And so, October…

[Gambold]

Good points, all. And to be fair to Clavia, I understand they are a small company with limited resources and can't be expected to crank out new keyboards every other year. The lack of communication with the world is legendary by now (recall the sudden disappearance of Pablo Mastodon from this board), but I think this is more representative of their culture and ownership than it is financial resources.

The comment about overspending on jazz performances is apt, and may reveal that Nord might be misunderstanding who exactly buys their keyboards now. All the ones I've seen live or on the television have been in pop/rock acts. Now granted, I don't get to or watch as many modern jazz concerts as I probably should, but I haven't had the impression that the Stage was the go-to pick for jazz pianists. Seems to me that the people who are buying Stages and Electros are pop/rock/dance/blues players who work in bands that require a lot of different sounds and samples from their keyboardist.

That group of people tends to skew younger and are more wired into digital media and social networking. Clavia is missing the boat here - I don't think anyone can argue that in good faith. Running their company like a monastery isn't looking to the future. A lot of interesting technologies are coming out now for keyboards, including software that are going to give products like the Stage a real run for the money. If Nord wants to survive and grow, they would do well to bring their customers into the loop.

[M1tsos]

Good points, all. And to be fair to Clavia, I understand they are a small company with limited resources and can't be expected to crank out new keyboards every other year. The lack of communication with the world is legendary by now (recall the sudden disappearance of Pablo Mastodon from this board), but I think this is more representative of their culture and ownership than it is financial resources.

The comment about overspending on jazz performances is apt, and may reveal that Nord might be misunderstanding who exactly buys their keyboards now. All the ones I've seen live or on the television have been in pop/rock acts. Now granted, I don't get to or watch as many modern jazz concerts as I probably should, but I haven't had the impression that the Stage was the go-to pick for jazz pianists. Seems to me that the people who are buying Stages and Electros are pop/rock/dance/blues players who work in bands that require a lot of different sounds and samples from their keyboardist.

That group of people tends to skew younger and are more wired into digital media and social networking. Clavia is missing the boat here - I don't think anyone can argue that in good faith. Running their company like a monastery isn't looking to the future. A lot of interesting technologies are coming out now for keyboards, including software that are going to give products like the Stage a real run for the money. If Nord wants to survive and grow, they would do well to bring their customers into the loop.

The result in the end for the company is the sales and the reputation.. we see everywhere nord keyboards, yamaha , roland , and korg.. this is a big win for nord since its by far a lot smaller company compared to yamaha , roland and korg and same time is so competitive…

So i believe the company runs ok if you count the pre orders , the sales and all the problems that everyone have now with covid , war, crisis etc..


Regards

[StrangeAeons]

Good points, all. And to be fair to Clavia, I understand they are a small company with limited resources and can't be expected to crank out new keyboards every other year. The lack of communication with the world is legendary by now (recall the sudden disappearance of Pablo Mastodon from this board), but I think this is more representative of their culture and ownership than it is financial resources.

The comment about overspending on jazz performances is apt, and may reveal that Nord might be misunderstanding who exactly buys their keyboards now. All the ones I've seen live or on the television have been in pop/rock acts. Now granted, I don't get to or watch as many modern jazz concerts as I probably should, but I haven't had the impression that the Stage was the go-to pick for jazz pianists. Seems to me that the people who are buying Stages and Electros are pop/rock/dance/blues players who work in bands that require a lot of different sounds and samples from their keyboardist.

That group of people tends to skew younger and are more wired into digital media and social networking. Clavia is missing the boat here - I don't think anyone can argue that in good faith. Running their company like a monastery isn't looking to the future. A lot of interesting technologies are coming out now for keyboards, including software that are going to give products like the Stage a real run for the money. If Nord wants to survive and grow, they would do well to bring their customers into the loop.

Absolutely true. Despite myself, I end up attending a lot of jazz shows (from standard jazz to experimental performances). I believe I only saw a Nord Stage 2 a couple times in the last few years, and one of those bands actually gravitated more towards jazz-rock/prog than “pure” jazz: most pianists either just used the club’s own acoustic piano (or Rhodes) or a simple, good-sounding digital piano.

