Tobias Åslund

Not quite. The pianos were sampled by the same guy though. He also sampled pianos for other companies. (Toontrack, XLN Audio, Steinberg, Kurzweil, Propellerheads) Per Larsson - Manager - SampleTekk | LinkedIn

But that arrangement ended some time back. Exactly - "After 5 successful years, Kato had sufficient funds to repurchase most of the Yamaha share in 1993." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg#History

Like others, it's mainly that I hope for a semi-weighted 76 note version (preferably with Fatar TP/8 keys), but who knows, I might even pick up an 88 note PC4, if no 76 note is announced before the end of the year. I currently have two 88 note keyboards, my lovely CP88, and an old worn-out Kurzweil PC88 (yeah, it's kinda funny that they have almost the same name... ), so a PC4 88 note would then serve as a replacement for both the PC3K7 and the PC88. I also already have two other keyboards with 73+ keys, the Nord Stage Compact, 73 note, and the 76 note Roland JV-90 (which I would like to replace with a JV-1000, or even an XP-80, since it turns out the JV-90, for unknown reasons have non-weighted keys - God knows what the R&D people at Roland were thinking when they took this decision...). The JV-90 I bought recent years for use as a lower manual for the Stage 2 compact (now replaced by a Stage 3), believing it should have the same keys as my XP30, and yes it does... just without the metal weights under the keys... so close, but no cigar... It's therefor pretty useless for piano playing, or any velocity sensitive sound for that matter, IMHO, where the XP30 (and XP80, JV80, JV1000 etc) that all have a wonderful feeling Matsushita keybed. Then a year later I bought the Kurzweil PC3K7 (also used), and its keybed is really lovely for just about any kind of sound, but the keyboard as a whole is a bit on the heavy side, IMHO, for a semi-weighted 76 note (17 kg / 37.4 lbs, whereas the JV90 and Stage 3 both weigh less than 10 kg / 22 lbs).

This would be the "perfect" gigging Kurzweil, but I guess there is quite an electronic difference between the 88 note Medeli action, and a 76 note Fatar TP/8 (piano), so I guess this won't happen soon... but I love the keys of my PC3K7, so, please..!

Seems like you have seen almost as much of Europe as I have..! South Germany is such a beautiful place, with nice people, and very good food! I hope to go there more (including visiting Thomann) in the not too distant future. Yup, I've got more gear than I need, that's for sure... but if there will be a 76 note version of the PC4, whether it's a semi-weighted, or a fully weighted hammer action, I'll most probably replace my PC3K7. A good thing about Thomann is they have a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can always return what you don't like, for a full refund.

Doesn't Kurzweil have a fairly strong presence in England? What about Germany? Hopefully Anderton's or Thomann's will get PC4s so you can audition them. Well, Thomann is nice, and I order a lot of my gear from them, but I still haven't visited the store, since it's really far away - it would take me 16 hours to drive there from home, including a few hours on a ferry... so, that's 843 miles, one way... and the price of gas in Europe is usually about 6 Euros per gallon. There are quite cheap flights to both the UK and Germany, but the last time I visited the UK was in 1998 (back than there was also cruise ships and ferries from Gothenburg to Harwich, not too far from London, and Newcastle)... For me it's also about three hours by bus to get to the big airports, from where one can fly to both UK and Germany. As a comparison - my two local music stores, where I can try many of the current Korg, Yamaha, Roland or Nord keyboards (and a few DSI and maybe some Novations), is within 10 min bike ride from my home... and it takes me about 2½ by train and subway to get to just about any music store in Stockholm, where I can have access to 5 to 10 times as many current and older, used models of keyboards, than in my home city. There was one store in Stockholm who carried Kurzweil for about half a year, but they proved hard to sell, for unknown reasons (He had an SP-6 and a KP-110 on display), so AFAIK now there's not a single music store in Stockholm who carries Kurzweil, which is a damn shame. For Kawai pianos, there's only one store (out of 10-15 stores) in Stockholm who carries Kawai. Viscount pianos, very hard to find, but at least the store who carried Kurzweil has Viscount "pipe" and Legend organs in his small "boutique" store. There is actually one store in Falkenberg, half an hour south of Gothenburg (or a 4½ hour drive for me), who actually still sells Kurzweil, and I think there's also one store in Malmö (about 6 hr drive for me) who carries Kurzweil. So, now maybe it's a bit clearer for everyone, why there are so few Kurzweil keyboards in Scandinavia...!

