anyone know?...next Stage a Stage 2 EX or a Stage 3?

[jazzystu]

Yep. It is being purposefully dumbed down.

The stage deliberately does not have a +/- 12 bend stick. It does not have the Electro's square wave pan. The synth is lacking the synth EQ (major bonus when you are using the other EQ for something else, like making a soloable sound out of the rhodes by boosting the mid to the max) etc, etc, etc. The Stage EX did not have the potential organ model it could have (that's always something the electro gets).

One thing I have found in business myself is that customers have NO loyalty. It is about performance per £ and nothing more.

The big players like Yamaha and Roland have almost infinite money behind them and could make a Stage 20 superdeluxe tomorrow. Why won't they?

As I've said before, the market is getting saturated and Nord isn't the company it once was. They have a premium brand but their future is being absorbed into a larger company who will then pay the directors handsomely.

I had retired from stage playing and only had an acoustic piano. When I "got the call" I went to see a band which were utterly brilliant, so much so that I said "I need to get a suitcase 88 and D6 Clav now". The guitarist sent me a link to JD73 playing the electro and I thought "I want an 88 weighted one of those" and bought the EX. I was amazed at first, as I have grown into it, I see it's shortcomings and the product "games" that Nord are playing. I'm not that impressed. The lack of new EP sounds is tiresome and I'm wondering what the catch will be with them. Will they only work on the new Stage 3 workstation in Npno2 format? What way will they entice me to buy something else which is incomplete? They are quite clearly not putting the best bits of all their boards in order that their flagship is the cream of the crop. I find this very irritating.

The first person to do all of it at a decent level gets my next wodge of cash.

[ybrian]

I agree all of these basics would be fantastic.

If I could change a couple of small things about the 4d:

A drawbar or two for pedals, and the ability to accept an input for pedals. How awesome would it be to be able to play pedals on the same instrument as piano/ep/synth all on a small on-the-go board.

More sample space: in a larger set up (without an actual hammond) this board would not be the "piano" board, it would be used as a side board for primarily organs but also maybe strings/synths, so why not have space for more sound options other than the stock nord sample library.


For my purposes at least, if some of these basic changes were made, I couldn't see any of my keyboards being used more days of the week than this one.

[rb4u1]

Any company that doesn't put out a quality product will have difficulty.
The competition is interesting. Roland vr-09, Yamaha mx49, & Casio Px-5
are all interesting along with Kawai offerings & Kurzweil.

[maxpiano]

Have you tried those three keyboards and compared to the NS2? I did at least for 2 of them (except the Casio) and I wouldn't put them on the same level, in fact they are on a different price and market target... I don't mean they are not good, don't get me wrong, they are OK but for a different user target.

As for the NS2EX or NS3, probably this discussion will continue till something will actually come... and it will make 50% people enthusiast and 50% unhappy, as usual

[Randelph]

My desire for a NS3 is:
1. Find a way to shave 5-10 pounds off the 88 key. Admittedly the PX-5S Casio (25 pounds) is mostly plastic (?), and being encased in steel is more gig worthy, but there's got to be a way to bring the weight down even further.

2. Have a USB stick record feature as well as an external input (a mic input with reverb would be a nice addition as well). This is much easier to implement than a sequencer and bridges some noticeable gaps. I look at the new Korg Kross, a cheapie $700 keyboard, and its feature set without using a computer is amazing: onboard Wave recording, external input, microphone input with reverb, all of which can be recorded and OVERDUBBED! When I made my switch from a Korg M3, which was way more technology I wanted to deal with to make music, the one thing I've missed is being able to record simply.

3. +1 on having 4 synth parts (plus the normal 2 piano and 2 organ), esp. since the synth section is shared. There'd have to be some cleverness here though because I really like having only and A and B section to deal with.

[PianoManChuck]

The weight of the NS2 really isn't that bad (remember, its metal and solid!). Granted the Privia PX-5 is only 25 lbs, but its encased in plastic... and it just doesn't have the piano authenticity of the NS2.

To Randelph who mentioned the Korg Kross.. I had a Kross (88-key) for about 10 days to play with. While its packed with features, it really doesn't come anywhere close - to even the Privia PX5 - in terms of piano realism. Check my Youtube channel (PianoManChuck) and search for the piano bank samples of the Kross, and piano bank samples of the PX5. I even did Elton John's "Candle In The Wind" on my channel on each of those boards... the Kross doesn't even come close!

As for a Stage NS-3 (or whatever they'll be calling it if they have a sequel to the NS2)... I put together a video from my (a pianist) perspective as to whether I'd actually upgrade to an NS3 from an NS2 (depending on what the NS3 would have to offer) at this link:



For right now, the NS2 does everything I need... even though I have a few gripes with it. Bottom line, I simply can't find any other board, anywhere, that even comes close to the piano authenticity of the NS2. For this reason (purely from a pianist perspective), I don't see what Nord could possibly offer that would want to make me upgrade to a new NS3.

[maxpiano]

Well pianomanchuck, from a pianist perspective I think that a NS3 with an improved Piano engine based on SSD streaming (to reach the same quality and expressiveness of the premium piano VSTIs and overcome the current memory limitations) would make me want to do the upgrade.

[PianoManChuck]

You have a point there, maxpiano!
Nord will be one of the first booths I head to at Winter NAMM (ah the curiosity)!

[maxpiano]

One more idea for the NS3: a keybed with triple sensor (as currently already featured on the Studiologic/Fatar Numa Concert)

[chimney chop]

if you had to put money on it when would you gues we're gonna see the next Stage?

winter Namm in January?
Musicmesse in March?
summer Namm in July?

i'm chomping at the bit!