Once again, I can’t but agree with you: jazz can’t possibly be Nord’s main target, much less the only one (if one were to judge from the last few years’ promotional videos). I can actually see how the Piano could attract jazzmen. But everything else? No way, especially since the C2D was pensioned off. The Stage is a jack-of-all-trades keyboard for pros and whoever plays genres which require complex sound textures (without spending hours programming, like Kronos and Genos owners have to), the Electro is the board for Hammond lovers who also need others sounds, the Lead is for whoever plays electronic music of all kinds and so on.

Pop, rock, prog, blues, metal, electronic music (house, synthwave, dance, you name it)… this might be slightly off topic, but it seems like jazz has, as of late, become fashionable, somehow: still few listen to it, but many more people than ever before want to play jazz and almost all pubs, clubs and restaurants want jazz bands. Nord have probably been caught up in this sudden “resurgence”, I gather.

[analogika]

I think that the use of jazz musicians is more if a branding play to establish and emphasize the authenticity, expression, and playability with the pianos and organs using the various models and keybeds. The sound banks show off the synth engine options.

As for communication, I would imagine that minimizing outbound information likely results in a similar level of dissatisfaction expressed in online forums and the press as providing an update would. The people who complain will complain no matter what is said or not said. If that's the case, then there seems to be little value in doing anything but waiting to communicate until there's something to announce and deliver.

As someone who instantly connected with the NS3 sounds and workflow and has no issue with the keybeds, I'm probably in the target demographic. If a self-professed "potential buyer" does not see a meaningful difference between the current (or next) Nord offerings and the existing offerings from the high-volume manufacturers, then maybe they're not who Nord is targeting, and they can move on to another brand now.

If you're just one or two items off, then it might be worth waiting to see what's next. I can empathize with those in this position. I'm not sure I would have bought an NS2EX, but luckily, I started looking to build a new rig after the announcement of the NS3 but before its release on October of 2017. The upgrades from the NS2 to NS3 were important enough to wait for an NS3 over a discounted NS2EX (or a Kronos). I'm not sure what I would have done if I didn't know about the NS3.

[sonicblue]

Anyway it looks very funny as it is now. The official site and their YT channel are overloaded with modern jazz content like it was... I don't know, jazz university/school? I'm sure they do it only from a narrow-minded marketing promotion point of view. It's just that in this modern jazz performances piano is a leading instrument. Also pianists like Jesus Molina really show off impressively. So this can for sure present the instrument itself, but it has obvious drawbacks. Actually one: what is presented now on their site is 95% of pianos. But we know Nord is more than the piano, it's also the organs it's a synth it's an arranger... It seems they completely ignore it and don't present these also reach functionalities and capabilities of the Nord instruments

[Hlaalu]

The official site and their YT channel are overloaded with modern jazz content like it was... I don't know, jazz university/school? I'm sure they do it only from a narrow-minded marketing promotion point of view.

Their promotion policies might be also driven by other, non music related, aspects, but when I tried bringing this topic up long ago hoping to have an objective and relaxed conversation about it I was met with the usual sarcasm of a certain user I won't name. I guess it's too politically incorrect to enter certain territories.

[Winds]

If we think positively they must have a rationale for their direction in pushing out jazz content.. maybe they see the majority of artists that buy their keyboards come from a jazz background hence the push towards jazz content?

We'll never know though unless Nord is suddenly willing to shelf out some kind of data or some kind of statement explaining their decisions on the types of videos they produce..

[Hlaalu]

If we think positively they must have a rationale for their direction in pushing out jazz content.. maybe they see the majority of artists that buy their keyboards come from a jazz background hence the push towards jazz content?

The thing is, the music they sponsor is not even "jazz" on the whole, it's a very narrow subset of what could be called "jazz". I call it the "Nord genre", but I don't want to bee too snarky! Point is that's not what most people most of the time think about when they think about "jazz". If they broadened their scope to other kinds of jazz too, that'd be a start at least...

[Spider]

I think it's just what they see as "cool modern music mostly made with piano sounds", which is where their main market is.
Incidentally, music made by some fairly niche artists that a small company like Nord can afford.

Anyway, they've just release a pretty strong techno soundset for the Wave2 that definitely steps away from the "hipster ambient machine" stereotype...

[M1tsos]

Im waiting for the next grand piano sample it should be awesome