Nord User Forum

Let’s see how satisfied people are with their Stage 4 in general….

For those who’ve read my earlier posts aren’t surprised that I am quite far from happy with my NS4. It has been a huge disappointment to be honest. I’ve had it over a year and I am still waiting for basic Midi stuff to work (to be fixed). I bought it to replace my Stage 3 but I am still using NS3 and NS4 is a quite expensive furniture in my cellar or a practise piano at most. To this latter purpose there are much better and cheaper options.

You've posted multiple times on how unhappy you are with the midi implementation on the current NS4.

You've tried to rally others who might be similarly unhappy, but without luck.

Rather than continually hate on Nords, what brand of master keyboard has a midi implementation that you find acceptable?

Overall I am satisfied just with a few "disappointments". This is my first Nord Instrument so this is also my first impression.

I used to play my Yamaha Montage 6 as my go to instrument but I was missing a piano action so I started looking into MIDI keyboards first but was disappointed with the current products on the market. They are either cheap plastic trash or overpriced equipment where I could simply buy a stage piano instead which is what I did. After trying out multiple instruments in nearby stores it came down to either the Yamaha CP88 or Nord Stage 4. As I already have the "Yamaha Sound" with my Yamaha Montage I went with the Nord Stage 4 as I was really pleased with the sound of it and the hands on philosophy.

What I like about the Nord Stage 4 are the sound capabilities. The first time I sat down and build up a patch I could focus on the sound using the controls instead of diving thousand of menues and I came up with a patch which I couldn't even imagned to build on my montage because I could not be inspired to do so.

The keybed is "ok" for my taste. Personally I would have prefered the Yamaha CP88 keybed which was top notch in my opinion. The first Nord Stage 4 I got hat a clicky key which forced me to return it and get a new board.

The points where I am a little disappointed is the synth section which is ok from a functionallity standpoint. I'd really wish for some more modulation capabilities and I was really suprised to only find an ASR envelope instead of an ADSR envelope.

What is also a common complaint is that the Delay and Reverb effects are insert FX and can not be used as send FX. I found some workaround which makes it usable but overall this is kinda lame for such an expensive instrument.

Also why does the Stage only receive MIDI clock but is not able to send the Clock and be the master keyboard?! That one really hit hard because my initial plan to organize my setup was around the Stage 4.

Is the Nord Stage 4 a great instrument? I think it is from a sound standpoint and I get really inspired on it and I play it daily. I come up with cool ideas and patches really easy but is it really worth it for the current price? I'd say it is overpriced and I hope that Nord updates and supports the Nord Stage 4 for some years to come to make it worth it.

cphollis wrote: ↑18 May 2024, 13:37 You've posted multiple times on how unhappy you are with the midi implementation on the current NS4.

You've tried to rally others who might be similarly unhappy, but without luck.

Rather than continually hate on Nords, what brand of master keyboard has a midi implementation that you find acceptable?

This was funny. I don’t hate Nords, in fact I am very happy with my Stage3. Only Instrument I am disappointed with them is NS4. And I don’t need your or others help with decision what I do with it. Either I wait a bit longer or start to sell it. Let’s see. Only thing I have been wondering is the fact that how little people seem not to care about these crucial MIDI issues. I was curious to see what is behind this ”silence”. There are some like me but perhaps majority seem to accept that. Probably because they do not use these features.

Midiwise NS4 was step backwards from NS3. Period. What’s new with NS4 and this company is total silence and lack of support what’s gonna happen with all these crucial issues. To me this is most worrying. They either do not care or have not competence or have employees. Flagship instrument having these problems for longer than a year is not acceptable no matter how you put it.

Answer to your last question: Nord Stage 3

here I am, I am also disappointed with NS4 due to the midi problems, how is it possible that after more than 1 year they have not been able to solve the problems that I have always reported? These are simple and basic things, like receiving some midi CCs, which any other keyboard does without any problems! Other than that I think the NS4 is a fantastic instrument, with great sound possibilities and very high quality! I really hope that they can pay attention and solve the midi problems, I have always used, even when I had NS2ex and then NS3, a midi master connected, and the fact of not receiving the aftertouch or modulation wheel, or anything else, is really disappointing!

Ecaroh wrote: ↑18 May 2024, 22:10

cphollis wrote: ↑18 May 2024, 13:37 You've posted multiple times on how unhappy you are with the midi implementation on the current NS4.

You've tried to rally others who might be similarly unhappy, but without luck.

Rather than continually hate on Nords, what brand of master keyboard has a midi implementation that you find acceptable?

