Macsaint777

So, the same action is in all three boards, but the XK4 (Which Sweetwater is replacing for me) definitely bottoms out harder. I expect this is due to the lack of aftertouch strip in the Hammond. The feel of the keys, is the same for the Stage 3 compact, and Stage 4 compact, but the addition of the third sensor in the new Stage 4 line, is a massive improvement. I can understand where you are coming from in terms of the controls, but I don't find that to be in any way a hinderance to using the board live. As a side note, the Hammond appears to have longer keys because they are set back much further on the Nords, but it is actually the same physical keys on both...the Hammond is much more of a cream color, while The Nord I would describe as a darker off white. When I had the Stage 3 compact, I could play piano on it, but nothing very complex or nuanced. With the Stage 4... WOW. What a difference. There really isn't anything I can play on my YC88 (by MIDI board for the Stage 4) that I can't play on the Stage 4 compact. That was certainly not the case before.

Just completed my own sampled pads library for the Nord Stage 4/3. I love this board! I’ve had mine since May and it’s been rock solid, and feels way better than the Stage 3 (I have the Stage 4 compact).

I certainly don’t want to be over confident about what I saw, and I won’t swear to it, but I’m reasonably certain the color of the message was all the same. I don’t recall anything being highlighted- but I am happy to be proven wrong. Always open to correction. Thanks for keeping me accountable, and thanks for that interesting and helpful allusion to the aircraft panel. I appreciate your response!

Jim, I appreciate your willingness to reach out to Hammond- truly. I may have Sweetwater replace it, but I’ll take the weekend to decide for sure. As it happens, my sales engineer is a good friend and we are having dinner this week. He’s originally from my neck of the woods and is here visiting family. I will say from the error I received, nothing was highlighted at all. It looked exactly like the error in the manual, shown above, but in color.

I now see that this error is mentioned in the manual itself. The Cause, shows MAIN. And then underneath, Key scan. It says contact your Hammond dealer if this message appears. Since I too cannot see any SD card in the XK-4, I don’t know if the issue is the same as the XK-5 and SK Pro. I really do want to keep the XK-4 but I’m a bit concerned about the reliability. Not sure what I will do just yet.

You definitely need a mixer, even if you have enough inputs- otherwise your sound will not come out of both speakers evenly.

I've already let Sweetwater know I'll be returning the XK4. Yes it sounds great...but this happened to my XK5, SK Pro, and now the XK4, and I wish I'd taken a photo, but I did not. I can't have a keyboard freeze up on me on Sunday morning - and that's my primary venue currently. I am at 30 days today - so I've made my decision. It has a lot of potential, but once I get spooked when something this new gets wonky....I don't take chances - and the myriad SK Pro issues along the same lines, are enough to tell me this one is going back.

I appreciate all the helpful suggestions. One thing I absolutely don't do, is hang on to gear that is unreliable. If this message happens again, I will be sending the XK4 back.

I’m now getting this exact error on my weeks old XK4. Whatever happened with those of you who experienced it? Does this warrant a replacement from Sweetwater? They take GREAT care of me.. so I’m not worried.

I made a short demo of my XK5 through a Strymon Lex V2.

Hammond XK4 through a Strymon Lex V2.

As promised. Here is a sneak peak. My custom B3 and Leslie from the new XK4.

It arrived and I’m shocked how bright it is. This is without question the brightest keyboard I’ve ever heard- and yes it has infinite adjustment options, and the Leslie is getting close to vent territory. It’s gonna be a great organ when I’m done tweaking, but holy hell… whoever programmed this thing must have no hearing above 10k. Beautiful sound, very accurate, great feeling keys, well put together. It’s pretty much an SK Pro without the extra voices and synth. I always thought most of the demos sounded bright but this… this is crazy bright. I’m an audio engineer, so this is not just me being used to a 58 C3 and 71 Leslie 147. I’ll take this beast and soon make some video and an in depth review- it’s great so far!

I highly recommend the Focal Listen Pro, but my favorite and certainly best for playing piano (especially the Nord piano samples) are the Sennheiser HD 660S. As long as you have a decent amp to drive them, they are wonderful. I own many headphones- some in the several thousand dollar range, and these hit the perfect balance of just enough stereo width and openness to be perfect for playing keys. The Focal Listen Pro is also excellent, though closed back. I own every pair of Beyerdynamic headphones listed above and I would honestly steer you away from those because they have an extreme upper treble elevation, and while that can be fun for some practice or tracking, it doesn’t wear well over extended piano playing sessions- too many upper mids and highs that are poking out and will cause ear fatigue. I’ll throw a sleeper option out as well, because it’s unbelievable for the price. Status Audio CB-1. $70 and they compare very favorably with any of my other headphones in tonality….they are in fact nearly flat….and they are cheap- really cheap. Probably the two most enjoyable headphones I’ve ever used for playing keys, are the Focal utopia (way way out of budget I know) and their little brother, the Focal Clear (and Clear MG). I remember the first time I plugged the Clear into the MP11Se. I though the studio monitors that were on each side of the Kawai, we’re on. They were not. Open back, Crystal clarity and a wide beautifully balanced image- wow it was something.

