Some impressions and critics

[Johannes]

... and that the stock sounds are better than almost anything else out there.

Hi Nordee & welcome to the forum!
In general, the Nord approach is a mixture of Organ emulations, the Piano Section, and A Synth based on Analog waveforms (such as , e.g., a Moog), Nord provided/User Samples, and FM.
Moreover, Nord provides a large library for both the Piano and Synth Samples, so by definition the Presets can only cover a certain range of sounds while one better chooses which Samples to install (plus with the Sample Section, to create by himself). The VA/FM sections, moreover, require as every VA some programming in order to get the sound YOU want.
Overall, the Nord Stage 2 is a rather versatile instrument, but it is no rompler, so in order to have, say, a bank with Brass sounds such as "Trumpet#1, Trumpet#2, Trombone, Tuba, Sousaphone, Brass swell, Brass unison" as it can be found on standard workstations, you will need to work with the editor, download the appropriate samples from the Nord website or other users and arrange everything to taste.
At first, this might sound complex, but once you define your sound needs, arrange everything as you need it, you have some great sounds at your finger tipps. And probably more flexible than a standard Rompler.
Just my 2 cents of course!
Cheers

[TheWeed42]

Please tell me you were just venting a little, and that the stock sounds are better than almost anything else out there.

Have no fear, the out-of-box sounds ARE better than almost anything else out there. If you haven't seen it yet, you must check out this video. These are default sounds he's pulling up.

[youtube][/youtube]

Johannes also has a good point. In order to make a keyboard really shine for your specific needs - to go from "good" to "great" as it were - you'll need to do some patch editing. Don't let that discourage you! The NS2 is the absolute easiest thing to edit. Unlike other keyboards, where you'll be menu-diving for hours to find what you want, all the controls and options are right there on the top panel. I've found experimenting with the controls to be very fun and rewarding. Notice in the video how quickly and easily Joe takes the basic Bright Grand sample and tweaks it with compression and reverb to get the Sara Bareilles sound. It really is that simple, which is what I love about Nord stuff.

[Klangwerk]

Hi,

nice video. Played well. Thanks.
#Cheers

Helmuth

[Ecaroh]

You're scaring me, JacksonP! I'm not a patch synthesist, so I was expecting lights-out, superior piano, EP and organ presets to start off with if and when I pull together the fortitude and finances to get a Stage 2. (I'm pretty close, BTW.) Drawbar tweaking I'm fine with, but not for the other sounds. Please tell me you were just venting a little, and that the stock sounds are better than almost anything else out there.

My intention is not to scare you, if you are mainly after great acoustic piano sounds, great EPs (IMO best on the market), good (not best but still very valuable) organ emulation. This is what you'll certainly get from NS2. Many people would say that these are "better than almost anything else out there". Effects are also good, with these you'll have enough variety to your vintage keyboard sounds.

But if vintage keys part is a clear winner, do not expect that you'll get a winner from synth and sample player part. General idea is quite good, but to be really powerful this synth should have more features and above all ability have velocity layers. For most of us this synth is just little extra; you can add some synth pads under your pianos (works great) and use some spesific sounds (I made a very good accordeon for example from my own sample library collection). But if I need to have a real synthesizer to my sound palette I will use some modules of mine.

[Bernard]

For most of us this synth is just little extra...

Maybe. But I think this is underrated.
If one wants a full-fledged synthesizer, he should buy a dedicated synthesizer. Same with an original organ and maybe a piano too.

What makes this Nordstage so awesome is its ability to combine all three parts and this with very high quality sounds.
This also applies to the synth. With its hidden oscillators, the virtual preamp, the morphing abilities and the pitchstick at least it's a very good solo synthesizer, even with the basic waveforms. Its good sounding filter and nearly complete substractive synthesis makes a very good sample player, even without the velocity layers. Its comprehensive effect section, the arpeggiator and the master clock are able to produce very nice textures and ambient sounds. Also you get some fat and rich pad sounds with it.

No Athmosphere, Solaris, Andromeda, Moogmodular, etc of course.
But the best stage instrument I ever had. In the studio there have to be other synthesizers, no question.

