NS3 Velocity and General Sound vs NS2

[aureliopenna]

And from feedback I’ve had in various places and in person (including from people who’ve known me way longer than I’ve been playing the Stage 2), I know that I am not alone in that perception.

One man that wrote down his opinion, that have both to compare. Side by side. One man that works with NS2 for 7 years at least and apreciate every single moment doing that.
One man that also have a Suitcase MK I Rhodes, a D6 hornher clavinet and play most of the time of his life on a Steinway C acoustic piano.

I don’t have a Steinway, but between home and the studio, there’s three clavinets, two CP70B, five Rhodes (one Mk2 with a custom preamp that I don’t like very much), a Wurlitzer, a Hammond A100, two B3, several acoustics, and about forty analog synths.

I’ve only spent four years with the Stage 2, and ten with the Electro 2, so...er...that means something I guess?

I don't have a Steinway, I just played on it most of my student life.
But Yes, means a lot! But three clavinets and you don't feel strange that they took off 7 of 14 eq possibilites?

[aureliopenna]

Mine is slightly earlier. Power board is 2.02, but the chip revision where yours says “Moderkort 1.11” is 1.10 for me. Mine is dated 6/22 and 6/23.

FWIW, neither the Stage 2 nor the Stage 3 get close to the old Electro 2 when it comes to emulating wah clav, and that was way limited by comparison. I really don’t care about options if the basic sound works off the bat.

Whatever they’re doing in the Stage 3 works well for most of us.

Maybe electro sounds different compared to a stage, and thats ok to me. But, a Stage sounding that different from another Stage is what I don't understand.

[analogika]

Why does the moog the Source Sound different from a Minimoog? Or the Prodigy Sound different than a Rogue? Or the Sub 37 Sound different than the Little Phatty?

The Electro 2 sounds completely different from the Electro 4 or 5. The Leslie is terrible, there is no speaker simulation - but the distortion! Ah…so beautiful. Perfect for wah Clavinet (which is why I’m keeping it).

The Nord Lead 3 sounded quite different from the 2 (loved the morph LEDs, but never liked the sound), and the Lead 4 sounds yet different, again. And the A1 is a completely different synth, but retains the “Lead” moniker.

The classic Stage surely sounds quite different from the Stage 2 (not directly compared them) - why is it so confusing that the 3 sounds different from the 2?

Each is an instrument in its own right - each different, but all unmistakably Nord.

[MrTobbe]

Warning for a seriously long post…

All I got is, worthless eq, worse amp simulator, worse DAC[...]

Wait, what..? So far most of the thread seems to have been about the pianos and velocity response...? I'll get back to your EQ, amp and DAC problem further on, but let's start with the main topic:

I can understand that you have a problem with the velocity response in the Stage 3, simply because the response is not the same as in Stage 2 (and the overall sound is slightly different), BUT as others pointed out this is not a worsening to all of us. I also played a Stage 2 for more than six years, but in my case an sw73 "compact", and now I've had a Stage 3 sw73 since september - and to me the velocity response of the internal keyboard is a lot better in the Stage - via MIDI the velocity response isn't a 100% (yet), but I'm quite sure this is only a matter of finding a suitable velocity curve/scaling, either in the keyboard/DAW you're controlling the Stage 3 from, or to have some type of MIDI converter between the two. In my experience, with all the keyboards and software synths I've owned through the years there has practically always been a need for some type of velocity correction, when controlling one sound engine/keyboard from another one - especially if the two are of different brands, so that the Stage 3 is responding differently to different MIDI keyboards, is certainly nothing that's only a problem with Clavia gear. This is one of the things I love about my 22 year old Kurzweil PC88 - you can set velocity curve, offset and scaling, individually for each and every program (setup in Kurzweil language), and even different velocity settings for each of the four keyboard zones, so then you can surely find a velocity curve that will suit any sound engine/keyboard.
It should be said though that I still haven't dived into velocity scaling with the Stage 3 yet, and I haven't tried controlling from the PC88 yet either, since a Korg M3-88 has more or less taken it's place and the PC88 is in storage most of the time. I get ok velocity from the Korg, but it can certainly be improved by proper scaling. The Stage 3 does however responds really well to velocity when triggered from my Viscount KeyB Legend Live, which isn't that surprising since they both have a Fatar TP8O waterfall semi-weighted keyboard.
For full disclosure - I haven't played both the Stage 2 and 3 side by side, since I traded in the Stage 2 at the store, when I picked up the Stage 3, but I'm quite confident that my memory serves me well in deciding what's an improvement or not - like I said I played the Stage 2 for more than six years, and it was probably not more than 24 from when I played my Stage 2 for the last time, until I sat down with the Stage 3 instead.
I also have had a similar experience with the 88 note Stage - I played a Stage 2/2EX HA88 a couple of times, but I never liked the overall keyboard feel or response. When I played the 2EX in my local music store, it was too big difference in "piano feel" compared to other digital pianos from Roland and Yamaha. The Stage 3 I did like a lot better though, when comparing to the other pianos. Unfortunately the Stage 2EX was sold before the store got the Stage 3, so I never had a chance to play them both at the same time.

