Whither Nord?

[FZiegler]

BTW: Is Kawai a dying manufacturer as well? MP7se and MP11se are from 2017 and the VPC1 is from 2013 if I'm right - still on sale.

[analogika]

Using tech support FORUMS(!?) on the internet is a vestige from the early 2000's — and it was totally a geek thing back then. Regular (non-geek) folks only ever landed there if they had trouble and searched Yahoo, AskJeeves, or Google for a solution.

As such, the segment of users of this forum who are under forty-five is likely to be very close to zero.

As for Nord, they closed shop and sold their assets back in 2022, as we all remember: viewtopic.php?p=153195&hilit=business#p153195

[Gambold]

>Is Kawai a dying manufacturer as well?<

Last time I split this hair....I said Nord was stagnating. I didn't say they were dying or going out of business.

And yes, per my post of two years ago, I still think a sale would be a good thing for the company in the long run.

My "distaste" for Nord - not really. I love my Electro. What you see as "distaste for Nord" is a concern that the company has lost its mojo. A concern that I voiced two years ago...and how much have things changed since then? One lame Stage upgrade and a couple weak piano samples. It's a company in a rut...at least compared with the competition.

The brand loyalty here on this board is unquestioned. But...let's revisit in three months. I will happily put on sackcloth and ashes if they release an Electro 7 for the upcoming holiday season. One that is actually a real upgrade, not just a price boost.

We will see.

[analogika]

I don’t think the holiday season is relevant to Clavia‘s marketing, nor their sales.

I said it a decade ago: the company is small, everybody knows everybody else’s families and celebrates together, and the order books are filled to capacity for years to come. There is no incentive — zero — to do anything differently from the way they’ve done it for the past twenty years.

And just add three years to whatever timeline you might be willing to draw up or fantasise, due to illness/closures/supply chain issues during Covid, before drawing any conclusions.

[Rusty Mike]

Honestly, I feel like a large part of why Nord gets singled out so much is their price point. For example, all of the major brands re-use samples. I have a Yamaha YC61 which, with the newer firmware, has one of the best Hammond models on the market in my opinion. The Rhodes samples are also beautifully playable and yes, they've added some new pianos to the recent models (YC/CP/Montage M.) But scrolling past all of that, the rest of the sounds are OLD...some go back to the early Motif models at least. Roland has been re-using old samples for decades. Korg has went through several versions of their flagship technology, with largely the same samples. I guarantee you, if you look at any top of the line workstation from the large companies you will find samples that are decades old. And I'm not talking about classic sounds people still use (Roland D-50, for example) but rather stuff like real instrument emulations or in some cases even within the standard piano/EP/clavinet sounds.

I don't think Nord has ever had the M.O. of "give customers the most features for the price." That's just not their business model. Of course there are improvements I wish for like anyone else; surely even the biggest fanboy on the forum would like to see some new features, bug fixes, or whatever. But if this business model is working for them, they're selling plenty of units at the prices they ask, and their reputation is arguably envied to at least some degree by other manufacturers (hence there being more keyboards with Nord-inspired interfaces now,) why should they change? If you were in their shoes and business was going smoothly I doubt you'd want to shake things up either.

Lastly in terms of price, while Nords are never going to be cheap, you can get them new for far less than advertised. When I had a Stage 4 Compact I paid $3700 for it. There was a tiny barely visible dent in the bottom metal plate so it was marked as b-stock with full warranty. Needless to say, at that price, it's not hard to resell it as Nords hold resale value exceptionally well compared to some other brands.

[Gambold]

>There is no incentive — zero — to do anything differently from the way they’ve done it for the past twenty years.<

It's just an outrage that my personal complaining on their* customer forum doesn't change this business plan.

>Honestly, I feel like a large part of why Nord gets singled out so much is their price point. <

That, and the fact that Nord users, including yours truly, tend to be more passionate and obsessed with their Nords other than your boilerplate Yamaha or Korg customer.



*I know, I know - this forum is not officially "affiliated" with Clavia.

[Schorsch]

It's just an outrage that my personal complaining on their* customer forum doesn't change this business plan.

[Spider]

>Honestly, I feel like a large part of why Nord gets singled out so much is their price point. <

That, and the fact that Nord users, including yours truly, tend to be more passionate and obsessed with their Nords other than your boilerplate Yamaha or Korg customer.

