Nord at NAMM 2023

[Gambold]

Smooth jazz on a $6000 digital keyboard! A "booth" that is more like a sign! A dutiful, but kind of sullen, Pablo Mastodon!



As far as I could tell, the Nord booth this year is a Stage 4 with a big Nord banner. I haven't seen any other videos showing anything else. For you Americans out there (you know, the ones with all the money in the world) - a Stage 4 88 will set you back $6,066, assuming the national average 6.44% sales tax. Pedal, case, and music rest not included.

Oh, and for those who said Clavia was just getting organized and would clean up the sound library mess by NAMM - nope.

[Gambold]

Ok, there IS a booth - with several keyboards. No way to see what they are, although we can assume aside from the Stage 4 there will be a Piano 5, and Electro 6, and maybe a Nord Grand.



I presume the nerdy guys playing these boards with headphones are vendor purchasers - because, uh, I was under the impression that retail customers, private music teachers, sports bar musicians and the like were not allowed entry into NAMM; one has to be associated with a music business to get in.

So no doubt that guy in the brown jacket in the lower right of your screen will be putting in an order for 100 or so Stage 4s for Alto Music or Sweetwater. Certainly he's not just a guy noodling around, even though it kind of looks that way...

UPDATE: he's a net repair technician for Foxconn, a company that has nothing to do with music. I guess it's not what you do, but who you know...

[PScooter63]

Why all the bitterness and harsh speculation based on what you had been negatively projecting? Why not ask people in attendance?

P.S. congratulations on your preorder for the NS4! It will not disappoint.

[Hlaalu]

P.S. congratulations on your preorder for the NS4! It will not disappoint.

Is this my English misfiring once again? Did he say he preordered a S4?

[Rusty Mike]

I was not expecting anything more than a Stage 4 showcase event from Nord. They do not release products quickly and have rarely surprised at this show. I know the Wave 2 was a NAMM reveal a few years ago, but things are kind of different now.

Other forums are also talking about the overall letdown of NAMM this year. The industry is still recovering from the COVID disruption, Internet reveals have become a thing and the original purpose of NAMM (for retailers to make their annual business deals) is really a bygone practice. It’s become more of a social event than anything else. I used to go in the early 80’s because I worked for a retailer, and remember very well what it was like in the pre-Internet days.

And yes, sometimes getting there is about who you know. I managed to nab a ticket in 2012 thanks to American Music and Sound, and had absolutely no business being there other than wanting to see the new toys.

As with most things in life, expectations typically lead to disappointment.

[Gambold]

My "bitterness" and "harsh speculation" is founded on my perception that Clavia is on a slow burn to irrelevance and, eventually, a dead business. I haven't seen anything in the past few years to convince me otherwise. True, complaining on this forum won't change anything, but at least my bleatings land on actual ears that care about Nord and its products. Nord itself doesn't respond to emails or phone calls about anything anymore, so expressing concerns directly to them would be about as effective as sending up smoke signals from the fire pit in my backyard.

Usually the response to complaints or criticism is "go shop somewhere else." This is a variation on the old "love it or leave it" retort that some people think is an appropriate reaction to a disgruntled long-time customer. Well, it's not. When you've spent as much money, time and love on Nord instruments as most of its customer base has, those customers have the right and obligation to complain or point out problems as they see them.

Certainly those problems can be debated. I don't have a monopoly on the truth and who knows, maybe Clavia is doing the best job possible with marketing and developing their product line. So why slam them at NAMM? Because all the problems are there in one package. No new products except one hugely-overpriced keyboard (about which most Stage 3 users seem less than thrilled). Someone playing the same tiresome soft jazz that Nord seems to think most of their customers play. A general sense that this is a company whose heyday is in the past, and who don't have a plan for the future.

I for one don't like living in the past. But that's where we are all increasingly finding ourselves, when we talk about Nord.

