Nord User Forum

Does anyone know which DSP device or microcontroller there is inside NORD keyboards ?

Depends on the model. They've used Motorola 56K series DSPs, Coldfire DSPs, ADI SHARCs...

You may be interested in this older thread that shows some Nord keyboards internals and their main ICs nord-stage-forum-f3/ns2-in-the-nude-t2647.html

maxpiano wrote:You may be interested in this older thread that shows some Nord keyboards internals and their main ICs nord-stage-forum-f3/ns2-in-the-nude-t2647.html

Year 2012, interesting info, thanks.
I'd like to know the current technology too.

ioannes wrote: Year 2012, interesting info, thanks.
I'd like to know the current technology too.

Nord Stage 3 uses:
ADI SHARC DSP
Texas Instruments AM1705 Processor (according to my notes... It's covered by label in picture). Update: Found image of an NP4 showing AM1705 processor clearly so confident this is correct.


Edit: Caveat added for processor
Edit: NP4 Image reference https://cdn.mule.co.kr/data/thumb/2021/ ... 652aed.jpg

Has anyone ever done teardowns of the various Nord keyboards to determine what the architecture is? I'm curious about the CPU, memory, etc., and I'm especially curious when it comes to comparing the S3, Piano 5, Wave 2, and (eventually), the S4. I've seen plenty of videos on teardowns to get to the keyboard and make repairs, but I don't see much where people focused on the electronics.

I would like to know about the internals too. My guess is they are all the same or only slight differences, maybe newer models just have newer version of same boards. Also what OS they use, if I remember right my Kronos was built on Linux. There was someone who did a real deep dive on Yamaha Montage and MoDX and they are identical except MoDx has one less sound processor chip than the Montage. From what I gather most the architecture in all the manufactures boards is pretty old and its the software that is getting updated to add more features.

docbop wrote:I would like to know about the internals too. My guess is they are all the same or only slight differences, maybe newer models just have newer version of same boards. Also what OS they use, if I remember right my Kronos was built on Linux. There was someone who did a real deep dive on Yamaha Montage and MoDX and they are identical except MoDx has one less sound processor chip than the Montage. From what I gather most the architecture in all the manufactures boards is pretty old and its the software that is getting updated to add more features.

I suspect that you are correct. I'm just wondering what it takes to the round-robin sampling that the Piano 5 (and I would imagine, the Stage 4) does. Sooner or later, Nord is going to have to jump to ARM, but it's likely using the Motorola architecture still. ARM would be so much better, but that would be a ton of work to rework the entire operating system.

Any idea about the Wave 2 or Piano 5?

davisjj wrote:Any idea about the Wave 2 or Piano 5?

Most probably, same as NS3 (in terms of DSP family/model, amount of DSPs depends on processing needs, for example NP5 may need less than NS3 of course, having less sections to manage)