This 'unofficial' Forum is dedicated to the Clavia Nord Keyboards, including the Nord Stage, Nord Electro and Nord Piano. Discuss any issues around Nord's keyboards, share your favorite patches, samples, and music. We are not affiliated with Clavia!
Funk76 wrote:Nord need potential for improvement. otherwise they produce the perfect keyboard, and nobody wants to update to the next model.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the long and short of it.
The problem is that you have to get there in the end. It also assumes that no-one jumps in and does it all at once. Someone like Yamaha don't rely totally on selling keyboards.
Funk76 wrote:Nord need potential for improvement. otherwise they produce the perfect keyboard, and nobody wants to update to the next model.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the long and short of it.
The problem is that you have to get there in the end. It also assumes that no-one jumps in and does it all at once. Someone like Yamaha don't rely totally on selling keyboards.
I don't think there will ever be any such thing as the perfect keyboard. This reminds me of the story (which is probably just a story) of the guy who wanted to close the patent office because everything's been invented. Or how people thought that 640k or memory is all that a personal computer could ever possibly need. I don't see advancements ending any time soon. Also, Nords are great, but they are a lot more than "a few EPs" away from perfect! There's also an inherent limitation in how much better they could make an EP in the current architecture, considering they have limited memory to work with. But if someone wants better EPs and doesn't want to wait for Nord (who may or may not ever come out with the EP sound you're looking for), there's no reason you couldn't buy a Kronos, which seems to have EPs that satisfy about everyone.
Last edited by anotherscott on 18 Nov 2012, 18:26, edited 1 time in total.
I don't know much about their stuff. Why "even"? At any rate, I checked the link... regardless of what you think about the sounds, it is a very different approach from Nord samples, as they use modeling.
In the old days, I used to think that nothing could sound like a Rhodes, other than a Rhodes.
Then I heard the Nord..
Then I realised that it was actually a bit lacking.
I think that something you get for $100 which works with some magic computer stuff is probably a gimmick and can't sound like a Nord, let alone a Rhodes.
I am probably wrong.
However, I will buy it if it is any good, but I have to be aware of it first and educated about how it works second.
jazzystu wrote:I think that something you get for $100 which works with some magic computer stuff is probably a gimmick and can't sound like a Nord, let alone a Rhodes.
I am probably wrong.
On a related note... a lot of people think VB3 (50 Euro) is a better Hammond tonewheel organ emulation than a Nord. Of course, the 50 Euro doesn't inclues the computer and keyboard controller you need to run it... VSTs can seem like such bargains because we happen to already own the other pieces we need to make them work!
What has changed for me is pretty much that I know the keyboard and the sounds better and that I've used it in many gigging conditions. Even though I am frustrated about many of the basic sound issues with the stage I still use it on most of my gigs. It's very convenient small and light. And I like having so many sound shaping possibilities on the fly. That makes it a very musical experience for what I do and worth putting up with it's shortcomings. So it's a love/hate thing. And I really wanted to love this board. But I have to say that the top end of the elec and acoustic pianos are a very seriously flawed. And the summed mono of the acoustics are just plain wrong. I think it's no coincidence that people have a hard time getting the piano patches to sound good when amplified for gigs. Also what has changed for me is that the competition is putting out serious challengers like the Kronos etc. And the software stuff sound just crazy good - although that is different from an all in one 20lb keyboard. Still.. the bar has been raised and we still have mediocre eps and clavs in an expensive board built specifically to do those. So in the mean time I'm looking into other options. But I'd love to plunk down $ for a NS4-73 with drawbars, new ep, clav samples, pianos that correctly sum to mono and with corrected upper octave reponse and samples, multi layer sample capabilities, reverb at the slot level and avail for all 4 outputs, deeper menus below the surface for tweaking, ability to play diff organs on different slots, and - here's a biggie.. the ability to tailor velocity curves for using different external boards. I'm rooting for Nord but the alternatives are becoming very seductive
One of the problems with wanting to keep adding more and more functionality to the Stage is that it soon starts missing the point of what the Stage is all about, which is that it is quick and easy to operate. You can't have it both ways. By the time everyone has said "they should just add this one little thing that I really want", you end up with a complicated menu system and you're halfway towards creating another workstation, which would be completely pointless (and probably quite suicidal from a business point of view - Nord couldn't hope to compete directly with the big Japanese companies). I have a Stage and a Korg Triton, and powerful as the Triton is, there are days when I feel that I just don't want to wade through the tedious processes involved in programming and editing on it. On the other hand the Nord is always a joy to use, and just having everything available to me right on the front panel means that I play around a lot more, and have a lot more fun with it.
Strange as it may seem, it's the limitations that give the Stage one of its unique selling points - you just twiddle the knobs and go. And I for one wouldn't change that for anything.
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