First off....Stop being so hard on yourself. Everybody has to start somewhere. I have some REALLY nice gear, but I just placed an order for a Casio CT-S500. Why? Because I want to be able to tinker and play anywhere I am - on vacation, at the office, in the car (not driving of course)...and that little thing just gives you gobs of sounds for the price. I encourage you to get something like that and just play your heart out all the time. Also, don't try and play like a pro all at once. Start with basic chords, and improvise all the time - you will get better, and you clearly have the gear to definitely enjoy the journey. As for the keys on the XK4, I imagine they are the same as what is on the SK Pro, which I had for a few weeks but returned because all but the organ sounds left me very very much wanting my Nord Stage 3 back. The keys have a creamy color, much like the action on my Stage 4 compact. That is intentional and they come that way from Fatar (same key action on both). You might not have played real Hammonds before, but I'm certain you've heard them in songs and possibly in person - so compare your new toy to that!

Just ordered mine today from Sweetwater. I sold a C3 and Leslie 147 that needed some serious work- and decided I’ll stick with the YC88, Stage 4, XK4 and (possibly) my Ventilator. Will post some thoughts and a review video soon. What do you think of the XK4, for those who have one now?

Jack Duxbury said in one video it is the same as the NS3 88, which would make it a Fatar TP-40 M, but with triple sensors. I have friends who know the specifics of the Piano 5, and one specifically who has both a Piano 5 and NS488. He has said the actions in the two, while similar, are not the same in feel or responsiveness. Having owed an Ns388, RD-2000, and Piano 5, I can say that of those three- the best in terms of piano feel is the PHA-50. I personally prefer the Yamaha NW-GH in the CP/YC88. It is fast, extremely responsive and feels great. Not as heavy as the PHA-50. The Fatar TP-40 H in the Piano 5, is quite a bit lighter that either the Roland or Yamaha, and the TP-40M In the Stage 3 88, is lighter still. However, you still have the TP-40L inside the Kurzweil Forte for example.. which is even lighter than a Stage 3.

I'm sure glad I kept my triple pedal when I sold my Stage 3 compact. Projected shipping date for my preordered S4 is mid April according to Sweetwater.

