Stick with Nord?

[ChoppedTop]

I love my Electro 6 Sw, but was thinking of upgrading to a NS4.

Its quite a bit more expensive but i like the idea of layering up sample sounds and having the ability of 3 way split on the keyboard.
On the other hand, to find Nord have 're done' the website and it seems lots of older samples are no longer available, why should i stick with them?

The library sounds, for me, leave a lot to be desired. Most are pretty much useless. I like the pianos but still no decent Hohner pianet or cembalet. Organ sounds are bad so i bought an Hammond XK5.

I've just had to help out a fellow user with some RMI samples which are no longer available. It just disappoints me so much i no longer want to spend my money buying Nord.

Maybe i should look at Roland products?
Feel free to comment and correct me

[FZiegler]

For the Pianet sample, I sent you a PM.

[catosim]

Hi

In the “Electro world”, the Nord samples are necessary for usage of the instrument since it hasn’t a synth-section.
When using a Nord stage (3 or 4) the synth-aection is just as important and handy as the sample-section, and is an important part of the sonic capabillities of the instrument. The NS4s fx-section is massive and adds so much snacks to the sound.
Mostly, when building programs, I’d say two of the tree slots I use the synth and maybe one slot contains a sample.
If your main-purpose is to use samples then maybe a stage isn’t the right choise?

[cphollis]

It gets down to personal preferences. If I were a "preset surfer" (someone who relies mostly on stock sounds) I'd probably be playing Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Kurzweil or software instruments. Lots and lots of useful presets.

But I'm not a preset surfer, instead I like to tailor sounds for the music at hand. The Nord's workflow lends itself to that: a library of great unprocessed samples, plus the tools to shape/layer them to your liking. The Nord presets are more examples of what it can do vs mainstream sounds.

You can do a bit of sample shaping and layering on the NE6. You can do a BOATLOAD MORE on the NS4: more samples, more filtering, more FX, more layering with other samples and synths, more morphing, etc. Let's take horns? You can mix three different horn samples -- combos or solos -- and easily specify different velocity, filtering, FX and morphing for each one.

And that's before you add synth horns to the mix, or a nice organ bed behind them -- and so on.

The more time I put into discovering what the NS4 can do, the more I like the sounds. I accelerated the process by buying a bunch of presets from someone who does this for a living, just so I could see how they got the sounds. It saved a lot of time.

I also stand by my opinion that the Electro has always been the gateway drug for the Stage.

[harmonizer]

I use both a Roland FA-07 and a Nord Stage 3.
The Roland FA-07 is not their latest and was not their greatest even when I bought it, so it's unfair to compare the FA-07 to the Stage 3, but I'll offer my thoughts anyway.
For me the Stage has much better sounds for AP, EP, and Organ.
But my Roland FA-07 has far superior capabilities for splits and layering - I can have up to 16 parts active at once in a "Studio Set".
These parts can have low and high split points down to the granularity of any specific key, and each part can be transposed any arbitrary amount - I use this to enable me to make multiple notes sound (a chord) when a single key is pressed. It's crazy how good the Roland FA-07 is at this, and I know that Nord is never going to provide similar function (I don't blame Nord - I know that what I do is not normal).
The other thing I like about the Roland FA-07 is its large collection of sounds in its expansion libraries. Many of them seem unimpressive when you first try them but later you realize how incredibly useful they can be for weird sounds you might need when covering odd-sounding parts in some well known pop songs. These are all rompler based (not a synth) but you can do a lot of useful things with it.

Other Roland boards that are newer than the FA-07, or that are their top grade product, might have better AP, EP or Organ sounds than the FA-07.
These other Roland boards might not have the same splits and layering capabilities as my FA-07, so you would need to check the details of how they work, but in general I would expect most Roland multi-purpose boards to be better at splits and layering than the Nord Stage 3 or 4.

[glombi]

I fully agree to the latest post. NS4 73 and Fantom 06 here. I was also considering the 07 for my new coverband. The organ in the Fantom was sufficient for my needs. But in the end I decided to go with the "instrument", not the "workstation". Actually I'm a little bit ashamed to own the NS4, regarding my limited abilities. But it simply feels better...

