Nord User Forum

Ledbetter wrote:The keys each have two contacts, an upper and a lower. Only the organs are set up to sound when the upper contact is triggered, as soon as the key moves down slightly. This mimics the way a real organ key works.

The lower contact is like a piano, and sounds when the key reaches the bottom of travel. The upper contact allows the instrument to respond to different velocities.

A small speck of dust or drop of liquid is enough to contaminate the key contact, as when you leave the keyboard uncovered or allow dust or dirt or condensation from temperature changes in the case you keep it in. There are many threads here on this issue.

Best practice is to keep the instrument covered or cased when not in use.

Thank you, that might be the case, tomorrow I will have it open to see if that could be the problem. And yes dust does settle here in the Chihuahuan desert.

Venatt wrote:Thank you, that might be the case, tomorrow I will have it open to see if that could be the problem. And yes dust does settle here in the Chihuahuan desert.

If you bought this instrument brand new six months ago, opening it up yourself may void your warranty?
Can your original dealer work out some sort of loaner arrangement until you can get yours looked at by a professional?

I have posted this elsewhere, so please forgive the duplication, but this will benefit Venatt, the OP

This issue is related to some sort of foreign matter, gunk, crud, fuzz, dirt, etc. which is fouling one or both of the two contacts for that note. Velocity-sensitive keybeds necessarily have two contacts per key; an instrument's computer brain measures the microseconds between contact closures to calculate velocity, which is then translated into volume data for pianos. Not being velocity-sensitive, organs require only the one contact to work correctly. When both contacts foul, the corresponding key will refuse to work entirely; when only one contact fouls, you have the seemingly curious symptom of having the key work fine for organs and not at all for pianos. When only the other contact fouls, piano notes will sound at FULL velocity (loud).

As you can see from the attached photo showing the details of that mechanism, every time a key is pressed, it mashes down the rubber bubble to close the contacts. This action necessarily causes air to be expelled. When that key is released, the bubble springs back up into shape, causing air to be sucked back into the chamber via those diagonal pathways I have labeled "ventilation channels." Any dust or other foreign matter which may be in the immediate vicinity can potentially be sucked into that chamber when a key is released, causing these types of problems. Located directly beneath the keys, anything and everything which may ever fall through the gaps between keys will land in this area, creating a reservoir of potential issues.

Your Nord will need to be torn apart, and the keybed itself largely disassembled in order to get to the specific point of failure, after which a quick blast of compressed air and/or a swab with a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol or acetone will usually cure the defect and restore normal function. Those keybeds are quite generic. Made by Fatar, they are used in more keyboard brands than any other on the planet. This is especially useful, because it means that ANY keyboard tech should be well familiar with this issue and how to correct it.

PLEASE NOTE: you cannot simply open the lid and look around. If you do not get ALL THE WAY to the point shown in the photograph, BENEATH the rubber contact strip, then you will not fix the issue. Some folks may try simply shooting compressed air between the keys. This is a VERY BAD idea.

good luck, pablo

PS -- here's a pic someone sent me of what they found inside their instrument

Looks like a bug.

I'm sure they'll fix it in firmware.

What throws me off and totally and completely blows me away is that I have owned a lot of keyboards for the past 30 years, Casio, Yamaha PSR47, Roland U20, Triton Classic, Roland D50, Yamaha DX7, DXII, Ob12, Motif ES, XS, XF, Andromeda, Dave Smith Mopho, Kurweil, Sequential ProOne(twice), Nord Lead 3, Nord Lead 4, Moog, Studiologic. The Nord Stage 3 is the most expensive keyboard I ever bought and it is the first keyboard in which a key has failed. For a machine this expensive to have a key failed on the sixth or seventh month since I bought it means that something has to be very very wrong with this model, either a manufacturing problem with the model in general, or maybe just my model. If a professional is going to have to look at it, I am going to have to spend a lot of money shipping it out of town, back and forth, plus the repair. We are probably talking about at least a $1000 bucks. Maybe I should consider selling it and go back to Yamaha or Korg and forget about Nord. I don't know if I have a guaranty because I bought it on eBay from this seller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-Nord-Stag ... 2916518250 maybe I do but I don't know if he'll honor it. I'll have to contact him and find out.

pablomastodon wrote:I have posted this elsewhere, so please forgive the duplication, but this will benefit Venatt, the OP

This issue is related to some sort of foreign matter, gunk, crud, fuzz, dirt, etc. which is fouling one or both of the two contacts for that note. Velocity-sensitive keybeds necessarily have two contacts per key; an instrument's computer brain measures the microseconds between contact closures to calculate velocity, which is then translated into volume data for pianos. Not being velocity-sensitive, organs require only the one contact to work correctly. When both contacts foul, the corresponding key will refuse to work entirely; when only one contact fouls, you have the seemingly curious symptom of having the key work fine for organs and not at all for pianos. When only the other contact fouls, piano notes will sound at FULL velocity (loud).

As you can see from the attached photo showing the details of that mechanism, every time a key is pressed, it mashes down the rubber bubble to close the contacts. This action necessarily causes air to be expelled. When that key is released, the bubble springs back up into shape, causing air to be sucked back into the chamber via those diagonal pathways I have labeled "ventilation channels." Any dust or other foreign matter which may be in the immediate vicinity can potentially be sucked into that chamber when a key is released, causing these types of problems. Located directly beneath the keys, anything and everything which may ever fall through the gaps between keys will land in this area, creating a reservoir of potential issues.

Your Nord will need to be torn apart, and the keybed itself largely disassembled in order to get to the specific point of failure, after which a quick blast of compressed air and/or a swab with a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol or acetone will usually cure the defect and restore normal function. Those keybeds are quite generic. Made by Fatar, they are used in more keyboard brands than any other on the planet. This is especially useful, because it means that ANY keyboard tech should be well familiar with this issue and how to correct it.

