS3. And then it had 16GB non user loadable Flash, like a ROM

I think a good combo personally.

If I remember well Forte "Flash play" actually used SSD streaming, so not the same type as Nord more similar to Kronos. Anyway it was not such a successfull product afaik.

[Al_DeKlein]

I pre-ordered the Stage 3 to replace my Stage 2 in early 2017. I pre-ordered the NW2 to replace my A1 in early 2020. I am very happy with this combination and use Song mode for the Set List function. Although I do like the side-chain "pump" compressor effect, I don't see anything else in the Stage 4 that would compel me to purchase it. The move to the NW2 Layer architecture was something I was hoping for as it will allow for more design flexibility going forward. I would only be interested in the Stage 4 if it could replace my current two board setup, maybe sometime in the future-

-dj

[spalding12]

Opinion: so far I'm not blown away by the videos. All of the artists are incredible players indeed, but most of the videos are focused on sounds that earlier Stage models could easily create.

that was my point above
it's kind of embarrassing
I mean they touted these videos as if they were going to be something important and different
and while they are wonderful and show off the quality of the instrument
just like the keyboard has given us very little new stuff of importance.... neither have the videos
so odd how Nord does things
odd probably isn't the right word
i'm sure we can all think of a better one

[analogika]

Another important novelty in the management of Nord Stage 4 is the introduction of the PRESET LIBRARY, given the greater complexity in the structure of the sounds it is possible to create separately for each section: ORGAN, PIANO, SYNTH of PRESETS containing your favorite settings, so that their recall can be speeded up by programming the keyboard or even during a performance.

This is huge. For me, one of the weakest aspects of the NS3 was not being able to save piano and organ sounds individually. Say you come up with a great Rhodes sound (via effects, EQ, etc.) and you wanted to routinely use that Rhodes sound in conjunction with other sounds in various Programs. There was no way to save that sound in a way that it could easily integrate it when assembling new Programs.

Exactly my thoughts! Instead of recreating all my maybe 20 different split programs that used a double bass in the left zone as identical copies but with an electric bass I could now just create those 20 splits once and change the left hand sound on the fly using the Synth Presets? That would be great.

I have a program where I have Hammond on one split, and Wurlitzer on the other. For several pieces, I need to quickly switch off the Wurli and switch on the synth, and occasionally switch back as quickly. Using a different program is not an option, as that resets the Organ drawbars and delay settings, as well.

This is currently not possible on the Stage 3 without some acrobatics.

This layer switching is *exactly" what I need.

[lucasdmacaluso]

Proud owner of a Nord since I was 16, mowing lawns all summer & bussing tables at a restaurant so I could afford an Electro 3HP, here to say--

This is complete bogus. None of us, as enthusiasts for this company, should consider buying this synth for this price. This is a lazy renovation that does not feel like six years in the making. The creation of a Nord Sample Library 3 without backwards compatibility for the Stage 2 owners was a big blow to the value of these synths, and now if they chose to inevitably stop making Sample Library 3 samples, to drive us to purchase their baseline $5000 "memory upgrade", I'm out.