Nord User Forum

Hello!

In my band I play the nord C2D, together with 2 of those small yamaha-reface keyboards, the DX and CP. Also I use a crappy digital piano. I really would like to purchase either a nord Electro or a Nord stage to complement my organ and also get rid of the crappy piano. With the stage I realize I also potentially could sell my both refacekeyboards aswell because of the synth section. However if I go for the electro I'd have to keep the reface Dx.

BOTH THESE KEYBOARDS HAVE AN UNNECESSARY ORGAN SECTION THOUGH. And I can't help but feel I pay for a part of the keyboard I'm never going to use because of my C2D.

Is there any nord I might have missed with only a piano and a synth section? And is it worth the higher price to get the Nord Stage instead of the Electro?

Even the Piano 5 will not have a real synth - only two sample engines. Coming out presumably in June.

Even if you got the Stage or any other Nord synth they couldn't do FM synthesis, which is what the reface DX does. Or I should say, they could but in a very simplistic way. So it also depends on which kind of synth you need, you might want to keep the DX anyway.

Have you considered the wave2? It is an awesome synthesizer and you can use samples or wavetables for piano. Of course it is just nsmp with no velocity layers and detail like the npno format, but you can achive some expression if you you assign 2 of them in seperate layers and morph some parametres (amplitude, filter etc) with velocity. In a band context it would be ok i believe.

Johnpersson wrote:I really would like to purchase either a nord Electro or a Nord stage to complement my organ and also get rid of the crappy piano...BOTH THESE KEYBOARDS HAVE AN UNNECESSARY ORGAN SECTION THOUGH...Is there any nord I might have missed with only a piano and a synth section?

The Nord Piano 4 is essentially a Nord Electro 6 without an organ section. As FZielgler said, the forthcoming Piano 5 will add some capability... like the Stage 3, you'll be able to split layer two piano sounds and two sample engine sounds.

Johnpersson wrote:With the stage I realize I also potentially could sell my both refacekeyboards aswell because of the synth section. However if I go for the electro I'd have to keep the reface Dx.

Picking up from what Hlaalu said, the Stage has a VA synth section, and can do a limited kind of FM, but not all the DX does, which may or may not matter. If you want something that has the piano functions to replace your crappy piano, EP functions similar to those of your CP, and FM synth similar to your DX, the boards that do all of the above are:

Yamaha MODX/Montage
Kurzweil PC4/PC4-7, Forte series, forthcoming K2700
Korg Kronos/Nautilus

Kurzweil and Korg also add VA synthesis... and they also add an organ engine which you wouldn't care about (and not as good as Nord's). None of them have the immediate knobiness of the Nord boards. If you want knobiness, Yamaha also has the YC61/73/88 which also has piano/EP/FM in it, but the FM section is not programmable like the Reface DX, instead the board has 28 popular FM sounds in it (and also uses the FM to generate its transitosr organ emulations). It does also have an organ in it that you wouldn't need. They make the CP73/88 that doesn't have the organ, but it also doesn't have the FM.

Johnpersson wrote:is it worth the higher price to get the Nord Stage instead of the Electro?

See general-nord-forum-f29/stage-3-compact- ... 15138.html

A YAMAHA MODX6 would probably suit your needs better than an Electro or any Korg or Roland workstation. The sound engine is the same as the Montage's and it even offers FM synthesis. It's also really reasonably priced!

Or, just replace the piano. Get one of the current crop of nice retro pianos - Grand, Legend 70s, Seven, SV. You'll have a nice organ, a nice piano, and keep your DX for its kitsch value. Are you currently playing the DX on its own keys? Maybe another development for your rig could be to use the C2D's keyboard to play it. You can still use pitch bend directly on the reface.

Unless part of your thinking is to add some rompler capability to your rig. Then, as always, what Scott says.