Stage Classic vs NS2 ?? (Help please)

[anotherscott]

I don't think a bunch of moderately inebriated holiday makers on a cruise ship will be able to tell the difference either in fairness.

Most listeners probably don't hear the differences most of us pay for... cruise ship, bar, wedding, whatever. The better quality is more for our own playing satisfaction. Remember also that most of what we're using these days sounds better than what top acts were using 10 and 20 years ago, and the audience was happy then, too! The players are harder to please than the audience.

[monsterjazzlicks]

Regarding the onboard SAMPLER, i assume the NS2 comes shipped with factory samples for the user ??

With the downloadable samples from the official Nord site (like the Orchestral sounds etc), are these conisdered being of good quality ?? For instance, how do the (say) strings or brass compare to those on rival instruments out there on the market ?? i had a listen to some of the demos but its not always easy to get an idea what the sample is like until you actually play it (feel it) on the keyboard.

And out of the Organ / Piano / Synth Sections, does the Sampler rank as one of the strongest or weakest features on the NS2 ??

[whitenoise]

Clavia keeps the original concept of best emulations of traditional electromechanical keyboards. So the idea behind the Synth section sampler is to deliver sound of Mellotron, Accordion/Organs, Chamberlin and some old synths. Thereby the sampler is only one velocity layer. It's fine to emulate the above instruments but not the best way to emulate strings, wind, brass, guitar, bass sounds. Actually these sounds are also usable but they sound less capable comparing to Yamaha, Korg, Roland or Kurzweil. Actually I use them as I don't want to bring another instrument or module.

[monsterjazzlicks]

It's fine to emulate the above instruments but not the best way to emulate strings, wind, brass, guitar, bass sounds. Actually these sounds are also usable but they sound less capable comparing to Yamaha, Korg, Roland or Kurzweil. Actually I use them as I don't want to bring another instrument or module.

Ok thanks, i see. Thats why i asked because you don't really know until you PLAY the samples on an actual keyboard.

i had a good listen to them all and thought that all the SYNTH sounds sounded really great (like the Oberheim, Moog, DX7 etc). But the orchestral samples were not so convincing (esp. the choirs). If the latter is the case, then i would still need to carry my old Emu sampler of gigs with me for these sound types.

[jazzystu]

I knew I wasn't tripping.

If you read this:- http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t ... tric_Piano

You will quite clearly read that they took a so and so piano from 1975 and miked it up a certain way.

Trading standards in the UK would have a fit. It doesn't say anything anywhere about them sampling the pianos totally.

Not even here:-

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t ... Library_v5

When I bought my Nord, it was because I understood that they had sampled some proper Rhodes pianos, like Scarbee have done, or anyone else with a quantifiable hammer for whacking the keys and a microphone. It appears that I have actually deluded into thinking:-

EPiano 1 MkI, Low Deep

Late Mk I built in May 1978 and adjusted to ''deep timbre''. The amplitude is set to ''Low''. These settings give the piano a bassy sound with more fundamental than harmonics.

EPiano 2 MkI Suitcase, Close Ideal

Mk I Suitcase built in January 1975. We optimized the mechanics and adjusted the tines to ''ideal timbre''. The volume adjustment is ''close''.

....were actually real pianos sampled note for note. It appears my lack of being a cynical bastard has shot me in the foot.

I am 100% about sounding great. The reason I dragged a Rhodes Suitcase and Clavinet around was that I wanted the sound. The key problem with getting classic gear is that you have to wait for the right instrument to pop up, otherwise you get something which is trashed, or too expensive. I took several years off gigging and had an utterly excellent band contact me wanting keys. It was either probably getting some stuff sent over from the states, or get a Nord. I read the Clavia website and thought "They've sampled and old stage piano and an old suitcase piano", it'll save me having to bugger around with screwdrivers and taking the back seat out of the car, etc.

It has been suggested on here that the actual Electric Piano sounds are based on a smear, an average and some electical jiggery-pokery in order to get something WHICH DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT. The clav is pretty wide of the mark and the Rhodes are WAY wide of the mark. No wonder if they have used a bloody computer to fudge the thing around, rather than doing a half decent job.

Nowhere on their site does it say anything about them sampling the instrument properly and reading the sound library gumph, I realise I perhaps have sold myself on an instrument because I put 2 and 2 together and got 5, because I thought a 1975 Suitcase Piano was exactly that.

In hindsight, I am very cross that I made the wrong decision not to get another Rhodes and Clav. Now my EX88 is worth a lot less. I feel like I have been ripped off and if it was a UK company, trading standards would have something to say about it.

No wonder the Rhodes is so so far off the mark. It all makes sense.

Suddenly, the £2400 "amazing value" I talked about doesn't seem so great at all. If they had written:-

"We took a 1975 suitcase piano, sampled some of the notes and then whacked it in our software which knows better than the original instrument and the result is that the high register is s*** and the thing is oddly clinical"

I really wouldn't have bothered. If they don't up their game within a year, not only will I not be upgrading to another Nord, I will also get rid of my present one.