I preordered the Nord Stage 4 Compact. As I hear the different demos that are trickling out, the core Nord DNA is here, but so are some new ways of adjusting the sounds my Stage 3 was capable of. In particular, the motion and depth to the synth pads that I keep hearing, will make this a board that is perfect for my main use case, which is playing in Worship contexts in church. The Nord Piano library is as great as ever, and with very few exceptions, all of the Grand and Uprights are still better samples than what is in my YC88. I absolutely love the YC 88 action, and as a whole package, it is very hard to beat, especially when paired with an iPad or Mac. I spent a good 2 hours just playing Pianoteq 8 from these awesome wooden keys last night. The organ engine has not been upgraded in the Nord.. well, that is true...but I never had any complaints before! I always paired my Stage 3 with a Neo Vent 2, and that more than covered my needs, although the Vent 2 was for me, because not even my super picky musician friends in the crowd could tell the difference between the Vent 2 and the Nord Close 122 in a live band mix. As a raw tone, the B3 in the Nord Stage 3, Electro 5,6 and from what I can tell so far, the Stage 4... sounds almost identical to my 1958 Hammond C3 with a stopped Leslie 147. You might say I am one of those extremely picky hammond guys, and so a few months back, I bought the new Hammond SK Pro 73 and proudly put it on top of my Stage 3 Compact. While the Hammond Piano and EP and synths were embarrassingly bad....probably the worst velocity switching I've ever heard -- The Hammond Organ aspect, and Leslie are REALLY good. The problem was....by the time I adjusted the internal Sk Pro Leslie...I still couldn't get it to quite fit in the mix the way the Vent 2 does, so I ended up using the Vent 2 with the Sk Pro. Then, one day I decided to kill the rotary effect in the Nord and Hammond and compare the raw tones side by side. Yes, the Hammond has the virtual Muti-contact thing, and yes the keys on the Hammond do feel a bit more substantial than the Nord... but sound wise? With no Leslie effect, recorded raw....I couldn't tell you which was which in a blind test, and neither could my engineer and musician friends. With the only reason to keep the SK being the Organ, I couldn't justify it and back it went. The Stage 3 was a better overall fit, and frankly, sounded damn near identical in a mix with the Vent 2. I tried to love the mono synth in the SK as well, and while it was fun...it definitely doesn't sound anything like an analog synth. The remaining sounds in the SK made me seriously wonder if Hammond/Suzuki has a clue what they are doing, and I say this with respect, and as someone who BADLY wanted to love the SK Pro. The Nord, even an Electro 6D, was a better fit. Now, here we are in 2023 and I've preordered the Stage 4 Compact. Why? Well, I sold my Stage 3 Compact for $3k a few months ago, and I have missed it A LOT. Mainly, the piano sound, and how easily I can use the synth section in a live situation, with no presets. Now that we have the ability to have 3 independent layers in the synth section, and with EVERY section now having a dedicated, and much improved effects line - ok, I can live with a single effects block for organ....The power and potential of this board has grown tremendously. I cannot tell you how many fellow church musicians (and there are way more of us than you think) pay tons of money to download pad sounds on their iPad or Mac, and then layer that with their Nord, because of the excellent organ, un-topped piano, and killer built in synth - which also allows user samples to be imported. A few years back, I created a free set of Stage 3 sounds, which can still be found on my YT channel. These were about 30 sounds which are essentially piano, organ, and synths layers in various orders. I always gave these sounds away for free... but I looked back recently at how many emails I received asking for those sound, just last year. 425 different church keys players reached out asking for these sounds. That was JUST last year. I mentioned that I own the YC88, and I think it is a phenomenal keyboard. It is almost a weighted Electro 6D with a very very basic synth section, and an action which I don't think has any rivals in the Stage Piano world - until you step into full blown dedicated Piano replacement territory. Coupled with an iPad, this YC88 is almost better than anything else on the market, and I'd even say the new 1.2 Update brought a rotary effect that rivals the Nord 122 Close. But, the YC88, 73, and 61 are severely limited in the fact that they have only one set of stereo outputs - so no Vent 2 unless you want to send all your sounds through it. The YC88 has some of the best built in pianos, one of the best organs, and a small but extremely capable selection of "other" sounds. BUT it can't touch what a Stage 3 or now, Stage 4 can do. The main advantages of the Yamaha over the Nord, are the built in 4 part midi zones, 88 weighted wooden triple sensor action, and built in audio/midi interface over one USB cable. It is ALMOST perfect. But it lacks a dedicated synth engine, even a simple one. It cannot import user samples. It isn't ever going to let you replace and mix/match your own piano samples. Nord still, has the upper hand here. You could argue that the EPs in the Yamaha are a step up from the Nord offerings in the NPL. I would agree, except that unless you are recording the sounds solo, it is hard to tell that you didn't record a real Rhodes, Wurli, CP80, etc... in BOTH cases. We have reached a point where sound wise, we are very spoiled for choice, but still... the Nord Piano library is to my ears, one of the best sounding sets of Piano samples you can put in a hardware keyboard. I've tried Them ALL. Yamaha, Roland, Dexibell, Kawai, Korg and on and on... and they just don't have the warmth and character of the Nord Piano library. This is already way too long.. but I promise, there definitely is a market for the Stage 4 - especially with Church players. I for one am excited to get mine. Is it expensive? Sure.. but it is not a massive increase compared to previous Nord offerings....and you'd have to spend very nearly the same money to get the same capabilities with other hardware- unless you are going the computer route. I have a new MacBook Pro M1Max fully specced out. It is a monster. It is loaded with plugins. And I'd still rather play a real keyboard any day of the week. In this case? That real keyboard is a Nord Stage 3, and SOON to be Stage 4. Count me among the excited preorders!

I won't disparage any retailer, but yes you'd be far better off selling those individually. You should be able to get close to $2800 for the NS3C alone.

This thing sounds worse than a broken OB!

Nord is not hiking their prices to be greedy. Have you seen the exchange rate and import fees for Sweden?

Got mine on the way. Should ship May 19th. Can’t wait!

Nord piano library samples do use multiple velocity layers, and it is very very difficult to hear any sample switching- so whatever they are doing, it’s done extremely well.

It feels slightly heavier than the CP4 - it is essentially a P515 or CLP-645 action without escapement, and with triple sensors. Very different than the Montage, and yes it is heavier.