I have about six or seven different 2- and 3-tier stands... and my absolute favorite so far is definitely the K&M 18950, which is so easily reconfigurable in height, width (!) and also it is one of the few stands where you can get just about any two keyboards really close together. The Standtastic in my home studio is also great in that regard! I rehearsed with my Legend Live and Stage 3 compact yesterday. I put a rubber mat on the top of the Legend, and then a thin wooden board on top of that, and in turn the Stage 3 compact. So with the wooden board it really doesnt matter how the rubber feet of the Stage 3 is placed - it gets quite stable regardless of that. Without the rubber mat and board, the Stage 3 doesn't sit so good on top of the Legend...

Because almost no one sells them. I'd probably have one instead of my Motif had a single store in Minnesota had them. So why does nobody sell them? Probably because people didn´t buy them (while they were still selling them)...They go in the store, try the Kurz (while there were any) and the Korg, Roland and Yamaha, feeling more impressed with the latter 3.... Kurzweil has always been this "special tool"...where I could do stuff the others couldn't´t... But as my main instrument...no... Forte would definitely be there with an updated base rom and updated LFO´s, envelopes, less aliasing Sigh...maybe the "next" flagship"... Btw, in Sweden there was no problem buying Kurzweils for a long time.... NEVER saw them in a live rig during 20 years... Well, between 1998 or so, and until the announcement of the PC3x in 2010, it actually was very hard to buy a Kurzweil in Sweden - I know, cause I asked/researched about it quite many times, during that period - and here in Sweden, it still seem very hard to sell any other keyboard than a Roland, Yamaha or Korg - Nord is the only company that seems to have successfully challenged "the big three" in our country (not too surprising though... ), and I think our biggest chain of retailers is to blame for that. The last time I saw them have ads for a Kurzweil, GeneralMusic, Viscount, even Hammond or similar brand, was probably in the mid-'90s... So I don't think the problem is that Kurzweil is too much of a special tool - I just think it has been too hard to find a Kurzweil to play, anywhere - and Swedes, in general, are too suspicious to dare to buy an (expensive) instrument nobody else they know (of) already owns. Apart from myself I know of only of 5-6 other people in Sweden who actually has a Kurzweil they still use, and again - this is probably mainly because they did a lot of research of their own, instead of taking "help" from their local store...!

Access to additional sounds (i.e. from a sound module, iPad, pc). Useful parameters for the EXT function to still have would be MIDI channel, key range assignment, enable/disable pedal(s), program change, volume, octave shift. That alone would still be very useful. I have often used boards to trigger external sounds without needing to use mw/pb/at on them... in fact, more often than not. This! I often use the lower manual of my Legend Live to trigger piano sounds in Panel A on my Stage 3 compact. The Legend Live has also very limited MIDI implementation, but it has a very clever solution for its manuals - they don't send out any MIDI at all, as long as a preset or either drawbar set is active - but once you press cancel (on the Live: both A and B drawbar buttons simultaneously), it starts sending midi - so a dual button press turns the manual from organ to midi controller - very convenient! For a stage piano, it would be great to have a button for local off, and another for MIDI transmit on/off. Actually, this is the one thing I miss in the CP88 - to turn on/off MIDI transmission you have to go into the menu system (but once there, there's an extensive list of MIDI parameters for each of the four possible zones). Of course, it's very easy to have one or more of the 8 presets in a bank, to send MIDI, and the others "local" only, but I would have loved to have a dedicated extern section, with its own lever/switch like the other three internal sections.

