Nord User Forum

I think we can all agree that Nord keyboards aren’t the cheapest. Buying a Nord is a big investment for most people.

Yet it astounds me the number of people I see on this forum (and elsewhere) who say “I bought this Nord and it can’t do X, how do I get it to work?” when a little bit of basic research about the board before buying would have told them that that specific model they bought can’t do X because it was never intended to do X. How can so many people buy an instrument without knowing whether or not it does what they want?!

This is especially true for people buying an Electro who think it’s a synth and then complain when it doesn’t do synth things. This is even more key if you’re buying an older mono-timbral model!

So, for all prospective buyers (and there are a lot of you browsing this forum) PLEASE do a bit of research before buying your next Nord. Youtube, this forum, the Nord website and the keyboard corner (music player.com) are all good places to research before buying.

Nord make wonderful keyboards, but you won’t find it wonderful if it doesn’t do what you expect!

The toughest thing about buying a Nord is that no one has them to try out. Guitar Center, Sam Ash, your local music store - they never have Nords. I live very near Chicago and have yet to find a dealer who has Nords on their floor.

SO - you buy them based on recommendations, Youtube videos, and the assumption that the reputation and high price point guarantee satisfaction. Most of the time, that is true.

I had an Electro 4 which I loved, and now I own an Electro 6 which I like. The difference is that I've grown spoiled by Nord's rich feature set and more easily see the flaws with the 6 than I did the 4. These flaws include an underwhelming rotary emulator, an even clumsier program interface (I didn't think that was possible), and the Fatar keybed, which I know is a part of the Nord experience but like some others, I'm wearying of it.

That said, the E6 has many splendors. The panel is better laid out, the multi-layer feature is a godsend, and if you can't make the sound you want with all the additional tweakeries, it's you, it's not the board.

I did just buy a Privia S1000 because I needed some hammer action - too many hours on "semi-weighted" and your technique starts to weaken I guess my point is - no one board is going to do it all for you, but the Nord will sure do a lot.

I marveled for years at users coming here and asking "I can't program my usual setup of 16-sounds splits and layers on my Electro 3, could somebody please explain me how to do it?"

To me it's unexplicable because I always thoroughly research my intruments before buying. But clearly, many many users don't. They just assume all keyboards are more or less the same and can do more or less the same things. This is probably true of some models of the major brands but it's a fatal mistake with Nords, which do relatively few things but very very well. I'm almost shocked every time a fellow keyboardist say "I tried Nords but I just can't get used to their system, I'll go back to my Roland or Yamaha because they're much easier to use"...still I heard it many times. It's shocking to me because I find Nords laughingly easy to use, while I'm always turned away by the arcane menu systems of the typical Japanese brands.
I suppose many users just want a keyboard with 3000 presets that you can just turn on, go through the presets, find the ones you like and play away. With Nords that practice won't give good results, you have to work on your sounds but, as Gambold says, if you can't get the sound you like it's most probably you, not the Nord.

Gambold wrote:The toughest thing about buying a Nord is that no one has them to try out. Guitar Center, Sam Ash, your local music store - they never have Nords.

Yes. That's the main reason it took me so long to take the plunge. Hard to justify spending that kind of money buying something that you can't see in person and try out. Sure, you can buy it online and the online stores will take it back when you pay for shipping (sometimes a restocking fee), and it's not cheap to ship. You really have to do your research on features, then hope when it arrives that you like the way it feels and the way it works.

I completely agree with Nadroj here. There are those who are under the assumption that Nord products are workstations like Roland Fantom or Yamaha Motif, they're not. They have limitations, but for the limitations that are there, you should consider what you're about to invest in. I've owned Nord hardware for a good number of years until a studio shut down due to death in the family, its taken nearly 2 years to finally get myself back to nord products, as a stage 3-88 owner and Nord Grand owner with the Piano Monitors. Best thing I could have done.

Here in the UK, within the trades, there's an expression... "70% of todays customers are idiots." not my expression but it has been demonstrated on various principles that today's customers, probably due to the new generation, etc have no clue of what they're investing in, doing with the products, etc.

I openly admit and also agree with the issue that due to dealers who say "we sell this brand" yet don't carry the range in branch, I trust in listening to product demos, listening to user manuals, youtube reviews, etc on those occasions and at times I've made mistakes in purchasing equipment, of course, it's gone back to the dealers for refunds, but for me, the difference is that I have no sight what so ever, rely on a speaking phone, speaking computer, etc, I have to feel my way around equipment, understand the OS from a different perspective to sighted users, etc. so products from Korg, Roland, etc with touch screens are a complete NO NO. That's the sad fact of it. The worst of it is when you deal with retailers who have no clue, but sell it. I'll spend hours in a music store road testing and reviewing a machine before I'm satisfied. It's a real shame that manufacturers don't engage directly with customers, you know, THE PEOPLE WHO PURCHASE OR WANT TO PURCHASE THEIR GOODS! lol.