Anyway - back to the start of my post... the sound issues. I have had a lot of issues with the Stage 3 since I bought it, but the overall sound quality of the Piano, Synth or EQ section hasn't been any concern for me. Yes it is not strange at all to me that the Synth sound different - it is a totally different engine, and it's pretty clear in the advertising as well. The Stage 2 was based on the Nord Wave, or possibly the Lead 2/2X engine, and the Stage 3 on the A1. It has been known for anyone updating from Lead 2 to 3 or 4, or even the A1 or Wave - they all sound differently, simply because the "engine" the actual machine code is different - and they were most probably intended to not sound the same, so no, this is not strange at all to me - and to be the Stage 3 is a huge improvement over the Stage 2, which I really never liked. The character of the filter and addition of the Moog filter type is worth a lot to me.

Then the piano section - even though it's far from clear in advertising, manual and specs that the Stage 3 has a brand new piano playback engine, I'm guessing this is the case anyway. As I understand it, to develop the Stage 3 Clavia needed to use a brand new DSP platform, simply because the one used in Stage 2/2EX was seriously underpowered for what they wanted to have with the Stage 3 (seamless transitions, C2D+A1 engine etc). New platform means you have to redo all the coding - some of the old code can be "translated" and transferred to the new engine, but a lot of it has to be rewritten from the ground up. Now again the piano section - there is probably a lot more to it than just playing an uncompressed audio stream from disk, and route it to the DAC, like you can do in a modern computer. First the compressed samples in the .npno-file needs to be decompressed, and then it seems like all piano samples in the Stage 3 section go through the Clav filter, and that may affect the sound, even when the Clav-EQ is disabled. And finally, there might be additional filtering and modeling in the piano section, that's happening between the sample playback and sample, that we don't know about. This can surely differ from different Nord keyboards - the exact same piano sample probably don't sound the same if you compare your Stage 2 to a Nord Electro 3HP or a 1st gen Nord Piano either, and if you would hear the same sample played back from a Roland JV-1080 compared to a Roland XV-5080, or a Korg Triton compared to a Korg M3, it will surely not sound the same either, because the "playback engine" and the entire DSP platform is changed in the next generation - and in the end it's always down to personal preference when you decide which sound (or playback engine in this case).
IMHO the fact that you own a couple of Hammonds, a Steinway and a Rhodes, doesn't make you more qualified than the rest of us, when deciding which of the Stage 2 or Stage 3 sounds better, since it's all down to personal preference anyway. I myself have 2 years of higher musical jazz studies, a masters degree in electronics aimed at telecommunications and computer programming, and I have been working with audiological research for more than 10 years... but that doesn't make think that my opinion is worth more than anyone else's (I might have a slightly better understanding for how the insides of a digital keyboard is working, and also a better understanding on how we all perceive different sounds, but that's a whole other story... ). The bottom line here might be - you can't simply conclude that the Stage 3 has "worse DACs", since there is so much more involved that happens between the sample playback starts, until it reach the DAC, that neither of us will have any clue about, without having the actual code for the Stage 2 and Stage 3 platform, and a complete schematic of all of the electronics (or have someone from the Stage 3 development team explain it to us in great detail). No-one, experienced engineer/developer or not, can draw much conclusion at all just by looking at the layout of the circuit board of a complex digital keyboard like the Stage - it makes about as much sense as looking at the motherboard and hard drive inside your computer, to try to to figure out how the installed DAW software is configured, and which software synths are currently loaded. Surely you can look at the labels (like you do) comparing one board to the other - and sure, you can see that you have different revisions of certain chips and circuit boards, but that says absolutely nothing, unless you know what’s been changed from the different revisions.