Well, an end block with the classic Nord wooden pitch bender and granite mod wheel would certainly be a welcome addition as wheel, in my book..! Aftertouch is certainly nice to have, but I have never seen it implemented in a three sensor keybed, at least not one with counterweights and "let-off simulation" (escapement) - I guess aftertouch would not only be complicated to implement in a keybed with "let-off"/escapement, but also would take away some of the grand piano-like realism of the keys.

Don't get me wrong though - I love the design and the idea of the Nord Grand. I just wish, especially when considering the price, that it at least could have one extern section from the Stage 1/2/3... of course, you could compensate for the very limited MIDI implementation with a device like the Lab4music Sipario, or similar, but I still wish the Grand had a bit more MIDI functions built-in. The design with the flat top could be perfect for a lower 88 board (the flat top was actually one of the main reasons I chose a Keyb/Viscount Legend clonewheel over a Mojo). Now it's too obvious that the Grand is "just" a repackaged Nord Piano 4 with a better keybed and more luxurious housing (and ok, there's an extra GB of piano flash memory, as well, something that the Piano 4 should have had from the start, IMO... My guess is that will also see a Piano 4 EX in the near future). I'm looking forward to play a Nord Grand this summer - a store owner in Stockholm has been promised to get one of the very first production units for his little boutique store, probably late June, early July, so then he'll have some kind of event.

Though you generally pay a premium for the models that emphasize single function direct controls over multi-function controls and menu navigation. Kawai MP11SE leans toward the former, MP7SE leans toward the latter. And I think that's definitely part of the Nord appeal. Similarly, the Yamaha that I think would have the most similar appeal would be the CP88. Something the Nord has over a CP88 or MP11SE is diversity... it has the widest range of different piano sample sets, and the widest range of non-piano sounds. Well, the price point of the MP7SE says midrange and doesn't have the same layout as the MP11SE, with clearly divided sections. However, to me this is a good thing - for those of us who have played and sat down an hour or so, in front of an MP7SE knows that it's very user friendly, with a very clever user interface, so even though it doesn't look as if it has a one button per function-interface, it certainly acts like it in practice. Also, the feel of the keys on the MP7SE, and the overall build quality makes it feel as if it was a much more expensive stage piano. About half a year ago, I spent a whole day in Stockholm, and I played about every digital piano I could find (Kawai MP7SE, MP11SE, ES8, CA98, Novus NV10, Roland RD2000, Dexibell P3, Yamaha CP4, Montage 8, Nord Piano 4, Stage 3 HA88, Viscount Physis H2, Korg SV1, GrandStage 88, P1, Kurzweil SP6, Casio/Bechstein GP-500, and maybe some more I can't remember right now). Now I know, there's a lot of personal preference here (of course), but based on that day, with all the stage pianos I played, the MP7SE was the clear winner - and if I should pick the best digital piano I've ever played - the CA98 is nothing short of amazing, and also a clear winner - I even preferred it over the NV10, much thanks to is dual wooden transducer on the back of the piano (the NV10 has traditional speakers). The CA98 sounded and felt just like an acoustic instrument! However, then NAMM and the release of the CP88 happened - 2½ weeks later I bought a CP88 instead of the planned MP7SE (for some reason Swedish music stores seemed to get the very first batch, and I was lucky to fetch the first one arriving in my home city..!), and I haven't regretted that purchase a single day since, yet another amazing digital piano! Well, for $1500 you could probably buy a used Nord Electro 4 or even 5, to add to your MP7SE...!

Exactly! ...and it makes even less sense to pay $4,000 for a Nord Grand, when you know that you can have a Kawai MP7SE for less than half the price, about $1,500...

