Nord User Forum

I don't know if this helps, but I decided to place a second order from musicstore.de. They indicate that they will be getting the 88 in stock in just a couple weeks. And, it is $500 cheaper than purchasing it in the US!

kbrkr wrote:...Although the FA07 uses organ modeling, the missing chorus could be a deal breaker for me. ... And lastly, it does not have Aftertouch. I know it's only $1,500.00 but a tradeoff is a tradeoff.

I'm wondering if the "D-BEAM" feature would fill in somewhat for the missing Aftertouch?

If you haven't used it before, you move your hand up and down over it (like a Theremin), and you can expressively change a parameter. I'm using it right now (on my old Fantom, and I see the much newer FA series' still have it) while practicing an alto sax solo for "Fly Me to the Moon." For extended sax notes, I can control the vibrato, and it sounds very realistic. The patches already have a default parameter (e.g. Modulation, Breath, Cutoff) for the D-Beam showing on the display, which I guess you can change for a custom patch. Obviously you need your left hand free at the time, to use it.

As for not having organ choruses, I'm wandering if it has a "soft key" button that would turn a chorus effect on/off? My old Fantom has 4 soft keys, the parameter for each showing in the display. For organ patches, I often use a soft button for "Modulation," which slowly builds up the speed for a Lesley effect, and slowly lowers it when you click again. Works great on "Gimme Some Lovin'."

You probably know all about this stuff, and that it won't suffice for your needs, but just throwing this out there in case it does.

TerryW wrote:I'm wondering if the "D-BEAM" feature would fill in somewhat for the missing Aftertouch?

No more than the mod lever, or a pedal. They're all ways of applying a modulation to the sound. What makes AT special is that it doesn't take another hand (or foot), and that you can use it in conjunction with (rather instead of) any of those other sources, and that the effect automatically releases when you lift off the note, and that many people find that it just "feels" more organic/expressive to use.

TerryW wrote:As for not having organ choruses, I'm wandering if it has a "soft key" button that would turn a chorus effect on/off?

Hammond organ chorus is not a generic chorus effect, it is its own more specific effect, which afaik is simply not duplicated or duplicable in the FA. But moreover, the FA only allows you to use one insert effect on a tone (though there are some insert effects that are, themselves, combinations of two effects). This means that, if you select Rotary effect (as you typically would for a tonewheel organ sound), you can't also select a Chorus effect.

Quai34 wrote:You know what? Get both, ask the Nord to your wife for your birthday....

I'm not married. I've asked my cats many times to buy me stuff, but they never do.

I'm still leaning toward the FA-07 over the NS3 Compact for my situation, which Anotherscott nailed dead on.

More than 1 person has told me that the Roland pianos sound like a toy compared to Nords. It may sound silly to some of you that I don't jump on a unit with better piano & organ sounds. "It's all relative" to me as follows, and it's "good enough" for my purposes.

If somebody plays a CD on a decent boom-box, it'll sound great until you compare it side-by-side to a decent hi-fi system, which will make it sound like junk. If I play my Fantom through my Roland Cube-30 monitor, it sounds great, until they turn on our expensive PA with Bose tower speakers, which make my monitor sound like a 1" speaker.

When I play my old Fantom with the band, the piano patches I use with un-tweaked pre-sets, sound great. I should mention that I don't play solo gigs, and I'm not in a jazz combo playing frequent piano/organ solos a few times a week. I'm in a pop-rock band that plays less than 20 gigs a year.

More than once I've had an employee of a restaurant/bar come out from the back to see us, and tell me that they thought we were a horn band, because my "general purpose" horn patch sounds great when I use it for Ides of March Vehicle, Grass Roots Midnight Confession/Temptation Eyes, Blues Brothers Soul Man, etc. I'm figuring that the sounds in a 15-year newer Roland have to be a lot better than the current "good enough" ones I'm using now, and the demo vids I've seen sound great.