[jazzystu]

I knew I wasn't tripping.

If you read this:- http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t ... tric_Piano

You will quite clearly read that they took a so and so piano from 1975 and miked it up a certain way.

Trading standards in the UK would have a fit. It doesn't say anything anywhere about them sampling the pianos totally.

Not even here:-

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t ... Library_v5

When I bought my Nord, it was because I understood that they had sampled some proper Rhodes pianos, like Scarbee have done, or anyone else with a quantifiable hammer for whacking the keys and a microphone. It appears that I have actually deluded into thinking:-

EPiano 1 MkI, Low Deep

Late Mk I built in May 1978 and adjusted to ''deep timbre''. The amplitude is set to ''Low''. These settings give the piano a bassy sound with more fundamental than harmonics.

EPiano 2 MkI Suitcase, Close Ideal

Mk I Suitcase built in January 1975. We optimized the mechanics and adjusted the tines to ''ideal timbre''. The volume adjustment is ''close''.

....were actually real pianos sampled note for note. It appears my lack of being a cynical bastard has shot me in the foot.

I am 100% about sounding great. The reason I dragged a Rhodes Suitcase and Clavinet around was that I wanted the sound. The key problem with getting classic gear is that you have to wait for the right instrument to pop up, otherwise you get something which is trashed, or too expensive. I took several years off gigging and had an utterly excellent band contact me wanting keys. It was either probably getting some stuff sent over from the states, or get a Nord. I read the Clavia website and thought "They've sampled and old stage piano and an old suitcase piano", it'll save me having to bugger around with screwdrivers and taking the back seat out of the car, etc.

It has been suggested on here that the actual Electric Piano sounds are based on a smear, an average and some electical jiggery-pokery in order to get something WHICH DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT. The clav is pretty wide of the mark and the Rhodes are WAY wide of the mark. No wonder if they have used a bloody computer to fudge the thing around, rather than doing a half decent job.

Nowhere on their site does it say anything about them sampling the instrument properly and reading the sound library gumph, I realise I perhaps have sold myself on an instrument because I put 2 and 2 together and got 5, because I thought a 1975 Suitcase Piano was exactly that.

In hindsight, I am very cross that I made the wrong decision not to get another Rhodes and Clav. Now my EX88 is worth a lot less. I feel like I have been ripped off and if it was a UK company, trading standards would have something to say about it.

No wonder the Rhodes is so so far off the mark. It all makes sense.

Suddenly, the £2400 "amazing value" I talked about doesn't seem so great at all. If they had written:-

"We took a 1975 suitcase piano, sampled some of the notes and then whacked it in our software which knows better than the original instrument and the result is that the high register is s*** and the thing is oddly clinical"

I really wouldn't have bothered. If they don't up their game within a year, not only will I not be upgrading to another Nord, I will also get rid of my present one.

[monsterjazzlicks]

(Direct reply from Nord today).

You cannot dump patches from a Classic to a Stage 2 via midi, I'm afraid. Again, this is down to the physical architecture of the new model. It has lots of new features that the Classic does not have and these changes makes midi dumps incompatible. Piano and Organ sounds can easily be manually duplicated on the Stage 2, given that it already has the same sounds in it and the piano library is the same for both units so piano sounds can be loaded back into the Stage 2 from the library (if they are not already in there already). The big difference is the synth section which has undergone a major overhaul since the Classic was out. This is where you would need to re-program because the engine, layout and functionality has many more features than before. But, as you can now load samples from the Nord Sample Library into the Stage 2, you may find that there are loads of cool synth sounds there that you could use instead and save you having to re-program your original sounds. Splits and layers are easy to manually copy as this is not a complex area.


The Stage 2 is the current generation of the Stage series. Whether Nord make a new version in the future is down to them. Nord never release info about new products or updates but they do take on board customer's suggestions. The same applies to any new sounds in the various libraries. I have not heard about any new Rhodes sounds myself. Whenever Nord release any new sounds/products, they always announce it on their homepage so that is always the first place to look.

[monsterjazzlicks]

Suddenly, the £2400 "amazing value". I really wouldn't have bothered. If they don't up their game within a year, not only will I not be upgrading to another Nord, I will also get rid of my present one.

When I bought my Nord, it was because I understood that they had sampled some proper Rhodes pianos, like Scarbee have done

Well this is why i have asked so many questions in this thread because i am not going to make the same mistake twice. It does not seem (at the moment) that there are significant improvements in the areas i am looking for and so after all this i will probs not be rushing out spending £2,500 on an NS2. i am thinking i may as well just keep my Stage Classic (for what its worth). Also, had Nord have confirmed (in my previous message) that they were going to release significantly bigger and better Rhodes sounds this year then i would equally have considered upgrading. So at the moment i am going to hold fire.

i had never heard of Scarbee before and there website is down at the moment. But it looks like they only make VST and not physical keyboards as such ??