[tsss27]

As Mike says above I think NAMM overall is not what it used to be. I've never been, but even just from checking out videos over time, in the past new products were often revealed at this event but now companies just release stuff whenever they feel like it. The upside of this is you often don't have to wait until NAMM to find out what's new, and you can sometimes obtain the gear sooner as well. But it does make the NAMM show a lot less special than it used to be, for me.
And yes, there are still companies releasing new gear at NAMM...it's just generally not the major products. Yamaha released their CK series early, Nord released the Stage 4 early, Roland, Korg and Sequential have just been releasing things whenever they'd like, etc.
So aside from the Wave 2, have any of the relatively recent Nords actually been anounced at NAMM itself?

[Gambold]

>As Mike says above I think NAMM overall is not what it used to be.<

Having never been to one, I can't say. One could also suggest that maybe NAMM overal isn't what it used to be for Clavia customers, and not necessarily the music industry as a whole. Last year Clavia showcased keyboards that were five and six years old (not counting the Nord Piano, which appears to be the one model that gets steady upgrades).

This year, well, they have the Stage 4...not exactly a market maker or a board that's going to bring in the kids or newbies. It's like going to a car show and seeing that Cadillac has one $80,000 car, and that car itself is not hugely different in terms of engineering or technical advancements from the one that preceded it six years ago. Were this the actual case, think most people would say that Cadillac was on the way out.

[docbop]

My "bitterness" and "harsh speculation" is founded on my perception that Clavia is on a slow burn to irrelevance and, eventually, a dead business. I haven't seen anything in the past few years to convince me otherwise. True, complaining on this forum won't change anything, but at least my bleatings land on actual ears that care about Nord and its products. Nord itself doesn't respond to emails or phone calls about anything anymore, so expressing concerns directly to them would be about as effective as sending up smoke signals from the fire pit in my backyard.

Usually the response to complaints or criticism is "go shop somewhere else." This is a variation on the old "love it or leave it" retort that some people think is an appropriate reaction to a disgruntled long-time customer. Well, it's not. When you've spent as much money, time and love on Nord instruments as most of its customer base has, those customers have the right and obligation to complain or point out problems as they see them.

Certainly those problems can be debated. I don't have a monopoly on the truth and who knows, maybe Clavia is doing the best job possible with marketing and developing their product line. So why slam them at NAMM? Because all the problems are there in one package. No new products except one hugely-overpriced keyboard (about which most Stage 3 users seem less than thrilled). Someone playing the same tiresome soft jazz that Nord seems to think most of their customers play. A general sense that this is a company whose heyday is in the past, and who don't have a plan for the future.

I for one don't like living in the past. But that's where we are all increasingly finding ourselves, when we talk about Nord.

I was one of the one's saying the new Nord Stage 4 is more of an update than a Upgrade and frustrated. Then I watched Jack Duxbury's latest video on it and have totally changed my mind about the Stage 4 there is a lot of change, but most are subtle but to a working musician wanting a keyboard designed for making changes in a live setting or creating quickly in the studio are great. Nord's problem is their first videos of the Stage 4 were just feature lists that didn't sound like much until a video like Jack's showing how to put them to use.

So am I going to buy a Stage 4 88 no too pricey for me and overkill for the things I do, my Stage 3 is good enough for me.

I'd say anyone really wanting to know the benefits of the Stage 4 check out Jack's video

[Mrniceguy76]

I agree with Gambold.

NAMM is definitely not what it used to be and Clavia either. Clavia is not competitive anymore. 6000$ is waaaaay too much for a board. I know there will always be "rich" people who can afford it but lets face it the value you get with NS4 does not worth 6000$. Sound libraries are the same...

Clavia will continue to make plenty of Nord Session videos to promote the NS4 to gain as many profit as they can. My opinion is that instead of spending money for these Session videos they should have done more developments on new boards and IMPROVE/ENHANCE THE FRICKIN' SOUND LIBRARIES lol.