@Nordee

If you only want to use single sounds, nearly all the presets are there.
But for getting the fantastic abilities of combinations, layers and splits and sound synthesis too, you have to deal with its programming. That's no hard work, just playing around in my opinion.
The organ, the piano - these sections are very easy. If you like to play samples as they are is easy, just press *init synth* and choose a sample. But there is much more. You will not regret.

Bernard

P.S. Download the manual for the Nordstage from the Clavia website. It's not the actual version, you get with the instrument, but it helps to see if you can handle it.

[Nillerbabs]

I play in an electro-pop'ish instrumental band, and we use a lot of synth sounds. Nothing reeeaaally complex, but some a little more than your basic saw lead. I was planning to replace my Electro3/Lead2x with the Stage2, and so I went to the musicstore to see if the synth section was capable of doing this task.

It was more than capable - for some sounds it surpassed my Lead. It's no analogue, but it does sound bloody good. Now, all I need is for Nord to make the bend range user definable. What the heck does it take for them to see that it's an absolute must for a pro board?!

[hapbarb]

Nordee, could you write more about the "hidden" oscillators? I'd greatly appreciate it!

[tagirov]

Hi guys.
Some of my notes to the Stage 2:

LFO
Clavia's Nord Stage 2 has only one LFO per each of two Synth slots and LFO's can be assigned to limited number of parameters, only 2 (shape mod and filter freq mod), I think. Sucks

Sound Editor
And its Sound Editor doesn't allow on-screen editing of presets from computer. Only samples and instrument downloading/uploading and deleting/reordering of presets. You can't even RENAME the preset from your desktop editor.
Almost any modern synth has its own powerful preset editing software, why don't do it for the Nord Stage?

Sample-based custom sounds
Another annoying thing is creating your own sounds from samples.
You can't layer sounds to make an instrument to play different samples on different velocities.
Also it's a hell to make good-sounding long-looped sampled-based preset.

Keyboard split
It has only pre-defined points of keyboard splitting, you can't set split on ANY key.

Not so good for such an expensive keyboard.

What's good?
But its Piano, ElectroPiano, Organ sounds are great, and Fatar's semi-wheited aftertouch-able keyboard is fantastic to play. Also I like the fx section.

[TheWeed42]

... could you write more about the "hidden" oscillators? I'd greatly appreciate it!

Since no one has answered this today I'm gonna jump on it. Hope I'm not stealing anyone's thunder.

The Stage 2 has two kinds of "hidden" oscillators. The first kind are the unison oscillators. From the manual:

The Stage 2 synthesizer oscillator has a couple of “hidden” oscillators. The number of extra oscillators varies with the algorithms, but is usually between three and eight. When you activate Unison, these slightly de-tuned voices are gradually added to the basic sound for those fat, classic synthesizer sounds. Note that using Unison does not reduce the polyphony! You adjust the number of extra oscillators and the de-tune amount among the voices by pressing the unison selector:
A setting of 1, 2 or 3 equals a classic dual oscillator de-tuning effect with an increasing amount of de-tune between the oscillators.
A setting of Multi 1, 2 and 3 introduces a thicker multi-voice de-tuning, which can create very powerful sounds.

The second kind of hidden oscillator is the sync oscillator, which you can use to hard-sync the Stage 2 sound-producing oscillator. This causes the sound-producing oscillator to start its waveform over when the sync oscillator cycles, even if it's in the middle of a wave. Pretty interesting sound. Again from the manual:

The Saw, Pulse and Triangle waveforms can be synchronized, if the Snc option is selected. Oscillator Synchronization means that you use the signal from one oscillator to restart another oscillator. Nord Stage 2 has a “hidden” sync oscillator for the waveforms with this option. Oscillator sync is very useful for generating lead lines with classic “hard sync” sounds. When sync is applied, the basic pitch of the oscillator is locked to that of the sync oscillator. When you vary the relative pitch of the synchronized oscillator with the Shape knob, this will be perceived as a change in timbre, with a frequency spectrum with deep resonance in the oscillator’s harmonics.

Hope that helps explain a little.

[hapbarb]

Thanks so much, Weed!

I won't be able to get "hands-on" with the NS2 until late October, so any knowledge I can gain beforehand is helpful. I was aware that hard-sync was onboard; being a longtime analog user, that's important to me. I'm very glad to know about the de-tuning and unison capabilities - I have been concerned about attaining fatness with only one oscillator.