TerryW wrote:

Quai34 wrote:You know what? Get both, ask the Nord to your wife for your birthday....

I'm not married. I've asked my cats many times to buy me stuff, but they never do.
...

And yet their ears are too pointy to claim them as dependents on our tax returns.

TerryW wrote:More than 1 person has told me that the Roland pianos sound like a toy compared to Nords. It may sound silly to some of you that I don't jump on a unit with better piano & organ sounds. "It's all relative" to me as follows, and it's "good enough" for my purposes.

Yup. And a lot of people really like Roland's SN piano sound. Even if someone says it's not as good as Nord, there's a lot of subjectivity to it, and especially if (as you say) you're not doing things like jazz piano solo gigs, the differences may be less important and can be outweighed by benefits elsewhere. Like you talked about how effective your Roland brass has been... the Nord with the better piano and organ will probably leave you with less impressive brass, so overall, who's to say whether you're better or worse off overall?

And you're right about it all being relative, and even in more ways than you described. There are probably people who were happily gigging with non-Nord piano sounds 10+ years ago and thought they sounded great, and even they may feel that today's Roland piano sound, while not their favorite, is still as good or better than what they thought was great not that long ago. And if it's all about getting the best piano sound, lots of people would say that even the Nord is second rate, you're better off hooking up a laptop if you really care about piano sound. There's pretty much always a way to make something better, and everyone has to draw their own lines as to what is "good enough" for their purpose, and the balance of being stronger or weaker in different areas.

Also, even if you want what the FA-07 gives you and also end up wishing for the piano and organ of the Nord, you know, for $3,700 total (over time, as you can afford it), you can get the FA-07 and the NE5D. That's only $100 more than a NS3-73! You'll get the better piano and organ (even both simultaneously, if need be, as you can set it up so that you can play the Nord organ sound from the Nord while playing the Nord piano sound from the Roland), and other Nord benefits like custom sample loading (beyond the minimal sample triggering in the FA), the library of mellotron and other vintage analog sounds, etc. Sure, there are still a bunch of things in the NS3 that you won't have (knobby synth, aftertouch, for example), but you'll also have a whole bunch of cool FA things the NS3 doesn't have.

My general take on it is Roland/Yamaha pianos are more engineered to cut through live stage noise while the Nords are modeled to be more authentic to the pianos they are sampled from. I played a CP200 for many years. Great live workhouse piano, but to my ears the Nords are better sounding overall. All subjective like everyone says.

DH

dhbp-nord wrote:My general take on it is Roland/Yamaha pianos are more engineered to cut through live stage noise while the Nords are modeled to be more authentic to the pianos they are sampled from. I played a CP200 for many years. Great live workhouse piano, but to my ears the Nords are better sounding overall. All subjective like everyone says.

DH

Exactly.

kbrkr wrote:I've checked every FA-06 and FA-07 video and it really looks like a dynamite keyboard. There are some concerns, however;. . .And lastly, it does not have Aftertouch. I know it's only $1,500.00 but a tradeoff is a tradeoff.

The FA-07 page on Musicians Friend has this under the "Specifications" section:

"Keyboard
- Number of keys: 76 synth action
- Key size: Full
- Aftertouch / Velocity: Velocity"

Is the "Aftertouch" an error/typo?

Their FA-06 page has this for the specs:
'Keyboard Section: 61 keys (with velocity)"

Their FA-08 page doesn't have a spec list.

Kbrkr, did you get your 30-day trial FA-07 yet? Will you be reporting on it here, or is that just a temp machine until you receive the Nord?

TerryW wrote:The FA-07 page on Musicians Friend has this under the "Specifications" section:

"Keyboard
- Number of keys: 76 synth action
- Key size: Full
- Aftertouch / Velocity: Velocity"

Is the "Aftertouch" an error/typo?

Not a typo. It says it has velocity sensitivity, but not aftertouch.
Essentially, the part before the colon is a question, and the part after the colon is the answer.