Nord User Forum

Unlike most Nord users, who bought a Nord to be a keyboard, I bought mine to replace a Hammond C3 and 147 Leslie, a Rhodes Suitcase Piano, D6 Clavinet and Minimoog D. I couldn't be arsed to drag it around any more and got rid of it at the top of the market.

The industry sounds are the above keyboards and the Nord sets out to be all of those things to all men, as that's what people want. They don't want a freaking Optigon Polyvox, or a Sparkletop prototype or any other arcane s***.

I don't know anyone at all who has ever used a sine wave stereo pan. It's totally redundant, apart from doing very s*** suitcase piano impressions. I don't know if you've played a suitcase, or owned one, but they are a thing to hear in the flesh. The Nord falls very very short....although the Suitcase Head and the EPiano 1 are almost indistinguishable through headphones. I reckon you'd fool a lot of experts if you played a Nord Rhodes through a Rhodes Cab (Ignoring the lack of soloing bite from the upper register).

I'm not interested in any of the other bullshit that Nord come out with, I want to emullate my old keys collection without the repair bills, screwdriver fiddling, tuning, toning, fear of damage and the hell of shifting them. I'm not bothered whether it's red or black, or made by Roland.

The shortcomings of the Nord are ridiculous and foolish schoolboy mistakes. I just wish they would hurry up and sort them out as I am most certainly keeping my wallet in my pocket until they have sorted them out. I don't care what it costs, I just want it to sound right.

To the other poster, what was the SV-1 rhodes like? I have never played one and never considered one because of the lack of organ interface.

I hope they will release the next generation of Nordstage in these three models:

1. Nordstage Compact with 73 semi weighted keys and the drawbar sliders from the NE4D. For those who want everything the NE4D offers but with more features.

2. Nordstage HP with the 73 hammer portable keybed but with the traditional LED-drawbars. For those who want a more portable keyboard but only play organ as an additional instrument.

3. And Nordstage HA88 with the 88 weighted keybed for the true pianoplayer that wants the best features of the Nord keyboards!

I think this lineup would be the most logical one and I hope someone from Nord maybe reading this topic.

jazzystu wrote: I don't care what it costs, I just want it to sound right.

The funny thing is that it shouldn't make a huge difference in cost to implement a different wave form in the pan LFO or to have different velocity curves or to improve the samples by balancing the velocity layers a bit better, or to improve the velocity sensitivity of the synth section or to make the aftertouch less of a Herculean task in the NS2-88. These things have been mentioned several times already... and we keep hoping for an update...

Mr_-G- wrote:The funny thing is that it shouldn't make a huge difference in cost to implement a different wave form in the pan LFO or to have different velocity curves or to improve the samples by balancing the velocity layers a bit better, or to improve the velocity sensitivity of the synth section or to make the aftertouch less of a Herculean task in the NS2-88. These things have been mentioned several times already... and we keep hoping for an update...

One of the difficulties is that a lot of these things are down to personal taste. One man's "that's a real problem" is another man's "just right". Other than the slightly heavy aftertouch, I personally wouldn't want any of the things you've listed to be changed, they suit me just fine. A company like Nord is in the unenviable position of having to balance "the needs of the many against the needs of the few" (to paraphrase that well-known quote).

To take jazzystu's oft repeated request for a square wave pan - frankly, it's of limited use to most people. I use sine wave panning very frequently, and to have it replaced with a square wave pan would render it useless to me. Aha, why not have both! you cry. Well, then you need another switch on the front panel. Then you need to redesign the switch PCB to accommodate it. Then you need to retool the front panel with a cutout for it...and new screen printing...

Glad it's not my job to make these decisions!

jazzystu wrote:I'm not bothered whether it's red or black, or made by Roland.

Sounds like a good joke: "I dont care if its a good keyboard or a Roland!"

But since this has turned into a "what I hope for in the NS3", here's my list:

• Customizable pitch bend range
• 4 part-multitimbrality on sintesizer (so you have 2 organs, 2 pianos and 4 synths)
• Custon Arpeggio Patterns programmable via a computer
• Custom keyboard splits (so you can actually map things correctly, like on Korg keyboards)
• Multi-samples on the synth OR have the Piano section turn into acoustic/electromechanical and include realistic acoustic instruments like orchestras that respond to velocity.

Perhaps my damands can be complex, but they are do-able. the first 2 are like integrating Nord Lead technology furthermore. The 3rd one is really quite simple to program, as is the 4th one, the hardest part is have the user do it correctly.

My last wish is perhaps the most complex and it would require a lot of work, and honestly I just do not see Clavia doing this kind of thing.

Saludos,
Gustavo

RedLeo wrote:One of the difficulties is that a lot of these things are down to personal taste. One man's "that's a real problem" is another man's "just right".

Yes, you are right , but the issue is that ignoring feedback from the users themselves is a recipe for long term failure unless you are a giant corporation with lots of clueless customers that keep buying whatever you sell them. This is not the case here.
While I am kind of happy with the NS2 as it is, I see lots of easy perhaps 0-cost improvements that would make it way way better. It would be stupid to have to wait and shell for a NS3 to get those things that can be implemented relatively easily.

It is not just 1 person that has raised those issues, but quite a few, and the price of the instruments is high, so expectations from the customers is understandably also high.

For the record, I'd put the square/sine/triangle pan in the shift menu, like the vibrato rate (no knob).

by the way (i suppose the issue has already been raised) it's always bothered me that you can't route the monitor input through the external stereo channels (in all Nords, Stage, Electro, C2...).

It has always felt a dumb choice, and one easy to correct, but they never did... I don't know if it's a hardware issue, or they just want to stick with their "live" phylosophy: you hear no notes other than what is played on the keyboard?

Hello Board!
+1 to Jazzystu's comments. Let's get the basic stuff right first - fix the PATHETIC upper range of the E and A pianos and get the A pianos to work in mono (thats why everybody has a hard time getting them to sound good onstage in mono. It's not the fault of the speaker played through but because the A pianos are badly out of phase when summed). And let me bend more than 2 FIXED semitones. Give me some clav key off samples (how antiseptic they sound without!). How about basic REVERB available for all outputs? I know the board is supposed to be simple and hands on but let me have deeper menu options to tweak if I so desire for gods sake. This instrument is super expensive and yet falls short of it's mission to be a top shelf board for bread and butter sounds like Jazzystu says (except for the organ - which is an excellent clonewheel by any standard) and IT IS PURPOSELY AND ARTIFICIALLY dumbed down. I can drive a car and only use the simple driving controls forever - but if I WANTED I could go under the hood and tinker around. FOUR THOUSAND plus dollars!! C'mon! Let me plug in a laptop and tweak and customize a bit. Only few megabytes of memory? Swap samples in and out FAIL! One layer sampling? FAIL AND LAUGHING! It just goes on and on. You might not get this upon reading this rant but I really LOVE the idea of this board and I want it to live up to it's potential but I will never buy another until they fix all these STUNNINGLY huge shortcomings for a $4K board. C'mon peeps! Admit it. In today's keyboard world Nord had better step up or be run over by the other companies who, it seems, have taken to heart the great idea behind the Nord Stage/Electro and are beginning to compete directly. I don't mean to rain on the Nord lovefest here - more power to you - but I'm just calling it like I see it. And I'm hardly asking for the moon here - not for the very top dollar Nord charges. End of rant - thanks for listening I do love this forum and the wonderful helpful community and spirit I always find here. Peace!