Nords, they're everywhere. Should they be?

[TJ Cornish]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

At $5k, you're talking about a Stage, and while  I agree it makes for a very expensive controller, I don't think it's necessarily poorly suited. All that knobiness sends MIDI CCs. Picking up again from my earlier post, where else do you get a controller with dedicated drawbar controls that look and feel like drawbars, separate synth controls that are labeled and logically laid out for the most common synth functions, etc.

 

 

The YC has only become a similar option somewhat recently. For many "Nord years," it didn't exist, and meanwhile Nord has built up a solid reputation in that market which may not be so easy to displace. People see "that's what people are using," and so, with no further research required, they can just buy that and feel safe that they've got something that will do the job. They may not even know about the YC, or want to take the "gamble." (And there are certainly still things the Stage does that the YC does not, like full built-in VA synth and custom sample loading, which could come into play for some.)

 

Where else do you get a controller with dedicated drawbar controls that look and feel like drawbars, separate synth controls that are labeled and logically laid out for the most common synth functions, etc.? If "drawbar-shaped drawbars" are important to you, that leaves you with the YC and Hammond SK Pro and definitely excludes the Nord Stage, which has those awkward drawbar buttons. If you can live with "things that go up and down" in place of drawbars, the Roland Fantom series gives you that plus a touch screen, pad matrix, a ton of assignable knobs, patch management options, etc.

 

I can't stand any controller that doesn't have sliders that can be used for part volume.

 

I won't play the game of guessing the number of people who believe that the Nord Stage is the world's greatest MIDI controller - I have no doubt it's greater than zero, however I have a fair bit of personal experience in the church world - the number of Vanity/MeToo Nords is significant - keyboards that either never leave the piano sound, or keyboards that never make any sound and are just used to control Sunday Keys' piano sound.

 

I'm tilting at windmills here, I know; thinking that having the same gear as a celebrity brings you closer to them is as old as time, and certainly not isolated to the keyboard world.

 

 

[AnotherScott]

18 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

If "drawbar-shaped drawbars" are important to you, that leaves you with the YC and Hammond SK Pro and definitely excludes the Nord Stage, which has those awkward drawbar buttons.

Nord Stage 3 has real drawbars on the 73. And unlike the YC and SK Pro, all the organ controls (like percussion and C/V) send standard MIDI CC so are easily mapped to software. Also the YC doesn't have the mappable synth controls, and the ones on the SK Pro don't send standard CCs. And the Nord is the only one of the bunch with aftertouch.

 

18 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

If you can live with "things that go up and down" in place of drawbars, the Roland Fantom series gives you that plus...

Yes, Fantom is a strong controller, but still probably lags the Nord in the things I mentioned. Fewer synth controls (and I don't know whether they send MIDI CC?), no dedicated percussion or CV controls.

 

18 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

I can't stand any controller that doesn't have sliders that can be used for part volume.

The Nord admittedly has knobs rather than sliders, but they are endless encoders, which might give them an offsetting advantage.

 

But of course, different things will be more or less important to different people. I'm not saying the Nord would be everyone's ideal controller by any means, I just don't think you can really call it a "poorly-suited" controller either. From some perspectives, it can even be a particularly good one, I think.

 

Of course, whether the people in your church experience are using it in any way that really takes advantage of it is a whole other question. :-) 

 

[hrestov]

I confirm, with yamaha Cp73, the R output is very good for CFX piano. I often play mono because it’s simpler. Can’t do this on nord pianos, that only sounds good in stereo, and I’m not monitoring in stereo (and also the listeners difficulty have a good stereo listen). 

[cphollis]

5 hours ago, hrestov said:

I confirm, with yamaha Cp73, the R output is very good for CFX piano. I often play mono because it’s simpler. Can’t do this on nord pianos, that only sounds good in stereo, and I’m not monitoring in stereo (and also the listeners difficulty have a good stereo listen). 

Are you aware that Nord Pianos have a "mono" button?  I use it frequently and it sounds pretty good to my ears.

[Mr -G-]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:30 PM, zephonic said:

But the Nords do?

I have a NS2 and the MODX8 and to me, the NS2 keybed is noticeably better than the MODX.

[analogika]

On 11/26/2022 at 1:14 AM, JazzPiano88 said:

Usually a manufacturer that commands a price premium has a performance point that the competitors can't match.  So it doesn't make any sense for Nord unless there is some Jobsian-like reality distortion field in effect.   People have mentioned the religious institution effect which could be similar to Job's.