FWIW, neither the Stage 2 nor the Stage 3 get close to the old Electro 2 when it comes to emulating wah clav, and that was way limited by comparison.

Maybe electro sounds different compared to a stage, and that’s ok to me. But, a Stage sounding that different from another Stage is what I don't understand.

Maybe Clavia should better off if they had chosen a different for the Stage 3. Now it seems a lot of people expects everything to work exactly as before in their Stage 2, and that all their sounds they programmed for the Stage 2, and even programs made for an Elector or the original Stage just simply can be loaded into the the Stage 3 - and that a sample played back from any other Nord (Stage, Piano, Electro or Wave), will sound and respond just the same in the Electro. People need to start to read the user manual and forum threads, or at least read the product’s web page and specification, and if if possible, play the instrument yourself, and go through the menues etc - and do all this before buying, but it seems too many people look at the photos, read the product name, and then start building expectations… well of course you’re gonna be disappointed, if you have no clue of what you’re buying… a couple of days ago I saw someone asking if the Stage 3 could stream wirelessly via bluetooth… jeez… Sorry for the rant, aureliopenna, I know you seem to be quite aware of the functions, possibilities, and limitations of the Stage 3, but - this kinda applies to the sound quality as well. I’m guessing you haven’t owned any Nord Lead or Electros before you got the Stage 2, right? If you had you would be aware of how much any Nord differs from the previous model they’re replacing, and if you think the difference from the Stage 2 to three is big, I believe the difference between Electro 4 and 5 is just as big or even bigger - and while I haven’t heard or done any comparisons between a E4 and E5 myself, I’m quite sure you have a similar difference in how pianos sound in the two different generations. Bottom line - to implement a lot of improvements in a digital keyboard, something else has to go, and everyone can’t be satisfied. Actually, I am fighting a similar “battle” like you with my Legend Live - in December Viscount released a new software version for the organ - and the initial responses were all positive - “oh it sounds a lot more authentic now” etc, but then a couple of users (me included) started complaining - “hey, this doesn’t sound right, the overdrive is messed up, it doesn’t work well in a loud funk or rock band anymore”... still it seems like 80% or so sees the new software version as an improvement, and no - it’s not particularly fun to be in the minority who doesn’t agree with the rest that “all is better now”...

Anyway, just to finish this extremely long post, let’s look another quote from your post:

[...]the eq section doens't allow you to do nothing than mid, mid and more mid.

I guess you’re referring to the Clav EQ which is now available for other pianos as well - and I can agree that neither of these EQ curves suits an acoustic piano very well. However if you are referring to the actual EQ section, I can’t agree with you - the EQ section in the Stage 3 seems just as effective as in the Stage 2, but of course there can be differences, but I found nothing critical in the EQ section. The same goes for the amp models - are they really that different from the Stage 2? I haven’t noticed this anyway - but I know the overdrive and possibly the amp models as well (could be wrong about this though) are stereo now, so no more summing to mono when feeding a stereo sound/sample into the EQ section. It should be said though that I’m not a fan of the Stage 2 amp models either. I used amp models a lot in my Electro 3 and then in the Stage 2 as well, but the last few years I’ve using the amp sims less and less, and use the EQ more instead, combined with overdrive and compression, to achieve the EP sounds I want to have. I wish though that they actually would improve the amp models - as they are now all three seem to cut way too much bass, for my taste. I remember I liked the amp simulations in the Korg SV-1 a lot more, when I tried it, they made the EP’s of the SV-1 fuller, not thinner, as I recall.

Well - I will try to conclude this post now…
I’m sorry you’re not happy with the Stage 3 - and I hope future OS versions will suit your sound preferences better. I strongly recommend that you contact Nord support, and let them now how you feel, and supply the soundsamples to them - they might not be aware of all issues you experience with the piano section. Just like the Organ engine, the piano engine might not be properly tuned in yet - and then future updates will surely help.
I myself have felt a lot of frustration over the Nord Stage 3 since I got it, but I have had a continuing E-mail dialog with Nord Support (even since a month before i bought the Stage 3…), and they seem very helpful, and open to suggestions and improvements, but most importantly - a lot of issues have been finally resolved by now, particularly in v1.32 with the improved organ sound, most of the MIDI bugs fixed, and the release of the Sample Conversion tool.