[jazzystu]

Yep, it's virtual and it's also pretty good. Whilst you are at it, have a listen to neo-soul keys.

Back in 199something I had the first P-100 clavinova in the UK, I was stoked and it was just like having a nord. The piano was good....oddly enough, it had different tunings....anyway, the electric piano was sort of passableish if you pressed the pitch bender button (or whatever it was) and moved the wheel -12 semitones and took your finger off. It went an octave down, but sounded a bit like a Rhodes. At the time, I was getting into modern piano (aged 16 or so) and started playing with a local band. I remember, if you taped down one button, you had a slider which was like the leslie speed! Again, the pitch bender trick made it sound better!

Anyway, we ended up in the studio and I had some piano bits to do and some organ bits. Really nice studio and we had recorded before and this was going to be the big one. The engineer insisted on using some MIDI gadget which had the overall effect of making my input sound rubbish. I was too young to really stand up for myself, or put my foot down and that was it. I WOULD NEVER USE ANYTHING WITH A MIDI SOCKET ON IT AGAIN!!!!! So I bought a Rhodes Stage Mk2 73. Then a Jen SX-1000 monosynth and started getting into Herbie Hancock.... Then I went to Uni and bought a Rhodes 88, then a Hammond C3, then a Leslie 147, then a D6 Clavinet, then a Minimoog D, then a Rhodes Suitcase Piano. I got into the whole soldering/rebuilding/anglepoise lamp/care/setup of my keyboards. It was like driving classic cars, which I did also.

About 2005, I had a major fall out with the band/mates who I had played with for years.....Guitarist thought it was a good plan to teach my missus some love skillz and they thought it was an idea I didn't know. Kaboom.

That was it, I sold all of my equipment, concentrated on playing acoustic solo piano and bought an old Mk1 Morris Cooper with a silly engine. Good plan as it is worth 10x what I paid for it now. Having said, I sold my Wurly for £150.

It all depends on what you want. Personally, I just want a bloody good Rhodes/Clav sound and the rest is a bonus. I'd rather it wasn't big and heavy and I'd rather not have to nurse it everywhere.

The Nord is a hell of a tool, but the more I play it, the more I realise that it is short on what it is meant to do and long on what it also does.

It is one hell of a tool though. The piano is a beautiful thing and I prefer the synth to my old Moog. I am primarily a Rhodeser and a Clavist though. The Nord is looking pretty sorry in that department.

It's rare that I have got to reflect over what I sound like, when you are playing along, you can't really hear yourself in an objective way. I picked up a computer multitrack recorder and only today have been making epic funky lift music with some drum loops, my electric bass and the Nord. It sounded ridiculously funky, however the Rhodes is just not good enough for soloing. It is just no good. NO matter what I do with the compressor, or the EQ, it sounds s***. Not only is it thin, but it also sounds like my old Yamaha. It sounds like a shitty keyboard. The more I think about this, the more it is painfully obvious. The lower register is perhaps more consistent and better sounding than any of my old Rhodes, but the top end is shockingly wanting. It is far from adequate. It's not my speakers either. It's a keyboard and £2500 is a lot of money for a "keyboard".

When you consider the utterly amazing tack piano and the so and so weirdy beardy upright, it shows they can sample something perfectly detailed and do a lovely job, but then leave it out on the Electric Pianos. Mad. Most people who want a superduper electric piano use things which are more suited to the job. There are much superior digital pianos, ones where you can alter the tuning/etc, perhaps even wooden keys.

It is beyond high time that Nord gave us some new electric pianos and I cynically think they will do it to dovetail with something offering a step up in memory, ie, the 2EX.

In fact, I bet you all a pint that it's the case

[monsterjazzlicks]

It all depends on what you want. Personally, I just want a bloody good Rhodes/Clav sound and the rest is a bonus. I'd rather it wasn't big and heavy and I'd rather not have to nurse it everywhere.

The Nord is a hell of a tool, but the more I play it, the more I realise that it is short on what it is meant to do and long on what it also does.

Well i have kind of accepted that if a really good gig came in then i would use my Suitcase Rhodes and Hohner Clavinet (even though i live in a first floor flat). ie. i would not take my Nord !! But for regular run-of-the-mill gigs (playing soul/jazz/pop) i take the Nord cause its good enough for these (and these gigs do not warrant me lugging all my retro gear).

The Stage Classic was good when it was first launched and i can see why everyone was totally blown away with it, but i doubt i will do the same again and pay another £2,500 for the latest release. i think i will stick to using it midi up to my JV1080 module.

In saying all this, there are some things that i really LOVE about the design. The layout is totally brilliant as it gives me instant access to what i need on a live gig. And the External Section is the most convenient i have ever experienced.