Trotting out this old and tired trope of „performance“ vs. „cult“ just completely misses the point of what Nord (and Apple) have always been about, IMO. 
 

Accessibility is a major feature, and by far the most important to anybody who isn’t a total geek, and who wants a machine to do what they bought it for. 

„Performance“ and „features“ are completely useless if the user cannot operate them.
 

The engineer’s attitude of a feature being saleable as long as it’s somewhere within the depths of an interface turns machines into inscrutable black boxes. 
 

Inviting users to WANT to access features is a much greater (and much more difficult-to-achieve) quality than geeks tend to give them credit for. 

[analogika]

3 hours ago, cphollis said:

Are you aware that Nord Pianos have a "mono" button?  I use it frequently and it sounds pretty good to my ears.

The Leslie output is just summed to mono, so you actually get two mics on the horn, with each pass just panned to center. That’s not a mono Leslie, and it’s unpleasantly warbly. I tend to plug both outputs and just use one of them when I play mono. 

[hrestov]

3 hours ago, cphollis said:

Are you aware that Nord Pianos have a "mono" button?  I use it frequently and it sounds pretty good to my ears.

Yes, I know. I tried a lot of settings: use mono button (that for me only sums L+R) or use only L or R. The white grand with mono button is decent, but not great. But the white grand is a strange piano for me. I like more the yamaha tone, like royal d or studio grand 2. 

[AnotherScott]

 

On 11/25/2022 at 1:17 AM, bjosko said:

I’m know, this was for future products. I think it is a clever and technically cheap way to solve the restriction Apple make with connectivity.  
But of course I will prefer a more solid USB connection if possible.

 

On 11/25/2022 at 1:51 AM, CyberGene said:

Devices that use WiFi for configuration (I have a dashcam and a Fuji mirrorless camera that are like that) are bad IMO. They require that you disconnect your phone/tablet from your WiFi and lose connectivity and connect to the device. That’s so 2010-s. Nowadays there’s Bluetooth LE that’s made for these purposes.

 

I think it's also interesting, if we're using Gemini as a model, that they themselves added direct USB connectivity to their system that was originally wifi only, presumably because so many people were finding the wifi method unsatisfactory.

[harmonizer]

4 hours ago, hrestov said:

Yes, I know. I tried a lot of settings: use mono button (that for me only sums L+R) or use only L or R. The white grand with mono button is decent, but not great. But the white grand is a strange piano for me. I like more the yamaha tone, like royal d or studio grand 2. 

With my Electro 3, most Nord AP sounds do not sound right to me when using a single speaker, whether or not I press the mono button. The octave below middle C is where they fail. The Royal Grand is an exception, and sounds quite nice with only a single speaker (with or without the mono button pressed), but for me does not cut through in a covers band setting. Some recent uprights (Bambino?) do not suffer in single speaker mode, but don't have enough punch in the low end.  If I had a newer Nord I would be using the White Grand. I actually use a couple of AP sounds in my Roland FA-07 in my covers band instead of anything from my Nord.

[HSS]

6 hours ago, hrestov said:

Yes, I know. I tried a lot of settings: use mono button (that for me only sums L+R) or use only L or R. The white grand with mono button is decent, but not great. But the white grand is a strange piano for me. I like more the yamaha tone, like royal d or studio grand 2. 

The Studio Grand 2 using the mono button is my go-to AP in live loud bands on my Nord 5D 73 when I'm not using a lower dedicated piano board.  IMHO the new White and Royal grands sound relatively good in mono as well, but for me they don't cut through loud band mixes as well as the Studio Grand 2.  The Bright Grand cuts through but it's too clangy and thin for me and the Uprights decay too fast and sound thumpy 

 

I really like the Royal and White Grands for solo work or ballads, but I agree with you about the White being a bit weird, especially in the upper octave where the notes were sampled with too much sustain, reverb, resonance, or something(?) and they run together a bit even without using the sustain pedal.  It's not a big issue for me though.  IMHO it adds some "character". 

 

FWIW... I play in mono because I want to hear what the audience hears and, to be honest, I'm too lazy to mess with stereo for the $75 -100 dive bar gigs I do.  When I use only my Nord 5D 73 for band gigs without a lower board, I use the mono button, although I have used right out on occasion.  

[NewImprov]

Im ambivalent about the Nords. As a sound guy, I'm always glad to see a band that has an Electro or Stage, I know I can make the keyboards sound good in the mix. My company owns a Stage that we rent out as backline several times a year.

