Nathanael_I

It’s priced fairly. It’s cheaper than a Schmidt. It’s totally unique and does a thing nothing else does, including the software emulations. They have the sound, but not the workflow, and that’s real. It’s not for many. But for those it’s for, it’s brilliant, welcome and an instant buy. I’m not on the list, but it’s a great synth. Way more interesting than any of the cheap mono synths flooding the market. It would look great next to a Schmidt, and sound very different! It has a unique architecture and capabilities. Such a great time to be alive - it’s a real renaissance for instruments of all kinds!

I have a Nord Grand and a Stage4-88. They should make a Nord Grand only sample. Bigger. Better pianissimo. Let it take much of the piano sample space. Make it really great. This board is about piano and has a better action. Lean into that. I don’t see upgrading. I bought the action more than the sounds. The Stage is better for most things. So the Grand really should maximize acoustic piano.

I’ll be there this year. First time. Been to many large trade shows in other industries. But, looking to connect with some key vendors.

I tried selling my Nord Grand a month ago on Reverb. Only had scammers, and multiple a day. I took it down and decided I’d just keep it as backline for live sound company. It just wasn’t worth it, and shipping was going to be ludicrous. I did sell four Rupert Neve 500 series preamps around the same time on Reverb and all was well, and a professional trombone to a pro player in Vegas. So there are still good humans there. But expensive keyboards seem to be a trigger for scammers. I stopped using Craigslist years ago. Nothing but sketchy people looking to shortchange the money by a few $$ at the last minute. Never met anyone I’d want near my house. Wrote that off early. I have not sold on EBay since Reverb came up. But Reverb is not the place it used to be for sure. I still buy things there as there are deals on things I need from time to time.

I use my Nord Stage4 to control either an OB-6 desktop or a Waldorf M. Neither have keyboards, so maybe they qualify as modules in this context? Patch changes come from Nord synth voice 3, and the slider is mapped to control the external synth volume. I run everything through a Key Largo, which has an Eventide H90 in the FX loop. A Hologram microcosm is in the FX loop of the H 90. So this is external FX if you will. The form factor is not a rack, but a giant pedalboard of sorts. There’s power to the pedals under the board. This is a very happy setup for me. Almost all the cables are self contained. I’ve got a dozen FX presets that give me much tonal variety. And it stays in musician brain space for me in use. All controls are right in front of me. One stand for the Nord. One stand for the upper board.

+1 for worship use. Will be loaded immediately.

Line arrays do have more phase cancellation than point-source boxes. That said, they offer deployment flexibility for sound company operators, which often is more important than sound quality. I think you will find they are deployed in every configuration from mono to stereo. Most people hear something that is not a perfect stereo image. But it still sounds better in most seats as stereo, in my opinion. I run my large Danley tops (covers about 3000 people outside) in stereo. The wall of subs is mono.

I bought my Nord Stage4 at the San Francisco GC. I wanted to play it having not liked Nord Fatar actions in the past. The website said it was in stock. They had to open a new one for me to play it, which they did right in front of me. I played it, loved it and said I’ll take it. They insisted on getting me a fresh one not even opened, even though I just watched them open the unit I played, and I’m the only one that touched it! It was clear that I was a very unusual customer to come in for a “high end” item, know what it was, what I would use it for, pay for it and leave. The manager came over to thank me. They helped me lift it into the truck. Buying nice things there is a bit like the Apple Store. I know way more than the help about what I’m buying, but they were all very nice. I think they gave me two years extended warranty for free. I mostly buy electronics online, but this was a purchase I wanted to make in a store.

Concert grands deserve to be treated like Formula One cars - their exceptional performance envelope comes in part from the very small tolerances that define optimal function. Leather, wood, felt…. All necessary, and necessarily worn over time. So glad to hear that it’s fully back to “race” condition. Well worth the time and expense. Keeping a high quality grand definitely requires more than tuning as the years roll.

It’s my standard piano as well. I own a Kawai grand piano. The sound is familiar and so, I think that has a lot to do with it. The uprights get a lot of use in band context. Huge bass is rarely an asset in that context.

Here’s my rig for modern worship, computer optional. The upper deck can take either my OB-6 or the Waldorf M. Nord and synth go into KeyLargo. H90 is in the FX loop of the KeyLargo, and the Hologram is in the FX loop of the H90. The Hologram is for granular textures and recalls as part of an H90 preset. Nord changes patches on upper tier synth, volume is mapped onto the synth 3 fader for on the fly blending. The KeyLargo, H90, and Hologram are powered by a Cioks Sol mounted underneath. it’s almost entirely self contained. 1 power, I MIDI, (2) 1/4” Nord to KeyLargo , and 2 XLR to FOH are all that go off-board. It’s kind of a long pedalboard, and deploys like it - With almost everything pre-wired. The goal was to speed load in, and not need a rack or a computer. of course, I can add laptop easily with the KeyLargo. the upper shelf for the KeyLargo hides a lot of cables - stereo pedals and all…

look for Marcato Long articulations. They will have bite and the sustain. You may have to edit the note lengths to get it right.

The Osmose is built around it. The Waldorf M receives it. The Schmidt 8-voice. The Bowen Solaris. Lots and lots of things. Not as much takes MPE. But poly AT is reasonably common in pro level synths.

What version of BBC do you have? Even the Discover edition has spiccato and staccato articulations. Usually one of those work. Some libraries have short marcato samples or other short articulations. Any professional string library will have these from VSL, Orchestral Tools, East-West Hollywood/Opus series, etc. you can look in the sample content to see what short articulations are available.

