Nord User Forum

I know more companys which make extremely amazing products and they are just 30 or 50 employees..

The #1 cable company in the world VOVOX must be with just 15 employees or maybe even lesss

And many pa speaker companys like NEXO are having a low amount of employees

Also pre amp compress etc companys like ams neve having low amount of employees

Conclusion all the high end best companys having low amount of employees and low amount of sales

It seems like they dont wanabe industry sellers like yamaha or behringer or mackie or korg or roland…

I think these companys like roland korg yamaha their first target is the amount and 2nd is the quality compared to nord which 1st is the quality and 2nd the amount of sales

M1tsos wrote:I think these companys like roland korg yamaha their first target is the amount and 2nd is the quality compared to nord which 1st is the quality and 2nd the amount of sales

Disagreed. All these companies makes a great amount of instruments, but to claim lack of quality isn't really fair.
Quality isn't a definition or a scale og good vs bad. It's a more a grading of suitability for intended use.
And all these companies makes great quality instruments, and I've had the pleasure to own several them.
I'm deeply satisfied with my Nord, witch meets all my demands to quality as for now.

All of the top-notch clonewheel makers are as small or even smaller than Nord: HX3, Crumar, Viscount... it's ironic, as some of you pointed out, how vastly bigger companies can't beat the little ones at their own game (Yamaha, Korg and Roland's Hammond emulations are far behind, nor do they offer better acoustic or electric pianos). They probably aren't that interested in that market niche, since they mostly live off digital pianos, workstations and analogue synths (and, in Yamaha's case, literally any instrument ever conceived).

That said, I wholly agree with Gambold. It's as though Nord slowed considerably in the last few years (even before the pandemic), software-wise: new hardware keeps being regularly released, but sound libraries and software updates have been sparse and sometimes disappointing. They really need to get back on track: we need new sampled pianos (or XL versions of the older ones: even just one every year would be enough), an updated B3 model (the C2D was introduced back in 2011: Nord shouldn't resign themselves to losing to Crumar and HX3 for good), the 4.0 Sample Library (which's been taking forever), a new clav (the current samples really show their age) and so on. Furthermore, accommodating customers with small, inexpensive updates would be a sign of company maturity: their obstinacy about things like the 9th drawbar cancel or removing a good part of all of the possible pickup combinations from the electric clavs are unexplainable.

You're completely ignoring that Uhl, for example, only makes organs.

Nord is not an organ company. They make the Lead and Wave synthesisers, stage pianos, and stage keyboards that combine those things with an organ engine, while making certain compromises (like the 9th drawbar cancel — which im my mind would only be really interesting if the percussion actually behaved like real percussion — instantly triggering when switched on while you're holding notes).

So while their organ engine is excellent, it's just one of the things they do.

I wouldn't be surprised if they abandoned the Stage 3 EX and are concentrating on the Stage 4 in response to the pressure from Yamaha's CP series (theough they are more competitive with the Electro series than with the Stage).

analogika wrote:You're completely ignoring that Uhl, for example, only makes organs.

Nord is not an organ company. They make the Lead and Wave synthesisers, stage pianos, and stage keyboards that combine those things with an organ engine, while making certain compromises (like the 9th drawbar cancel — which im my mind would only be really interesting if the percussion actually behaved like real percussion — instantly triggering when switched on while you're holding notes).

So while their organ engine is excellent, it's just one of the things they do.

I wouldn't be surprised if they abandoned the Stage 3 EX and are concentrating on the Stage 4 in response to the pressure from Yamaha's CP series (theough they are more competitive with the Electro series than with the Stage).

Thanks analogika, that may be right and I would appreciate this!
Could this strategy be the reason, why I cannot buy a new stage3 in germany since weeks and for minimum 5 more weeks?

>Clavia/Nord doesn't NEED $300 million revenue, nor do they want it <

I wonder if they'd like to sell the company to one of the bigs. Nordelius isn't getting any younger, and he doesn't have children on his "board." So he has to be considering the endgame - who runs Nord in five or ten years? With a big company like Korg it doesn't matter, the corporation has a life of its own. But Nord's decisions are pretty-much one person's.

eibinger wrote:

analogika wrote:You're completely ignoring that Uhl, for example, only makes organs.

Nord is not an organ company. They make the Lead and Wave synthesisers, stage pianos, and stage keyboards that combine those things with an organ engine, while making certain compromises (like the 9th drawbar cancel — which im my mind would only be really interesting if the percussion actually behaved like real percussion — instantly triggering when switched on while you're holding notes).

So while their organ engine is excellent, it's just one of the things they do.

I wouldn't be surprised if they abandoned the Stage 3 EX and are concentrating on the Stage 4 in response to the pressure from Yamaha's CP series (theough they are more competitive with the Electro series than with the Stage).

Thanks analogika, that may be right and I would appreciate this!
Could this strategy be the reason, why I cannot buy a new stage3 in germany since weeks and for minimum 5 more weeks?

More likely, that's just supply the chain issues that are affecting everything from Apple to Mercedes, Behringer, Yamaha, and every single manufacturer dealing with electronics.

Gambold wrote:I wonder if they'd like to sell the company to one of the bigs. Nordelius isn't getting any younger, and he doesn't have children on his "board." So he has to be considering the endgame - who runs Nord in five or ten years? With a big company like Korg it doesn't matter, the corporation has a life of its own. But Nord's decisions are pretty-much one person's.

Couldn't have said it better myself! (except I did)

Gambold wrote:Nordelius isn't getting any younger, and he doesn't have children on his "board." So he has to be considering the endgame - who runs Nord in five or ten years? With a big company like Korg it doesn't matter, the corporation has a life of its own. But Nord's decisions are pretty-much one person's.

Yes that will be an issue in a few years, but who knows what happen.
Look at other companies which identified with their founder: Moog became an employee-owned company led by the person who was chief engineer under Bob, so they definitely "stayed in the family".
Dave Smith, conversely, completed the reviving of his company by getting back the Sequential name and reissuing the Prophet 5...and after these consolidation moves, he sold it to Focusrite. Who knows, he probably decided there were no better options (and Sequential is VERY small, smaller than Clavia, I think around 15-20 employees).
Other options are to merge with a similar-sized company...and let's not forget that there's also the unfortunate option that the company simply ceases to exist.
We'll see what happens, but I'm honestly not too worried about the future. I trust that these good old-fashioned Swedes know how to keep things safe in the family!

StrangeAeons wrote:their obstinacy about things like the 9th drawbar cancel

Yeah, right on! Wait...whose obstinacy are we talking about again? Doesn't matter. Down with obstinacy I say!