Exactly. I see the same thing with Moog.
At every new Moog release, the forums go crazy on how it doesn't have this and that feature, the competition gives you much more, and it's WAAAAAY overpriced and should cost no more than half of what they're asking for it.
Still, people keep buying Moog synths. Why? Because they 1- sound great 2- are built with the musician in mind, and give you exactly the features you need for live performance.

I totally agree that sooner or later Clavia will have to make more substantial improvements to its instruments, but -if history is any indication- this will come in small doses from one model to the next, not in one dramatic revolution.
What I'm possibly more concerned by is not the lack of new models or the stagnation in new technology, but rather that the company has become more traditional and mainstream. Where they once had only 2 stage piano lines (the Electro and Stage) now they have no less than 4, with more than a bit of redundancy and overlap especially between the Stage, Piano and Grand.
And in the meantime, they abandoned their double-manual organs which where really innovative and gig-worthy for their times.
Also in the synth department they seem to have lost their edge, abandoning the Modular and the classic Lead lines...even though it's probably not their fault but they've been overtaken by so many new synth producers and the renewed interest for analog synthesis.

This is probably also a consequence of the global situations...it's very hard for companies to take risks nowadays, they have to concentrate on their core business and hope to stay afloat. Let's hope that they can go back to being more adventurous and experimental once better times come and the global economy restarts (which may be a long time from now)

[JayDee]

Gambold is probably right, And yet i can hardly turn on Saturday morning sessions (CBS), or for that matter Austin City Limits, without seeing the keyboard person sporting a Nord keyboard. I think pros have a higher opinion of them than do forum nerds that demand the latest and greatest. I see that on TGP effects forum too. Pros don't mind using a Boss SD! but the forum guys are always looking for the latest overdrive, not one that's been around a couple decades, even if it gets the job done.

[Rusty Mike]

>Honestly, I feel like a large part of why Nord gets singled out so much is their price point. <

That, and the fact that Nord users, including yours truly, tend to be more passionate and obsessed with their Nords other than your boilerplate Yamaha or Korg customer.

Exactly. I see the same thing with Moog.
At every new Moog release, the forums go crazy on how it doesn't have this and that feature, the competition gives you much more, and it's WAAAAAY overpriced and should cost no more than half of what they're asking for it.
Still, people keep buying Moog synths. Why? Because they 1- sound great 2- are built with the musician in mind, and give you exactly the features you need for live performance.

I totally agree that sooner or later Clavia will have to make more substantial improvements to its instruments, but -if history is any indication- this will come in small doses from one model to the next, not in one dramatic revolution.
What I'm possibly more concerned by is not the lack of new models or the stagnation in new technology, but rather that the company has become more traditional and mainstream. Where they once had only 2 stage piano lines (the Electro and Stage) now they have no less than 4, with more than a bit of redundancy and overlap especially between the Stage, Piano and Grand.
And in the meantime, they abandoned their double-manual organs which where really innovative and gig-worthy for their times.
Also in the synth department they seem to have lost their edge, abandoning the Modular and the classic Lead lines...even though it's probably not their fault but they've been overtaken by so many new synth producers and the renewed interest for analog synthesis.

This is probably also a consequence of the global situations...it's very hard for companies to take risks nowadays, they have to concentrate on their core business and hope to stay afloat. Let's hope that they can go back to being more adventurous and experimental once better times come and the global economy restarts (which may be a long time from now)

I would add Hammond as a company selling stuff for way too much. That new M-Solo, a product with limited use and appeal, is selling for $1400! Their other lines and even accessories are not cheap either. Another example is Rhodes - people are falling all over themselves about these $9000US electric pianos! So I would not consider Nord an exclusive member of the club.

Let’s also address the supposed slow crawl of technology innovation. I think I’ve covered this before somewhere else on this forum, but here goes. Today, pretty much all of the big manufacturers are slowly evolving their technology or repackaging tech that is years old. Korg, Roland, Yamaha, Kurzweil, Sequential, Oberheim, Hammond, Moog, etc. They all have secret sauce that helped make them successful and they’re just using it over and over again with varying degrees of small improvements or new paint jobs. Nord is not alone here. For all the people that gush over Moog, when was the last time they actually innovated? Every product they’ve produced over the past several years is just repackaging or slight variations of their core technology.

So no, Clavia is not the only guilty party. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. Is there room for improvement? Without a doubt. I’d love to see an updated organ engine with a bit more life and grit. But don’t make it sound like their competitors are moving at light speed and they’re in the Stone Age, or that they’re the only company with high priced products.