Nord User Forum

Hi - I’ve been on other message boards to ask what board I should buy since I am new to this. I am a guitarist in a 90s rock cover band that is looking to learn some keys to add some 90s pop songs in. So the board would primarily be used for gigs and practice on my own. In saying that - I need a little of everything but would a Nord make sense or am I better off going with something else? A lot of people seem to think I’m better off with say a Fantom or modx.

Nords are the best digital keyboards out there but you will pay a premium for that quality. As a newbie to keyboards you'd be better off starting with a cheaper board - that way if things don't work out, you didn't spend thousands of dollars on it. Yamaha or Casio have a lot of good keyboards in the $500 range that would be worth looking at.

Gambold wrote:Nords are the best digital keyboards out there but you will pay a premium for that quality. As a newbie to keyboards you'd be better off starting with a cheaper board - that way if things don't work out, you didn't spend thousands of dollars on it. Yamaha or Casio have a lot of good keyboards in the $500 range that would be worth looking at.

I second the Yamaha, either one of the 49 or 61 key editions should be fine for someone starting out keyboards.

Ok for Yamaha I was looking at modx. Let’s ignore price for a minute.

Do you think Nord doesn’t have enough synth sounds for what I’m looking to do? That seems to be the general feedback I’ve gotten but wanted to see what people who I know must own a Nord think.

Mike7300 wrote:Ok for Yamaha I was looking at modx. Let’s ignore price for a minute.

Do you think Nord doesn’t have enough synth sounds for what I’m looking to do? That seems to be the general feedback I’ve gotten but wanted to see what people who I know must own a Nord think.

It's safe to say Nord does synth stuff pretty well. If your primary focus is more on synths maybe if you still want Nord that's between possibly the Wave or Lead.. Yamaha should be fine enough as well..

You need to specify more what specifics you want to achieve so we can accurately suggest what keyboards would be more suitable for your needs.

90s pop and rock for the band would be the main use. I’ll probably mess around with some singer songwriter stuff and some 80s tunes once I get better…but that would just be for myself messing around. for now I would use it for stuff like Britney Spears, ace of base, spice girls, jamiriquo, that sort of 90s pop….that would be my main use as far as band goes.

I think there’s two big considerations in general whether or not Nord makes sense for me. 1) even though a Nord may not have as many synth presets as say a fandom which has like 4,000 (which honestly is overkill to me) do you think there’s enough? Also are the presets editable like how they would on a Fantom?

2). The limitations of splitting the keyboard.

Nords advantages is the ability to make changes on separate engines (piano/organ/synth) quickly (Nord Stage).
There are plenty of good patches for 80s and 90s repertoire, and paths are shared widely on this forum.
But the best instrument for this is the Nord line is the Stage - and it's also the most expensive. To be able to use all the benefits, you'd have to play/use the instrument quite much to be on top of the workflow. The good thing is that it's quite intuitive, and all parameters are editable.

So all things considered, I'd recommend a Roland (Fantom?), Yamaha (MODx7?) or Korg (Kross or Nautilus?).
Even if you don't need all the thousand of patches inside them, it's nice to have. Also on these synths you'd have to expect some editing.

It sounds a bit like a paradox but I would also agree with others here in that while Nords can be considered among the best, they don't necessarily fit the use case you're describing. I would get something much less expensive and more "versatile" in a traditional sense. The on-the-fly adjustment capabilities of Nords and the sound quality, which are otherwise their strength, don't necessarily sound like an advantage in the scenario you're playing in.

I agree with the above posts. Something else to keep in mind is that the Roland, Yamaha and Korg instruments listed above are more likely to have the “pop song ready” patches you describe, since a lot of those tunes back then were created using those brands. It will be faster for you to find those sounds, leading to better use and less frustration.