A Yamaha CP88 is lighter and smaller, though...! (and most probably cheaper as well)

Yes if it has the same keybed as the SP-6, I'd be disappointed - that keyboard felt very uninspiring under my fingers... I'm hoping for a PC4 76 note with Fatar TP/8 keys - then, and only then, I might sell my PC3K7 (As for 88 notes go, I'm more than happy with my Yamaha CP88...! )

I would say that GeneralMusic was first. As early as in 2003, their monstrous flagship piano Promega 3 had its sound palette divided in four sections: Pianos, Vintage Keys, Orchestral/Pad, and Bass/Other, much like the MP10 and other stage pianos of later years. The Promega 3 was really ahead of its time, with physical modelling, motorized faders, 320 notes polyphony(!) etc. So sad the company went into bankruptcy... (and I dont think the Finnish GeneralMusic company will have any chance of bringing the company back to where it was. Well, at least they have resurrected the Promega 3s little brother, the Promega 2... but thats another story...!) https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/gem-promega-3 https://www.generalmusic.com/

Ok, I won't say I can't say Dexibell hasn't caught my interest with some of their products, but IMHO there are quite a lot of marketing BS here and there - and like many of you I'm not that impressed with the Hammond/Leslie sim of the J7. So here are som of my thoughts: Well, in 1997 this might have been impressive, but I'm quite sure that many companies have left the 16 bit territory quite some time ago... AFAIK Nord have been working at 24 bits for ten years or so, just as an example. Well, in some areas (like effects editing, and a number of parameters specific to some types of sounds, and there are more parameters for midi transmission and pedal assignments), but the J7 can't compete with the synth section of the Stage 3 - no LFO's or filters to adjust. When looking at MIDI, there are a lot of parameters to control what each of the four parts (upper, coupled, lower, pedal), but like someone else mentioned - there doesn't seem to be a way to send bank and program change (like you can with the external section in the Nord Stage-series). Then if we look at the tonewheel parameters that can be adjusted in the J7 we have: Volume (Normal/Soft) Leakage Hum noise Click On Noise Click Off Noise Perc manual (upper/lower) Express Tone (on/off) Expression Min Ok, so we have a few more parameters than a Stage 3, but an Electro 5 has at least one parameter (key bounce) that the J7 does not have. When looking at the tonewheel section he J7 is nowhere near as adjustable as a Crumar Mojo or a digital Hammond, where you even can adjust tonewheels individually. Highly adjustable...? Again, it's not a Mojo or Hammond where you can edit the tone of the cabinet, resonance of the horn or frequency modulation of the simulation. These are the parameters of the Rotary effect in the J7: Rotary Noise (lets you adjust sampled, mechanical noises of the belt and motor) Horn Slow RPM Horn Fast RPM Horn RampUp Horn RampDw Bass Slow RPM Bass Fast RPM Bass RampUp Bass RampDw So again, besides the mechanical noise sample, you don't have more "Leslie" editing than in the Stage 3... and as others have stated, the Rotary simulation still sounds really bad. Good thing that you can slow down the fast speed - it might at least help some... Ok, that's enough with critique. Here's something interesting There seem to be 105 different sounds, apart from the organ engine, but unfortunately now Mellotrons etc, BUT, here it gets really interesting - the J7 has, like some of the Dexibell stage pianos, a flash memory (of unknown size, the manual doesn't say) where you (like in a Nord) can import sounds and samples of your choosing. From the Dexibell website you have about 30-40 sounds to choose from, some of them more than 30 MB or more in size, so I guess the flash memory would be at least 100 MB or more. Now the interesting part - besides from the native Dexibell format (.dxs), the J7 also supports .sf2 soundfonts(!), so then there is nothing stopping you from creating your own custom sounds as well. Well, to sum up - there are a lot of good features and sounds in the J7, but unfortunately the Hammond/Leslie-engine is not one of them, IMHO... if they however would make a version without the tonewheel model and motorized drawbars, (which hopefully also would lower the price quite a bit) but put pitch/mod wheels in it, and slightly improve the MIDI implementation (what basically would make it an non-hammer action Dexibell S-3), to make it a decent controller, then it would be more interesting stage keyboard, to me at least. The Dexibell S-7 still seams like an interesting stage piano (and it can send bank and program change...). If anyone is interested, the user manual, the downloadable sounds, can be found in the "my dexIbell" area, but you have to register an account to access it: http://www.dexibell.com/index.php?route=account/login