 

As a player, I've never loved the Electros or Stages, they sound great, but there's always been something weird for me in the finger-to-ear connection. So I've only gigged with them a few times when using backline, or sharing a rig with another player. I don't hate them in that setting, but I'm not totally happy either.

 

I do own an original Nord Lead, and a Micro Modular, and love both of them. I tried to see the Lead when I did my big downsize in 2007, but got no buyers, and now I'm glad I kept it, it has a lot of custom patches I've written for it, and has a sound that I find unique, it doesn't sound analog by any measure, but it doesn't sound digital either. It takes effects really well, and is just fun to play. 

 

[HammondDave]

I have three words to describe these red things…

 

1. Overpriced

2. Overpriced

3. Overpriced

 

The organs sound like crap. The keybeds feel spongy, and the weird pitch/mod things are just… weird. 

 

Several keyboards from Italian companies sound so much better.  I would rather spend $1500 on a Numa X than $5000+ on a Nord Piano which sounds and feels inferior. 
 

For some reason these keyboards have become status symbols. Well, to each their own. 

[Tom Williams]

On 11/21/2022 at 11:38 PM, timwat said:

Not at all like an anemic linux computer duct-taped to a Fatar key bed.

Gotta be one of the best putdowns ever typed. 

 

Tim, you're one in a million.

[AnotherScott]

28 minutes ago, HammondDave said:

the weird pitch/mod things are just… weird. 

The pitch stick is my favorite pitch bender, along with a CS80-style ribbon (each better for some things).

 

No doubt they are premium priced, though, at least in the U.S.  That said, as has been alluded to, in terms of the particular combinations of sounds and functionalities, sometimes there's no other single board that can fill a space as well.  So if you don't want to pay that premium, you either go with multiple boards (or some kind of additional external module), or go without some sound/capability.

[yannis D]

7 hours ago, NewImprov said:

Im ambivalent about the Nords. As a sound guy, I'm always glad to see a band that has an Electro or Stage, I know I can make the keyboards sound good in the mix. My company owns a Stage that we rent out as backline several times a year.

 

 

 

You gave the asnwer the post is about. All the rest is a nice conversation, but it does not answer the initial post 

It's not the price, it's not the colour, it's the sound "outside". Seasoned pros and amateurs alike use the Nords cause they sound just right out of the box within any band mix.

This does not mean that other brands are less efficient. But people use Nords because are very easy to program and have a very intelligent interface once you get used to it. And they sound awsome

 

[Adan]

I never thought Nord was overpriced until the recent price jump.  Now, I'd say they're overpriced.  Nord should instead be lowering its prices to stay competitive with the Yamaha YC.

 

The idea that keyboard players buy equipment to indicate "status" is just . . . weird, and on multiple levels.  To begin with, the average keyboard player is the type of person who doesn't think about status, they're content to be in the background while everyone else gets the attention.  Secondly, this is all so Inside Baseball.  No one cares except us.  People in the audience aren't saying things like "oooh, look, he's playing a Nord!"

[jeffincltnc]

I wouldn't say they are overpriced if people are buying them and given how many owners find them as enjoyable to play.  For me personally, the price increases on new Nords over the last year will probably have me keeping mine longer and well into the life cycle of whatever comes next to replace Stage 3 and Wave 2, if and when such a thing exists.

[David Emm]

Never mind the pianos. I've tried a couple of them and I come down on the WOW side. Its the stage piano of yer 70s dreams, plus organs a-plenty and even basic Mellotron if you want it. The main lack is that maddening 1 GB sample limit. If you can play more library samples from an inserted USB stick, that would address it neatly. (I'm ITB now, so that's TL;DR territory for me. Can anyone clarify?)

 

I have a weakness for workstations and centerpiece synths. The Wave 2 strikes me as everything good about Nord in one place. What a beauty. If I was starting out today, I'd be leaning in that direction, sprinkling its edges with softsynths and a couple of small gems like a Wavestate. With up to four zones, careful planning could yield high-grade results. Nord Leads sometimes sound too shrill for me to lean on them as my only VA, but that plus superior samples, some wavetabling and 2- & 4-op FM don't leave you wanting for much. J3PO's demos are the clincher for me.