Cheers!

[aureliopenna]

Why does the moog the Source Sound different from a Minimoog? Or the Prodigy Sound different than a Rogue? Or the Sub 37 Sound different than the Little Phatty?

The Electro 2 sounds completely different from the Electro 4 or 5. The Leslie is terrible, there is no speaker simulation - but the distortion! Ah…so beautiful. Perfect for wah Clavinet (which is why I’m keeping it).

The Nord Lead 3 sounded quite different from the 2 (loved the morph LEDs, but never liked the sound), and the Lead 4 sounds yet different, again. And the A1 is a completely different synth, but retains the “Lead” moniker.

The classic Stage surely sounds quite different from the Stage 2 (not directly compared them) - why is it so confusing that the 3 sounds different from the 2?

Each is an instrument in its own right - each different, but all unmistakably Nord.

Perhaps you are right analogika, and I´m struggling against the wind...
The moment I put my hands on nord for the first time I had a feeling that someone was doing the right thing, so maybe I've created a lot of expectation about everything coming from the brand from this moment on and maybe I'm a bit disappointed with Stage 3 because I expect more than I should from the flagship. My maybe it´s just me, and at this point I´m minory and that´s make my following even more hard.

I´ll post one more comparisson (because I promissed to a friend) followed next then I guess that´s all, I´ll stop my observations.

[Copia]

In fairness to the OP about his thoughts on this post, I too noticed (or rather "felt") the piano sounds had changed. I also felt I was crazy that no one else seemed to notice it. Not a huge change, but enough for me to feel there was a tangible difference. And I have nothing scientific to prove it, only the experience through my JBLs in my church worship space.

Where I differ is I felt the change was more mid-sy, boomy, maybe it's right to say. Not quite as clear or pronounced, but a little round in the mid-EQ. I've adapted, and it still sounds glorious played through a Big Sky shimmer effect. But I did feel there was a difference in each piano sound, overall, subtly, in an area I loved about the Stage 2.

Still feel the Stage 3 is a huge step up and an incredible instrument. An ideal instrument in 2017, especially with the synth improvements, which are way better to me than the synth sounds of the Stage 2.

[aureliopenna]

Warning for a seriously long post…

All I got is, worthless eq, worse amp simulator, worse DAC[...]

Wait, what..? So far most of the thread seems to have been about the pianos and velocity response, which I can understand that you have a problem with, simply cause the overall sound is slightly different and the velocity response is not the same as in Stage 2, BUT as others pointed out this is not a worsening to all of us. I also played a Stage 2 for more than six years, but in my case an sw73 "compact", and now I've had a Stage 3 sw73 since september - and to me the velocity response of the internal keyboard is a lot better in the Stage - via MIDI the velocity response isn't a 100% (yet), but I'm quite sure this is only a matter of finding a suitable velocity curve/scaling, either in the keyboard/DAW you're controlling the Stage 3 from, or to have some type of MIDI converter between the two. In my experience, with all the keyboards and software synths I've owned through the years there has practically always been a need for some type of velocity correction, when controlling one sound engine/keyboard from another one - especially if the two are of different brands, so that the Stage 3 is responding differently to different MIDI keyboards, is certainly nothing that's only a problem with Clavia gear. This is one of the things I love about my 22 year old Kurzweil PC88 - you can set velocity curve, offset and scaling, individually for each and every program (setup in Kurzweil language), and even different velocity settings for each of the four keyboard zones, so then you can surely find a velocity curve that will suit any sound engine/keyboard.
It should be said though that I still haven't dived into velocity scaling with the Stage 3 yet, and I haven't tried controlling from the PC88 yet either, since a Korg M3-88 has more or less taken it's place and the PC88 is in storage most of the time. I get ok velocity from the Korg, but it can certainly be improved by proper scaling. The Stage 3 does however responds really well to velocity when triggered from my Viscount KeyB Legend Live, which isn't that surprising since they both have a Fatar TP8O waterfall semi-weighted keyboard.
For full disclosure - I haven't played both the Stage 2 and 3 side by side, since I traded in the Stage 2 at the store, when I picked up the Stage 3, but I'm quite confident that my memory serves me well in deciding what's an improvement or not - like I said I played the Stage 2 for more than six years, and it was probably not more than 24 from when I played my Stage 2 for the last time, until I sat down with the Stage 3 instead.
I also have had a similar experience with the 88 note Stage - I played a Stage 2/2EX HA88 a couple of times, but I never liked the overall keyboard feel or response. When I played the 2EX in my local music store, it was too big difference in "piano feel" compared to other digital pianos from Roland and Yamaha. The Stage 3 I did like a lot better though, when comparing to the other pianos. Unfortunately the Stage 2EX was sold before the store got the Stage 3, so I never had a chance to play them both at the same time.