I upgraded to Nuendo on a special during COVID. It’s been a good experience. It’s slightly behind Cubase on shiny features that come when mature), but ahead on things like immersive audio.

I found the transition from Logic to Cubase easy around v8.5. It was so nice to ditch the Environment. Both are about equally complex. Cubase has its own evolution, with some releases taking a step backward in performance, othered pushing ahead. For max stability, I normally install the .20 release some months after it comes out. All the major bugs are fixed by then, and the community has useful feedback.

FM is the start. There’s much more. The synth architecture can be explored in various levels of detail HERE. The complete engine is in this diagram. The synth has only sine wave oscillators. Two of them. But a casual glance reveals FM, waveshaping, feedback paths everywhere. A comb filter with delay (karplus-strong / physical modeling territory) and a state-variable filter. So the synth works by adding complexity to the sine waves and getting very complex (non-linear) constructs. There’s much modulation and cross modulation possible. If you know cross-mod on a Dave Smith instrument, you have an idea of just how radically this can affect things, and also it’s subtlety. It’s much more powerful here. They had the idea of four macro controls that modulate many destinations at launch years ago. ribbon, two foot pedals, sustain, keys, and pitch stick (best I’ve ever used) let you take a single patch into many different feels. It’s made for real time playing. Not real time programming. But it can be very expressive while playing.

I have the Osmose as well. Both way more expressive than standard synths. The Osmose is also it’s own thing and won’t really do whatever you want. It has a point-of-view also. The key action on the C15 is more standard. Both have very expressive short staccato sounds. But like the Osmose, the people who complain are the ones who were hoping it was their favorite synth but with PolyAT. It just isn’t. The C15 is similar. It’s otherness is exactly what makes it valuable to me. It’s resolutely NOT an OB-6 or a Moog or whatever. Very much the opposite of a Nord aiming for simplicity and familiarity. These are new, ambitious instruments made by brilliant innovators. They push the envelope. So you have to also want that to enjoy these.

I’ve had one a few years. It’s a premium instrument. It’s a players instrument. Acoustic pianos don’t have MIDI. I do have the MIDI interface now. The key feel is exquisite. There’s no MIDI because the keys are scanned 4,000 times a second or something. Way beyond MIDI resolution. It matters. It’s way more expressive, even without polyAT. The synth engine is very different. It’s not really straight subtractive. It’s not for someone who wants a VA for playing 70s and 80s stuff. It’s for original music. (Or you have a lot of programming to do). You will come up short if you just want fat sawtooth strings. Horses for courses. it’s not like anything else. It’s why I’ve kept it. It’s unique. It’s very nice to play through good amplification. I'm glad this point-of-view exists. Stephan is trying to make an instrument that would be expressive enough that it would be like an acoustic instrument. He picked a synth engine that responds to the nuance. You don’t get it 10 minutes of noodling in. It is not your other instruments. It will absolutely resist your attempts to make it an analog synth. It isn’t one. It takes work. But it rewards. It can make all kinds of strangely acoustic but not real sounds. It is not for the sequenced dance crowd. It’s for players. Look at the demos. It’s all jazz guys and otherwise skilled musicians.

Gig note: the new EQ per part is fantastic. In a room with the subs set too high everything was very boomy, especially layered pads. It was near instant to select each part, lower the bass 10dB and hear the sound clean right up. I didn’t save the patch so it’s ready for use other places, but this quick adaptability to the needs of a room is wonderful. No menus. Push the part select button, turn the bass EQ knob. Done. It’s a great keyboard for playing out in varied situations. I remain pleased with the decision.

For multi-band bass distortion, the Neural DSP stuff is great. They have a bass-specific plugin called Parallax.

It's a beautiful, deep, and powerful flagship board. It can do almost anything that needs to be done in one package. With the expanded sample memory it can do what the Kronos could - become anything you've got in the studio. Price and weight are in-line with a premium instrument. Anyone who commits to it will find what they need, I expect. As a canvas? It's a big one! I'm not close to exhausting my new Stage4, but there's no question this would do anything I need. The current refresh of the big platforms is quite impressive. It's never been easier to have great sounds in one keyboard.

Dunno. This is not my experience. It feels like a premium instrument. It plays like one. I've never had any trouble at all. Mine is from 2016.... I have the hard case they made for it too - the whole thing has been a quality experience. Funny enough its the only thing that's appealed to me enough to splash the cash...

Nothing inappropriate at all! In the US, we have tariffs on a number of semiconductors and the companies that make them. But not on finished goods that come in via trade agreements. This means that if I bring in components I pay extra - 20%, 30% or more than a different company that buys the parts overseas and only brings a complete assembly into the US. This is why you see US design, overseas board manufacturer and domestic final assembly and test. Or just import of finished goods. As always, the details matter. Different industries and products hit the tariffs or don’t.,or only partly. This is why companies have highly experienced supply chain people to sort the cost and feasibility. No single entrepreneur or company can just decide to flaunt industrial policy - their products will be more expensive, and perhaps unsustainably so. my Osmose was made in China, not France. It’s not just a US issue. It’s complicated and gets straight into international politics…

Distressed companies are purchased by those willing to make the changes previous management was not. As discussed in the other thread, domestic electronics manufacturing is not a thing. Tariff policy is designed to send it overseas. The alternative would have been liquidation. So, you either let the acquirer save what’s left, or you let it go up in flames. The angst about overseas vs US is understandable, but it won’t change government policy. it’s been obvious for a while that something had to give there. Unless you believe in magic, there’s no way Moog could suspend gravity in a way Dave Smith couldn’t.