My nearest instrument dealer is in Chester, England, they sell Nord, but guess what. NONE IN STOCK!, no grand, no stage 3, 1 electro 6 61 note, no nord leads, no drum 3, etc. ridiculous, nearest who does is Liverpool, so it's a train ride at cost to find out they don't have. I don't touch that company any more.

Some of the problems of visiting music stores comes from certain companies being on industrial parks and not on the high streets so, getting there as a customer with no transport (like myself - can't drive for the obvious reasons, unless you fancy a laugh sticking a white cane out of the driver's window with the words "Sorry, coming through, don't mind me... GET YOUR CAR OUT OF THE WAY, YOUR CAR'S PROBABLY LARGER THAN YOUR REAR END!") and you call the retailer for directions, explain the situation to be put off completely. For me, I ask for directions on foot from the nearest train station, to be told "sorry you can't." just lost business. It's time today's music retailers came back to the high streets, not industrial parks here in the UK.

I fully understand that you have to physically touch the instrument to get a feel for the key action, as well as confirm the ease/difficulty of workflow on the panel. In that regard, it is indeed frustrating when there is no musical retailer nearby that stocks the items.

That said, however, it’s not hard in this day and age to do your homework regarding the architecture or basic approach of a product. There are tons of YouTube videos, downloadable manuals and user reviews everywhere. Anyone can take advantage of these resources to at least determine whether an instrument is worth an in-person trial. I personally will download the manuals to any product I have an interest in to understand the workflow and to determine if it’s worth further consideration. This has helped prevent me from wasting my money many times.

I agree with Nadroj that nobody should complain that the Electro cannot do a solo synth lead with filter sweeps, pitch bend and vibrato. It’s very simple to see from Nord’s own website and any product review or video that the Electro has no pitch bend, no mod wheel, and no “traditional” synth architecture. Anyone who did their homework should understand that the Electro is not a contender if those are the features they want.

I can understand that the Nord architecture and workflow may be tough to grasp for someone who has played Yamaha or Korg for years, as it is so very different. My challenge is just the opposite; I’m so used to Nord now that I’m sometimes bewildered by how anyone can be productive (let alone musical) on one of of the Japanese Big Three instruments.

Back on topic - making any kind of significant purchase should be preceded by a healthy amount of research and understanding. It seems not everyone shares that perspective. That leads to buyer’s remorse.

This thread is utterly counterproductive. A forum needs a healthy mix of experienced users to give good advice, newbies to ask questions that others are too scared to ask, and idiots for entertainment. In the interest of a healthy forum....SHHHHHHHH!

Spider wrote:They just assume all keyboards are more or less the same and can do more or less the same things.

Funny you should say that. I've come to realize that my way of thinking keys was shaped by my father's board I played growing up. It was an entry-level Technics rompler with a couple hundred sounds that you could freely assign to 2 slots which you could then split and layer. I consciously decided to buy an Electro 5 instead of the supposedly more advanced 6 precisely because its architecture is similar.

So, I can fully unterstand how somebody might try to make a new board work like one they are familiar with. Of course, that should be even more incentive to find out in advance whether that's possible.

Gambold wrote:The toughest thing about buying a Nord is that no one has them to try out. Guitar Center, Sam Ash, your local music store - they never have Nords. I live very near Chicago and have yet to find a dealer who has Nords on their floor.

Wow, that’s amazing considering your location. I am very lucky to have TWO Nord dealers in lowly Birmingham, less than 15 miles from each other.

And yes, I spent hours at one of them, before buying by E4HP... from them. I just couldn’t bring myself to “pull an Amazon” on those guys, after all the one-on-one attention they gave me.

Most of us on this forum have spent time with Nord and competitive products, and then gotten our knowledge supplemented from input from everyone else on this forum. So even though I have never touched a Nord Stage, I could give useful advice to a newbie about the plusses and minus of an Electro vs. Stage vs. a few other non-Nord products.

But when I bought my first keyboard rig in 2006, I knew nothing. Even if this forum had existed then, I would not known how to distinguish it from all the noise and bias found in most places on the web. And I would not have known enough to ask intelligent questions. All I knew was that I needed a keyboard and some kind of amp. I was lucky enough to be playing in a covers band with a pro keyboard player who was also our church music director. He recommended some products after asking me a few questions. If it had not been for my convenient access to that person, I would have had no baseline knowledge, and my first questions online might have seemed just as silly as ones cited here.

This topic reminds me of something I see in many fora (forums) - not just here - when certain questions from newcomers are responded to with a plea to use the search function. But all of us who have been on this forum for a while know how to parse the search results, by considering who provides an answer contained in the search hit, and by correlating it with what we know from the keyboard we already own, and everything else we have read here over the years.