Anyway - back to the start of my post... the sound issues. I have had a lot of issues with the Stage 3 since I bought it, but the overall sound quality of the Piano, Synth or EQ section hasn't been any concern for me. Yes it is not strange at all to me that the Synth sound different - it is a totally different engine, and it's pretty clear in the advertising as well. The Stage 2 was based on the Nord Wave, or possibly the Lead 2/2X engine, and the Stage 3 on the A1. It has been known for anyone updating from Lead 2 to 3 or 4, or even the A1 or Wave - they all sound differently, simply because the "engine" the actual machine code is different - and they were most probably intended to not sound the same, so no, this is not strange at all to me - and to be the Stage 3 is a huge improvement over the Stage 2, which I really never liked. The character of the filter and addition of the Moog filter type is worth a lot to me.

Then the piano section - even though it's far from clear in advertising, manual and specs that the Stage 3 has a brand new piano playback engine, I'm guessing this is the case anyway. As I understand it, to develop the Stage 3 Clavia needed to use a brand new DSP platform, simply because the one used in Stage 2/2EX was seriously underpowered for what they wanted to have with the Stage 3 (seamless transitions, C2D+A1 engine etc). New platform means you have to redo all the coding - some of the old code can be "translated" and transferred to the new engine, but a lot of it has to be rewritten from the ground up. Now again the piano section - there is probably a lot more to it than just playing an uncompressed audio stream from disk, and route it to the DAC, like you can do in a modern computer. First the compressed samples in the .npno-file needs to be decompressed, and then it seems like all piano samples in the Stage 3 section go through the Clav filter, and that may affect the sound, even when the Clav-EQ is disabled. And finally, there might be additional filtering and modeling in the piano section, that's happening between the sample playback and sample, that we don't know about. This can surely differ from different Nord keyboards - the exact same piano sample probably don't sound the same if you compare your Stage 2 to a Nord Electro 3HP or a 1st gen Nord Piano either, and if you would hear the same sample played back from a Roland JV-1080 compared to a Roland XV-5080, or a Korg Triton compared to a Korg M3, it will surely not sound the same either, because the "playback engine" and the entire DSP platform is changed in the next generation - and in the end it's always down to personal preference when you decide which sound (or playback engine in this case).
IMHO the fact that you own a couple of Hammonds, a Steinway and a Rhodes, doesn't make you more qualified than the rest of us, when deciding which of the Stage 2 or Stage 3 sounds better, since it's all down to personal preference anyway. I myself have 2 years of higher musical jazz studies, a masters degree in electronics aimed at telecommunications and computer programming, and I have been working with audiological research for more than 10 years... but that doesn't make think that my opinion is worth more than anyone else's (I might have a slightly better understanding for how the insides of a digital keyboard is working, and also a better understanding on how we all perceive different sounds, but that's a whole other story... ). The bottom line here might be - you can't simply conclude that the Stage 3 has "worse DACs", since there is so much more involved that happens between the sample playback starts, until it reach the DAC, that neither of us will have any clue about, without having the actual code for the Stage 2 and Stage 3 platform, and a complete schematic of all of the electronics (or have someone from the Stage 3 development team explain it to us in great detail). No-one, experienced engineer/developer or not, can draw much conclusion at all just by looking at the layout of the circuit board of a complex digital keyboard like the Stage - it makes about as much sense as looking at the motherboard and hard drive inside your computer, to try to to figure out how the installed DAW software is configured, and which software synths are currently loaded. Surely you can look at the labels (like you do) comparing one board to the other - and sure, you can see that you have different revisions of certain chips and circuit boards, but that says absolutely nothing, unless you know what’s been changed from the different revisions.

