Nord Stage 4 - Keybed and Synth Section

[christianjwagner]

Hello together,
yesterday I picked up my new Nord Stage 4 HA and here are my observations:

Keybed Action

I ordered a Stage 4 Compact and went to the store (Thomann - they usually have everything stock ) to pay and pick it up. While the guys from the warehouse were processing my Stage 4, I saw that they had a Stage 4 HA 73 standing around for trying. I decided to kill time and tried it out and was immediately blown away. I was always tempted to get a HA version but always feared that the Piano action would be too tough for me (Organ, Synth). For me, the HA works great. It's piano action, quite crisp and immediate but not overly heavy. If the triple sensor is a game-changer I don't know as I have no real reference, but I was surprised that i easily managed to perform some decent organ and synth play. I called the store manager over, cancelled my order immediately, they called the warehouse to pull my Compact back and got the 73 HA on the spot. Additional 300 EUR spent. So what! Hope I don't regret it.

Synth Section

The Nord Wave 2 engine is still a kind of head-scratcher for me. I got used to the quite intuitive way of the NS3 which I still find appropriate (selecting waveforms and a modulation source, i.e. an additional bell or other waveform sound). I am still struggeling to find out an efficient way to get from the section out what I want from it, I guess there is a learning curve, Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's see. In any case, the visualizations of e.g. filters or the envelope is quite useful, however, to figure out how things work together will still require some efforts and I still feel kind of lost.

Any comments / remarks on these topics?
I know there is a lot of topics ongoing and I didn't want to spam the forum with the same topics again and again, but I didn't find a dedicated discussion on the keybed and synth and so decided to open this up. Hope you're not mad at me.
Rock on!

[ericism]

I agree that the synth section is not very intuitive

[M_a_c]

Well... I have the NS4_73_HA also (2 years now) and love the keybed and especially its feel too... There ARE some things missing in the SynthSection from the NS3, but I learned to work with the given options and sampled some of the NS3-stuff, that i cannot simply recreate... After years of searching for ONE key for my stages, I seem to be arrived...


Well - sometimes / in a few cases I add a masterkeyboard (no engine - just keyboard) for organ / synth in form of the Roland VR-09, Fantom-06 or A-800 for some special gigs above sometimes... I like the VR-09-keybed for faster organ shreds...


I had the NS2C and the NE6D61 with the waterfall keybed - a real great keybed with its own character. But it went like in your case - once I played the NS4-HA keybed, I didn't want an other... I thought, I would use Piano and others sounds 50:50, but it shows, I like the Piano-feeling more - even for lots of synth-stuff... I really just would like to test / "tase" the current NS3-HA keybed - just to know, if the NS4-HA is really that improvement as it appears...

But again the messanger said: deep in their heart and soul all keyboardists like to have a hammer-keybed below and an organ-/Synth-one above...

[anotherscott]

I agree that the synth section is not very intuitive

I think some things may be less intuitive than on the NS3, but other things are more so. I like the move away from knobs where the middle point is "off" and then it does one thing or another depending on whether you turn the knob clockwise or ccw from that point. Also, I find the obvious access to the three typical envelopes (Oscillators, Filter, Amp) more intuitive than the NS3's two envelope approach ("Mod Env" and "Amp Env").

But it went like in your case - once I played the NS4-HA keybed, I didn't want an other... I thought, I would use Piano and others sounds 50:50, but it shows, I like the Piano-feeling more - even for lots of synth-stuff...

Yes, I think synth stuff is often preferable on hammer action. Maybe you lose some speed, but you gain better velocity control. But for me, it has to be the compact just because of the weight of the board!

[M_a_c]

... but for me, it has to be the compact just because of the weight of the board!