Nord User Forum

Hey all - so, after cleaning one contact and repairing the AT strip, I am still not done with getting back the keyboard back to normal unfortunately. It seems like it is a very delicate piece of machinery that is not very advisable to open up.

Since I repaired the AT strip, some keys have not been sounding when played really gently, which is of course one of the glowing features of the NS3. I can't figure out why this is happening. I only know that I needed to remove all the white keys in order to replace the AT strip, and this issue is happening only with the white keys (this started happening right after the AT repair, in which the problem of the keys not responding was the same, but on different keys. I then removed all the white keys again, dusted everything and reassembled - problem is the same, but for different keys). It is almost like at really gentle velocities, the part that makes contact with the rubber contact is not reaching it - I checked to see if there was anything broken in the mechanism or the key, and it all looks fine. I also replaced keys between different octaves to check if the keys were faulty - they were not. It also does fine in normal velocities. Does anybody know what's causing this? Another potentially helpful piece of information is that some of the keys dislodge when hit with force, but there was not real correlation between that and the non-sensitive keys - also, it is no longer doing that, for now. Nothing seems broken, springs are there.

I dusted inside the whole keyboard, but did not clean the contacts as it didn't seem like that was the issue. A person at Nord said it might be that the calibration went off kilter, which I'm not sure what that means. I made sure the alignment of the keyboard is correct, but maybe it's a really gentle alignment?

If anybody has an idea what's causing this, I'd be grateful to hear from you.

Thank you all so much!

I think the person at Nord means the "firmware calibration" of the keyboard response, which is done at the factory and can be restored only by an official Nord Service center; if that's the case I suggest you contact Nord distributor for assistance (unless Pablo Mastodon himself will pass by this post right here )

Thanks so much, maxpiano! I have been in touch with Matthew Wood from American Music & Sound (apparently Pablo is no longer there unfortunately), I'll try to be more specific in my question to him and see what he says.

Thanks so much!

"I dusted inside the whole keyboard, but did not clean the contacts as it didn't seem like that was the issue"

The contacts are what define the velocity of the key presses, so if velocity is the problem, that is where I would be looking first, not the springs.

Thanks so much, Mr. G! You'd recommend doing that even though the problem has moved between two different sets of keys for each repair? I guess that if the keyboard is already open it would not hurt to clean all contacts while I'm at it, but it just didn't seem to be the issue since this has affected different keys every time, and that there was no issue with the contact prior. But I'll definitely do it, it couldn't do any harm I guess.

Should I be using Isopropyl Alcohol, or is there anything else you recommend? I bought the CDC Duster at the recommendation of a person from Home Depot, but I don't think it cleans contacts per se.

Thanks!