 

Besides, with my tastes, playing standards and soft pop for weddings is RIGHT OUT! If I did, I'd use my GX-80 and blow the wedding cake off the table. 💥

[Sam Mullins]

FYI I got an email from one of the major online vendors and they had dropped their price on a Nord stage 3 88 by $1000 to $4199. Similar discounts on other models.
 

(I won’t say which one due to forum rules)

 

I love my current rig (stage + kronos) but would probably make different choices for the price than I did 4-5 years ago.  But at least this price is back to where it was when I bought. 

[AUSSIEKEYS]

41 minutes ago, Sam Mullins said:

FYI I got an email from one of the major online vendors and they had dropped their price on a Nord stage 3 88 by $1000 to $4199. Similar discounts on other models.

Do you think its a promise of things to come that the high prices cant be sustained or just with one retailer.

 

If so thus could also trickle into other manufacturers.

[Sam Mullins]

 

1 hour ago, AUSSIEKEYS said:

Do you think its a promise of things to come that the high prices cant be sustained or just with one retailer.

 

If so thus could also trickle into other manufacturers.

In the past I’ve gotten some ridiculously good deals from this vendor on a few things which makes you wonder how they offer those prices….but no issues or indications of gray market, etc 

 

Update:  just checked two other major vendors and it was also 4199.  This has changed this afternoon

 
 

No idea if it’s permanent or not

[Docbop]

Sounds like they are dropping prices to clear out inventory to make way for new products.    So NAMM could see some new Nords.   

[David Emm]

Well, proverbial damn. I just watched Tim Shoebridge's detailed Wave 2 review. A couple of the slider tops CRUMBLED in use and the edges of the instrument's case have exposed, folded-over edges in spots. What, no caps for those openings? Do iffy sheet metal much?? Those really bothered me, since the one Nord Lead and Stage Piano I played felt pretty solid. I didn't inspect them at length, but I'd hope those edges were covered. Complaints about key pivots or certain GUI decisions can sometimes be managed, but build quality is a constant nag, argh. A sobering moment.

 

Let's be clear, though; I also agree with Tim that Nords speak with proper authority, so its not a matter of disregard at all. The sound quality is excellent, the library is eye-opening and the toughness on the road well-proven.

 

Its odd to think of so many synths as "Wish that was a module" because the keyboard mechanisms suck like a black hole. You'd often much prefer a master controller that felt good and thus let you stretch out properly. No wonder there's a solid contingent that howls for 76 keys with zoning. Its a little brute-force, but its beats budget-synth clatter or slicing your pinkie while hitting that bottom key.  

[Mighty Motif Max]

I've asked my Sweetwater guy if he knows whether the price drop is long-term or not. I'll report back when I hear from him.

[bjosko]

Perhaps Nord have read this thread 🥴

So the price is down to European level. 
I browsed through some larger German and Danish web stores, but here the prices is the same as they used to be, even increased a bit compared to last time I was looking. 

[jeffincltnc]

I’m going to make an educated guess with supporting evidence that a Nord Stage 4 is going to announce within the next 4 months and skipping the interim pattern of a Nord Stage 3EX.

 

There are already Nord Stage 4 formats in the registry of Windows computers running the latest versions of Nord Sound Manager and Nord Sample Editor on Windows, such as .ns4b, .ns4p and .ns4pbundle (backups, programs and bundles)

 

Screenshots of this are on the Nord Support forum and these versions of Sound and Sample manager have been available for a while, so assume this has been in development for a while.

 

Would assume the new sample format for round robin samples is going to be in the update.  

[Stokely]

If this price cut had happened a month ago, I would have been really considering how to quickly sell something.  I ended up buying an sk pro, and I really like it, but a NS3 still appeals as a single-board solution for practices and certain gigs.  If this price stays then it still might be an option if I sell my Summit and gig money builds up again.

[Moonglow]

I’ve intermittently considered getting a NS3-88 over the past several years, most seriously after the substantial price hike, so the credit card remained in my wallet. Acknowledging that the recent price reduction could be predictive of a forthcoming newer model, I’m inclined to sit tight. At this point, waiting a few more months to observe if a newer model emerges won’t hurt, and if a NS3EX or NS4 indeed arrives, to evaluate the improvements.

[kenheeter]

This is all my fault.  I just bought a NS3 compact. It never fails, the moment I commit to purchase, the price drops and a new model emerges.  That said, the NS3 is so far advanced from my NS2 that it may take me a long time to wring out all that it has to offer, so, no regrets.  It's a great addition to my fleet and offers a lot of great solutions.