No the manual is correct - the input is for running other instruments through the Leslie simulator - I've tried running a couple of different sounds from my Stage 2 through the Legend Live - and it sounds really cool! great for layering a vintage string pad with the lower manual, as an example. Or play the Nords organ through the Leslie sim of the Legend - it sounds way better than the Nord on it's own. So the line input is mono, pre effects, so it's not for connecting an iPad with backing tracks or similar.

Really nice stand/case - love the design!

John - all of your picture links except the first one gives a 404 error. Just a heads up!

Well, when connecting two or more keyboards via mixer through the Spacestation you can use the mixer to control the stereo image as well - either you connect only one channel of the keyboard you don't want to have to have in stereo, or if you connect it to two mono channels, you can of course pan the channels as much left/right as you want. The theory of M/S stereo is quite simple really - so applied to the Spacestation technology it will mean that the narrower the stereo image you have from your sound source, the less sound you will get from the 90° bottom speaker, and if the input is pure mono there will be no sound at all from the bottom speaker, since it outputs the difference between L and R channels.

Aspen, this is taking product support to a whole new level - a big thanks for giving so much inside info about the technology and how the Spacestation series was conceived! Unfortunately, I will not be able to take you up on your offer anytime soon - I have too keep my new gear aquisition too a minimum for now and some time to come. I'm still paying for the Leslie I bought last winter, and I soon have to buy a new car and so on... And also, my EV ZXa-system os more than adequate for my needs, but I must admit I am tempted. Again - thanks for the offer and all the insight into this amp technology!

I'm also interested in the idea with no treble speaker for the side channel. So far I've already read a couple of positive reviews om how this new version reproduces ac pianos, but then I wonder - is this only when your sitting in front of the Spacestation? How do the pianos sound when you're listening in an off-axis position? In my experience treble drivers and tweeters are quite directional, and most speaker sounds good as long your in the sweet spot, but turn it away from you and the treble repsonse will be far less pleasing. Back to the Spacestation - I am sure that it will indeed sound great when your in front of it, and since I have the original spacestation (mk I) I am sure it will fill the room with a nice stereo feel, but again - how will the upper end of the spectrum, which is so important for ac pianos, sound in different positions in the room? I would love to listen to a Mk III in person, but I'm guessing I won't won't be able to do so, since I'm in the north of Europe, and Sweden in particular is a small market where very few retailers will take chances with lesser known brands - a shame really! And no matter how good the reviews are - I don't think I'll buy another powered speaker without trying first. Anyway - this is a really interesting piece of gear, and judging from the reviews so far, most of the issues with previous versions seems to have been fixed by now! Keep up the good work!

I would not expect the V3 to be much more powerful than the original SpaceStation (MkI) that I have. The old one I feel is quite underpowered. It might be ok for personal monitoring at rehearsal, or playing softly at a cocktail party it might do, but with a drummer in a live setting as only amplification - no way. Mine is rated 100 + 100 W and the new one doesn't seem to have much more at 100 + 100, with 40 + 40 for mid/highs. Maybe adding a subwoofer might help. Anyway - it will be interesting to read a review of this updated version. I've never been happy with the old SpaceStation - underpowered, and lacking both bottom end and treble. I even had mine up for sale with no luck, so it mostly just sits in a storing space these days.

Funny, I have all of the above, except the Yamaha. Yes, the TR76 is a really nice board! If I should complain about something it would be the keyboard feel, it's very light, yet very playable, but a bit more resitance would be nice! The other thing is that is very long... And the end caps are rounded, so you don't want it to leave it standing on one end leaning against the wall... And because it's long, yet very slim it's hard to find a keyboard gigbag with the proper fit So... I guess you're right about the missing mid priced 76 key boards, strange and a bit sad. I'm hoping this will change.