PLEASE NOTE: you cannot simply open the lid and look around. If you do not get ALL THE WAY to the point shown in the photograph, BENEATH the rubber contact strip, then you will not fix the issue. Some folks may try simply shooting compressed air between the keys. This is a VERY BAD idea.

good luck, pablo

PS -- here's a pic someone sent me of what they found inside their instrument

Thanks, hopefully the problem is not what shows in the picture because that looks really really bad.

Venatt wrote:What throws me off and totally and completely blows me away is that I have owned a lot of keyboards for the past 30 years, Casio, Yamaha PSR47, Roland U20, Triton Classic, Roland D50, Yamaha DX7, DXII, Ob12, Motif ES, XS, XF, Andromeda, Dave Smith Mopho, Kurweil, Sequential ProOne(twice), Nord Lead 3, Nord Lead 4, Moog, Studiologic. The Nord Stage 3 is the most expensive keyboard I ever bought and it is the first keyboard in which a key has failed. For a machine this expensive to have a key failed on the sixth or seventh month since I bought it means that something has to be very very wrong with this model, either a manufacturing problem with the model in general, or maybe just my model. If a professional is going to have to look at it, I am going to have to spend a lot of money shipping it out of town, back and forth, plus the repair. We are probably talking about at least a $1000 bucks. Maybe I should consider selling it and go back to Yamaha or Korg and forget about Nord. I don't know if I have a guaranty because I bought it on eBay from this seller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-Nord-Stag ... 2916518250 maybe I do but I don't know if he'll honor it. I'll have to contact him and find out.

Are you sure you received a brand new, factory sealed NS3? The link you provided indicates that you bought it from "Armen's Musical Instruments Repair Shop" and the page explicitly states no international warranty. The Stage 3 Compact was available and in use in the USA for over a year before you bought yours. Not casting aspersions, but that store shows a lot of products that are "new in box" that have a picture of the item that has been taken out of the box.

This "dirt in the contacts" problem is not an obvious issue to people who have not previously used Nord Electro or Stage products.

It is possible to have a tiny speck of dirt get into one of the contacts, and cause that key to no longer work correctly, even if they keyboard is kept in a reasonably clean environment. I realize "reasonably clean" is an imprecise term, but I had a cheap M-Audio 88es MIDI controller in my basement and took it to gigs for 8 years. It's still in the same basement as my Electro 3, and in over 12 years I have never had to open up the M-Audio to clean dirt out of a key contact, to restore that key's function. In 6.5 years, I have had to do this twice with my Electro 3. There is something about our beloved Nord keyboards that makes them more vulnerable to this. My experience is limited, but this has not happened to the various Casio and Korg board my church has owned, and has not happened to the M-Audio 88es I own. The wonderful reviews I am hearing about the White Grand, and the improved EP sounds are enough to make me want to upgrade to a Stage 3. I would hate for my next board to not have a pitch bend, and I would much rather have the better split flexibility of the Stage, but if the latest Nord Electro had a different keybed which did not get the dirty contacts problem, that would make me choose a new Electro over a new Stage.

I realize that new Electro boards are no less vulnerable to this issue than the Stage, but I am trying to make a point here, without it seeming like an anti-Nord rant.

ajstan wrote:

Venatt wrote:What throws me off and totally and completely blows me away is that I have owned a lot of keyboards for the past 30 years, Casio, Yamaha PSR47, Roland U20, Triton Classic, Roland D50, Yamaha DX7, DXII, Ob12, Motif ES, XS, XF, Andromeda, Dave Smith Mopho, Kurweil, Sequential ProOne(twice), Nord Lead 3, Nord Lead 4, Moog, Studiologic. The Nord Stage 3 is the most expensive keyboard I ever bought and it is the first keyboard in which a key has failed. For a machine this expensive to have a key failed on the sixth or seventh month since I bought it means that something has to be very very wrong with this model, either a manufacturing problem with the model in general, or maybe just my model. If a professional is going to have to look at it, I am going to have to spend a lot of money shipping it out of town, back and forth, plus the repair. We are probably talking about at least a $1000 bucks. Maybe I should consider selling it and go back to Yamaha or Korg and forget about Nord. I don't know if I have a guaranty because I bought it on eBay from this seller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-Nord-Stag ... 2916518250 maybe I do but I don't know if he'll honor it. I'll have to contact him and find out.

Are you sure you received a brand new, factory sealed NS3? The link you provided indicates that you bought it from "Armen's Musical Instruments Repair Shop" and the page explicitly states no international warranty. The Stage 3 Compact was available and in use in the USA for over a year before you bought yours. Not casting aspersions, but that store shows a lot of products that are "new in box" that have a picture of the item that has been taken out of the box.

Mine came inside a sealed transparent rubber bag, so it had to be new and I believe he told me it had a warranty(not sure). Now if it doesn't have a warranty I just as well have it open by a handy man, maybe there's something stuck in there.

Venatt wrote:Mine came inside a sealed transparent rubber bag, so it had to be new and I believe he told me it had a warranty(not sure). Now if it doesn't have a warranty I just as well have it open by a handy man, maybe there's something stuck in there.

It may be new, but bag sealing and shrink-wrap machines are easy enough to acquire. Was the box unopened with only the original staples? Did your OLED displays have the clear plastic protectors with the tabs? Was there a sticker next to the mod wheel about where to download sounds? Here are a couple of unboxing videos that might help you determine whether yours was truly new:

NS3-HA:
NS3-C:

If it was advertised as new and wasn't, you may have some recourse if you have photographic proof. Good luck.