Nord User Forum

I must add that I agree with Gambold and the rest of you having issues with NS4 price.
For a professional musician who has to balance investments and incomes the cost of this magnitude is a factor.
The price is also the same as a MacBook with Logic, Native Instruments Komplete and a Midi keyboard.

Nord at Night wrote:I must add that I agree with Gambold and the rest of you having issues with NS4 price.
For a professional musician who has to balance investments and incomes the cost of this magnitude is a factor.
The price is also the same as a MacBook with Logic, Native Instruments Komplete and a Midi keyboard.

There are also pricier synths/keyboards in the market and some musicians have more than one, it all depends on the budget of the "professional musician" we talk about (but also non-professional) at the end of the day.

Anyway nothing prevents from going towards the Macbook + Virtual Instruments + MIDI master way (or any other solution), if someone thinks it is better for his/her money and can perform with that setup as efficiently as needed.

Hlaalu wrote:

ericL wrote: P.S. congratulations on your preorder for the NS4! It will not disappoint.

Is this my English misfiring once again? Did he say he preordered a S4?

It was just sarcasm on my part, I don't believe the original poster has any plans to preorder a NS4 based on the opinions they have shared, ad infinitum, to the point of being background noise.

Those that know Nord, know Nord. If you know, you know. If you don't, you mock it and come in hot with all the hilarious zingers about the company going out of business, being out of touch, etc. Nord is thriving as one of the top keyboard manufacturers, making all kinds of things to suit multiple tastes and budgets. We can keep feeding and enjoying the people here that love to spend time trying to trash talk the company. LOL. It's hilarious!

The Nord booth at NAMM 2023 was one of the most vibrant and crowded booths of the entire convention floor. This thread would lead you to think otherwise. It's fake news!

Y'all take care and be well. I'm taking a break from this place.

We will miss you Eric. Sorry to hear you’re leaving because of the noise. This forum is typically better than most.

Aside from the talk about matching value against 30 years ago, it’s all really moot. If you find value in something you will see it as a good purchase. If not, there’s competition in the marketplace. Even at $6,000US, I think the Stage 4 has better value than than something like a Moog One or OBX8 which are each expensive I their own right but are not nearly as versatile. I can gig with just the Stage but not the other two. But that’s me; plenty of others find a lot of value in the Moog and Oberheim.

That said, I would most likely never buy a Stage 4 myself, as I don’t need its capabilities, regardless of price. I never expected Nord to introduce anything else this NAMM, and it really doesn’t even matter. Manufacturers create and release products as they will and my life is not changed as a result. I’m going to continue making music with what I have and enjoy it.

I don’t have the time or energy to be angry about stuff like this, nor be affected by people who are.

I think it's totally unfair to compare prices on products manufactured/assembled in low cost countries to a product designed and assembled in Sweden. In the Scandinavian countries living costs har high, and wages needs to reflect that.
It's pretty amazing that a small company like Clavia-Nord can have such a product catalog. Spanning from Nord-drum, Electro, NordStage to Wave2 synths. My NordStage 2 - 9 years old is built like a tank and works 100% like when it was new!
I feel this complaining is like me going to a Porsche store in Norway complaining about how pricy cars are... If you want the best, the price will be higher, but you get what you pay for!

I continue to think that products are worth the price which enough people are willing to pay for.

What's "enough people" though? It's what Clavia thinks is enough to ensure the level of profit needed/wanted by them plus maintains thier image as a high-end manufacturer (not a mass market supplier).

So if there are enough people from Clavia's point of view buying the Stage 4 at the current price then that's probably ok for the company, if not they will drop the price - it's as easy as that

I said earlier that it's possible Clavia set the price so that the sales would turn a reasonable profit. The alarm here is not that Clavia is greedy and setting boutique prices to pad their accounts. The alarm is if decent new keyboards are going to start running this high, maybe we are coming to the end of the decent new keyboard era. People will leave the top end and turn to software and controllers...which will shrink the top end until it no longer is viable.

OR - companies like Clavia who seem committed to the paradigm could manufacture broader lines that keep their business flush, allowing them to innovate at the top and stay profitable while not charging nosebleed prices. There have been a few rebuttals here claiming that Nord offers a wide variety of products suiting multiple budgets - well, no. The have a Stage, an Electro, a Piano, and a couple of synthesizers. I'm not going to count the Grand or the drumpad as germane to the conversation. With the exception of the A1, which I think is a decade old now, nothing is retailing for less than $2700, and anything with 73 keys or more starts at $3000. Add 10% for sales tax, a pedal, etc.

Those are Gibson Les Paul prices, and we all know what happened to Gibson. They couldn't sustain their business just selling the top end, were forced into bankruptcy and have now reorganized, offering broader lines at a spectrum of prices.

I share the concern for the price, thats why I did the comparision with MacBook and Native Instrument.
Nowadays for many the calculation and plans have been wrong and they may find there is not enough funds available for the upgrade and in worst case have to leave Clavias instruments.

I believe Clavias instrument will newer have a price so anyone can get them directly when they are released.
Any exchanges shall be preceded by the usual budgeting process that companies have to do when replacing a machine, meaning there shall already be a plan with founding’s for replacing some of the instruments because after a while they have probably gone through a lot.
A professional musician is for me a person who run this as a company, and at the end of the year there shall hopefully be a profit.

And if the NS3 is directly replaced with a NS4 without overlapping time because lack of founds the musicians will find themself left without sound and must spend a great deal of effort to make new ones for the gigs.
This because the NS4 is not backwards compatible with NS3. It is also not possible to load Wave2 patches because NS4 synth engine is not fully a derive from Wave 2.
Another reason not to upgrade.

For me as a hobbyist this is not a problem, the journey is the goal.
The Nord is my instrument because I can handle it, and replacing my NS3 with a NS4 is a no-brainer.
The previous instruments I had I could not understand well enough to make own sounds.
I see advice like “don’t give up easy” and “people are not putting enough efforts”.
I was believing this until I found Nord stage and made these “Is too much enough?”-patches.

Nord at Night wrote:I share the concern for the price, thats why I did the comparision with MacBook and Native Instrument.
Nowadays for many the calculation and plans have been wrong and they may find there is not enough funds available for the upgrade and in worst case have to leave Clavias instruments.

I believe Clavias instrument will newer have a price so anyone can get them directly when they are released.
Any exchanges shall be preceded by the usual budgeting process that companies have to do when replacing a machine, meaning there shall already be a plan with founding’s for replacing some of the instruments because after a while they have probably gone through a lot.
A professional musician is for me a person who run this as a company, and at the end of the year there shall hopefully be a profit.

And if the NS3 is directly replaced with a NS4 without overlapping time because lack of founds the musicians will find themself left without sound and must spend a great deal of effort to make new ones for the gigs.
This because the NS4 is not backwards compatible with NS3. It is also not possible to load Wave2 patches because NS4 synth engine is not fully a derive from Wave 2.
Another reason not to upgrade.

For me as a hobbyist this is not a problem, the journey is the goal.
The Nord is my instrument because I can handle it, and replacing my NS3 with a NS4 is a no-brainer.
The previous instruments I had I could not understand well enough to make own sounds.
I see advice like “don’t give up easy” and “people are not putting enough efforts”.
I was believing this until I found Nord stage and made these “Is too much enough?”-patches.

Sorry, so you mean to say that the NS3 is not right for you so you're getting the NS4?

If I had been able to I had keept the NS3 as a backup. But to get the NS4 I accept to start a new journey.