Nord User Forum

Hi all!

With my title I may sound provokative but personally I believe that HP keyboard has been biggest mistake of Nord company.

Reason this came to mind was that couple days ago I was on the stage with other group using Electro III HP. I was curious to check it (without sound, just keyboard actions) and I was amazed how horrible it was. Loose and noisy and VERY far from natural piano action. Something that you might expect from cheepest ”digi pianos” out there.

I have a short history of HP keyboard myself: when Stage 3 came I first bought 76 version with HP keyboard. I remember that at the first moment it felt good but very in soon (in couple of days) it started to make extra noises. This was a clear warning sign that HP keyboard would not likely age well. Fortunately I was able to trade my NS3 HP to NS3 Compact which (latter) is still going strong. After that I have seen many horrible units with HP which all have this bad keyboard.

Any thoughts?

Now I have new Stage 4 73 with HA keyboard. Fortunately and at least after couple of weeks of playing this seems have much more solid keyboard. But time will tell how does it resist aging. I really hope Clavia has learned its lesson. It seems to me that they still have one HP keyboard, Electro 6 HP but Stage and Piano have given up of HP.

I don't think the choice of HP keyboard was in itself a "mistake", but a commercial decision, for which a compromise was inevitable

At the times TP100 was (and still is, maybe in its better TP110 evolution) the only option available for Nord to create a 73/76 hammer-action keyboard weighing less than 13 Kg in total, which for many users in the market is the limit between a "portable" rather than "transportable" keyboard and the demand for "less weight" is always there from gigging musician (at least the ones who carry their own instruments)

We may discuss if Nord may have produced also a HA version of the Nord Electro (creating a "Half Nord Stage" model), which I think actually we already talked about on NUF in the past, but that's as well a commercial choice.

I am talking about a serius quality problem of HP keybed which IMO it has. I have been always critical about Nord’s keyboard actions: coming from Roland RD-series I remember having hard time to accept the mechanical noise of my first Nord Stage. But in time I accepted this and I never had issues with Stage 2 HA 76 (expect being noisier than Rolands for example). But as said above my experience with HP was nightmare and IMO a critical step backwards. Dropping HP out of the main line may point to the fact that Nord has realized these problems.

But of course here I am just reflecting my experiences. Others may see this differently.

I don't play a Nord with a HP keybed but I have a SL88 Studio which has the same TP/100 keybed, and I don't like it either. It just feels not right, very uncomfortable and strange. Thinking about selling it and getting a SL88 Grand instead