This was funny. I don’t hate Nords, in fact I am very happy with my Stage3. Only Instrument I am disappointed with them is NS4. And I don’t need your or others help with decision what I do with it. Either I wait a bit longer or start to sell it. Let’s see. Only thing I have been wondering is the fact that how little people seem not to care about these crucial MIDI issues. I was curious to see what is behind this ”silence”. There are some like me but perhaps majority seem to accept that. Probably because they do not use these features.

Midiwise NS4 was step backwards from NS3. Period. What’s new with NS4 and this company is total silence and lack of support what’s gonna happen with all these crucial issues. To me this is most worrying. They either do not care or have not competence or have employees. Flagship instrument having these problems for longer than a year is not acceptable no matter how you put it.

Answer to your last question: Nord Stage 3

Insulting all Nord employees --as well as people who don't agree with you -- won't get you what you want.

Why aren't you using a laptop for complex midi processing like everyone else?

Please sell your NS4 as soon as possible. Lots of people want them, you shouldn't have any problem.

cphollis wrote: ↑19 May 2024, 14:52

Ecaroh wrote: ↑18 May 2024, 22:10

cphollis wrote: ↑18 May 2024, 13:37 You've posted multiple times on how unhappy you are with the midi implementation on the current NS4.

You've tried to rally others who might be similarly unhappy, but without luck.

Rather than continually hate on Nords, what brand of master keyboard has a midi implementation that you find acceptable?

This was funny. I don’t hate Nords, in fact I am very happy with my Stage3. Only Instrument I am disappointed with them is NS4. And I don’t need your or others help with decision what I do with it. Either I wait a bit longer or start to sell it. Let’s see. Only thing I have been wondering is the fact that how little people seem not to care about these crucial MIDI issues. I was curious to see what is behind this ”silence”. There are some like me but perhaps majority seem to accept that. Probably because they do not use these features.

Midiwise NS4 was step backwards from NS3. Period. What’s new with NS4 and this company is total silence and lack of support what’s gonna happen with all these crucial issues. To me this is most worrying. They either do not care or have not competence or have employees. Flagship instrument having these problems for longer than a year is not acceptable no matter how you put it.

Answer to your last question: Nord Stage 3

Insulting all Nord employees --as well as people who don't agree with you -- won't get you what you want.

Why aren't you using a laptop for complex midi processing like everyone else?

Please sell your NS4 as soon as possible. Lots of people want them, you shouldn't have any problem.

I don't read Ecaroh's post as being insulting to anybody. It raises the possibility that lack of manpower may be behind Nord's lack of activity and acknowledges that midi shortcomings may not be important to many users.

I'm personally grateful to both Ecaroh and Satomy for raising these issues. Some may find it useful, others are free to ignore.

I am a little disappointed that the SONG MODE is no longer available. So I can only play the NS4 at home and the NS3 on stage. I will probably sell it again and switch to Korg. With Kronos/Nautilus you can organize the required sounds much better!

cooltour wrote: ↑19 May 2024, 16:22 I am a little disappointed that the SONG MODE is no longer available. So I can only play the NS4 at home and the NS3 on stage. I will probably sell it again and switch to Korg. With Kronos/Nautilus you can organize the required sounds much better!

From what I read Ecaroh's disappointments are mainly related to unresolved MIDI related NS4 bugs, while the fact that Song mode was no longer supported on NS4 is not a bug but something anyone is able to get to know by consulting specs and documentation before buying (which is not a bad idea to do when spending such an amount of money).

If missing Song mode on NS4 was for you such a limitation and apparently you don't intend to use the available alternatives (like the ones discussed in many threads on NUF) + you already own a NS3, considering that there has never been any promise by Nord that it would be added later, I wonder: why did you buy it?

Yeah, it’s a bit strange to read that I am insulting anybody. I have expressed my frustration with this quite expensive instrument and yes, expressed my frustration with Nord’s lack of support and progress. I’ve done many support requests and sent emails to them. I may or may not get a reply but it does not seem to lead to anywhere. But isn’t this forum a place to put some critic too? @cphollis may say that I’ve repeated this critic too often, but I’ve felt that someone has to keep this alive.

Insulting other users who aren’t that unsatisfied? This is even more strange. I am 100% ok with the fact that many people are happy with their NS4 but I’ve been just curious to understand more. My guess is that reasons are (1) they don’t use it connected to midi gear or (2) have always used laptop to handle all midi routing or (3) NS4 is their first Nord.

In 3rd case users do not know what did they loose from NS3 to NS4. In other words they didn’t know what to expect from it.

As last point to ”why not to use laptop to handle midi?” this is hardest thing to accept: why would I buy more gear to do things that NS4 should be capable of handling? I am sure it has all the building blocks inside to do all this midi. And they’ve made it before (NS3 and earlier models). So why should we give up, raise our hands up and go buy new gear? And also trust our midi to all this usb-s*** and computers?