[M_a_c]

The library sounds, for me, leave a lot to be desired.

I erased 80% of the internal programs and leave only the (for me) genius ones.
With that I erased also simply all "not perfect" and for me unsuitable samples (also 80%).
But don´t get me wrong - this is a very personal perspective - Nord did a great job.
I just have subjective requirements...

...that can be fulfilled with the NS4. Tweaking Samples, creating sounds and samples makes my day.


I came for the ROLAND-Universe to Clavia.
Layering 16 Parts indipendent with different Midi-Ch(!), Volume, FX and output on the ROLANDs
is far from reach for other manufacturers (even Yamaha makes such programmings not that simple).
With that the Pitch-/Modulation-Lever is genius and these keys a unique "Roland"-Touch.
If you´re looking for a perfect layering tool, the ROLAND will surely make you happy.

The NS4 ofers this great and direct access, that it seems like an extension of my wants and meanings under my hands.
But I nearly sampled all of my great Roland-Sounds from D-50 over XP-80 to Juno into the Nords, to stay happy.
This is why Clavia offers this nice Sampling-Options.

This ROLAND-Layering concept is implemented in the XP-Series in the 90ies(!)
and has been incorporated into their Synths to this day (and improved).
If you are talking about the FA-06 today, the Fantom-06 is a great instrument too
and even the Juno-DS is not much worse.

Again, I´m this preacher that can write again:
We "keybordists" want to have different keybeds for different sounds
and a Hammer-key below with anOrgan/Synth-Key above...

[Gambold]

The library sounds try to be all things to all players. I'm pretty sure most Nord users don't actively play more than 1% of them, but those are "their" 1%. For some players its strings, for other synths. Some want horns or one-offs like accordions or harmonicas.

At some point as a performing keyboardist, you have to make what I call The Choice. Are you going to play piano (or organ), or are you going to be a sound effects machine, who imitates any instrument or synth sample depending on the song or the request of the band?

Those who choose to be sound machines will state that they are giving the people what they want. Well, maybe. The people generally aren't paying that much attention to the nuance of the keyboard player's sound choices. I think that when we start downloading samples or creating patches to sound exactly like some synth part used in a Flock of Seagulls song, we are doing it because the band expects it.

I guess at that point I'd ask myself what would Jimmy Smith or Keith Jarrett do? Probably tell the band to live with the part being played on a Hammond or a Rhodes.

[Winds]

The library sounds try to be all things to all players. I'm pretty sure most Nord users don't actively play more than 1% of them, but those are "their" 1%. For some players its strings, for other synths. Some want horns or one-offs like accordions or harmonicas.

At some point as a performing keyboardist, you have to make what I call The Choice. Are you going to play piano (or organ), or are you going to be a sound effects machine, who imitates any instrument or synth sample depending on the song or the request of the band?

Those who choose to be sound machines will state that they are giving the people what they want. Well, maybe. The people generally aren't paying that much attention to the nuance of the keyboard player's sound choices. I think that when we start downloading samples or creating patches to sound exactly like some synth part used in a Flock of Seagulls song, we are doing it because the band expects it.

I guess at that point I'd ask myself what would Jimmy Smith or Keith Jarrett do? Probably tell the band to live with the part being played on a Hammond or a Rhodes.

This is quite true. Your right choice will depend somewhat rather you just need some better patches, or a pure sound effects machine. For myself I'm more of the latter so people tend to depend on me because they hope I can output something that sounds ideally similar to whatever is in the setlist. The Nord Stage 3 has worked well for me in this regard.

But since you mentioned about organs, I will safely assume if say you need it for some church gigs, perhaps you can try look at other brands. I'm not much of an organ player, so I can't comment much on this area.

[M_a_c]

I guess at that point I'd ask myself what would Jimmy Smith or Keith Jarrett do? Probably tell the band to live with the part being played on a Hammond or a Rhodes.

... when it comes down to the giging Stage-Keyboarders choice - without requirements of others - it´s gonna be a Piano, a Hammond or a Rhodes...

That´s the reason, why Nord-Keys became famous!