Nord User Forum

Hello, I just wanted to know what everyone thought about what I am planning to do - and if you have any better ideas? I currently have a NE3 73HP. And I am saving up to buy an E4D. I will then have the 4D on the top of my electro 3 hp. Then (a bit in the future), i plan to buy a Stage 2 88HA and sell my electro 3 hp. So my end setup would be a Stage 2 88HA, with an Electro 4D on top.
All thoughts and other ideas are welcome! Cheers

How about selling your Nord Electro 3HP and getting Nord Stage 2 SW73 and a weighted controller?

I think you have a bit of redundancy there.
The Stage2 is basically the "Electro's big brother": it has the same sounds, only much much more (88 keys, multi-timbral, splits, layers, synths, etc).
The only plus the Electro would give you are the physical drawbars and the waterfall keyboard (and the upgraded organ engine, but the "old" one on the Stage 2 is already really, really good, trust me that it's quite hard to tell the difference, especially in a live situation).

For what it costs, it seems a waste to use the Electro only as the "Stage's upper manual", you can get a cheap unweighted controller for that (the Stage2 has no problems in sending the organ signal to separate boards), spending about 10 times less.
Or as whitenoise suggested, you can take the semi-weighted Stage and add a weighted 88-keys controller.

I any case, the Stage can do pretty much everything by itself, adding a controller is only a matter of personal preference for the key weight - that is, if you feel confortable playing piano on waterfall keyboard, or conversely playing organ on weighted keys.
If you can live with such a compromise, the Stage will be a superb do-it-all machine.

+1 to what the others said. I think Spider really nailed it.

I would get a NS2 SW for the weight and maybe buy a good weighted midi controller (as of late I'm in love with the Kawai VPC1, hope to get one eventually). This gives you the ability to have a really lightweight setup with only the NS2 if needed, for those times you cannot carry much to the gig.

My current rig is:
Stage 2
StudioLogic VMK 161 Organ Plus (set up to the control organ section's MIDI channel entirely)
Nord Wave - the Stage 2's synth section is really it's only arguable weak point. Don't get me wrong, it's very capable given everything else it does, but having a bit of extra 'reach' in terms of synth is something I need for the kind of stuff I'm playing.

to sum it up: you now have an E3, then you would have an E3+E4D (that are almost the same intrument except drawbars and organ engine), then an E4D+Stage2.
I would skip the E4D altogether, keep the E3 for a little more, and save the money to go straight to the Stage2 as soon as you can afford it (selling the E3 in the process).

Then you will try out the Stage for a while and decide if you need a controller. Weighted or not, anyway it will be easy and cheap to procure.

I did basically the same thing (started from an E4, then sold it and upgraded to a Stage), for the stuff I do I don't even need a controller, and couldn't be more happy!

Thanks for everyone's input!

The reason I wanted to end up with the NS2 HA88 and the E4D on top, was that I could use the two tier keyboard setup for most gigs. But whenever a little pub gig came up, or if i couldn't be bothered to do lots of carrying around - i could just about do a gig with the E4D on it's own. The idea of that seems quite attractive.

And I like the idea about getting the Stage SW73 - but i have tested out the 4D and I love the new organ engine they have got. And also, for playing hammond on the top I don't think I would ever go beyond the 61 key limit anyway so a bigger keyboard seems like more of a hassle. I also love the drawbars of the 4D.

Any thoughts on that? Cheers guys!

Yes, actually the only thing I miss from the E4D is the weight!
Hauling around the HA88 is definitely more difficult... but still when you compare it to the competitors, it is the lightest and most compact top-of-the-line 88-weighted instrument (only 18 kgs, Motif and Kronos weigh almost 30 and have a MUCH larger footprint...)

if weight is a concern, then definitely the Stage 73SW is your choice: you have full Stage capabilities in more or less the same weight of the E4D, and if-when you need a full piano, you can bring along a cheap 88-keys weighted controller.

As for the drawbars there's little to be said, the only choice is the E4D (other than switching to a full-size organ like the C2D, SK2 or Mojo), everything else on the market has buttons or faders...

Spider wrote:As for the drawbars there's little to be said, the only choice is the E4D (other than switching to a full-size organ like the C2D, SK2 or Mojo), everything else on the market has buttons or faders...

How about the Ocean Beach Digital drawbars?



The SW73 might not really have the room to place them on top of the keyboard though (not sure).

mjbrands wrote:The SW73 might not really have the room to place them on top of the keyboard though (not sure).

On the Stage 2 Compact (SW73), you are correct. There isn't a lot of room for the drawbars to the left of the pitch stick and wheel. For this reason we designed a shelf plate specifically for the Stage 2 compact.



The plate attaches and removes very quickly and is super sturdy, and allows access to the wheel and lever.

If you don't use the wheel and lever much, you don't actually need the plate. You can position the DB-1 nestled in against them, but yout have limited access to the wheel and lever, and it hangs slightly over the keyboard. It's not that big a deal if you don't use the wheel and lever much. I still sometimes gig this way if there's not much room on stage.

Space is not an issue on the Electro 73 (or 61), there's plenty of room on those.

Regards,

Dave