FWIW, neither the Stage 2 nor the Stage 3 get close to the old Electro 2 when it comes to emulating wah clav, and that was way limited by comparison.

Maybe electro sounds different compared to a stage, and that’s ok to me. But, a Stage sounding that different from another Stage is what I don't understand.

Maybe Clavia should better off if they had chosen a different for the Stage 3. Now it seems a lot of people expects everything to work exactly as before in their Stage 2, and that all their sounds they programmed for the Stage 2, and even programs made for an Elector or the original Stage just simply can be loaded into the the Stage 3 - and that a sample played back from any other Nord (Stage, Piano, Electro or Wave), will sound and respond just the same in the Electro. People need to start to read the user manual and forum threads, or at least read the product’s web page and specification, and if if possible, play the instrument yourself, and go through the menues etc - and do all this before buying, but it seems too many people look at the photos, read the product name, and then start building expectations… well of course you’re gonna be disappointed, if you have no clue of what you’re buying… a couple of days ago I saw someone asking if the Stage 3 could stream wirelessly via bluetooth… jeez… Sorry for the rant, aureliopenna, I know you seem to be quite aware of the functions, possibilities, and limitations of the Stage 3, but - this kinda applies to the sound quality as well. I’m guessing you haven’t owned any Nord Lead or Electros before you got the Stage 2, right? If you had you would be aware of how much any Nord differs from the previous model they’re replacing, and if you think the difference from the Stage 2 to three is big, I believe the difference between Electro 4 and 5 is just as big or even bigger - and while I haven’t heard or done any comparisons between a E4 and E5 myself, I’m quite sure you have a similar difference in how pianos sound in the two different generations. Bottom line - to implement a lot of improvements in a digital keyboard, something else has to go, and everyone can’t be satisfied. Actually, I am fighting a similar “battle” like you with my Legend Live - in December Viscount released a new software version for the organ - and the initial responses were all positive - “oh it sounds a lot more authentic now” etc, but then a couple of users (me included) started complaining - “hey, this doesn’t sound right, the overdrive is messed up, it doesn’t work well in a loud funk or rock band anymore”... still it seems like 80% or so sees the new software version as an improvement, and no - it’s not particularly fun to be in the minority who doesn’t agree with the rest that “all is better now”...

Anyway, just to finish this extremely long post, let’s look another quote from your post:

[...]the eq section doens't allow you to do nothing than mid, mid and more mid.

I guess you’re referring to the Clav EQ which is now available for other pianos as well - and I can agree that neither of these EQ curves suits an acoustic piano very well. However if you are referring to the actual EQ section, I can’t agree with you - the EQ section in the Stage 3 seems just as effective as in the Stage 2, but of course there can be differences, but I found nothing critical in the EQ section. The same goes for the amp models - are they really that different from the Stage 2? I haven’t noticed this anyway - but I know the overdrive and possibly the amp models as well (could be wrong about this though) are stereo now, so no more summing to mono when feeding a stereo sound/sample into the EQ section. It should be said though that I’m not a fan of the Stage 2 amp models either. I used amp models a lot in my Electro 3 and then in the Stage 2 as well, but the last few years I’ve using the amp sims less and less, and use the EQ more instead, combined with overdrive and compression, to achieve the EP sounds I want to have. I wish though that they actually would improve the amp models - as they are now all three seem to cut way too much bass, for my taste. I remember I liked the amp simulations in the Korg SV-1 a lot more, when I tried it, they made the EP’s of the SV-1 fuller, not thinner, as I recall.

Well - I will try to conclude this post now…
I’m sorry you’re not happy with the Stage 3 - and I hope future OS versions will suit your sound preferences better. I strongly recommend that you contact Nord support, and let them now how you feel, and supply the soundsamples to them - they might not be aware of all issues you experience with the piano section. Just like the Organ engine, the piano engine might not be properly tuned in yet - and then future updates will surely help.
I myself have felt a lot of frustration over the Nord Stage 3 since I got it, but I have had a continuing E-mail dialog with Nord Support (even since a month before i bought the Stage 3…), and they seem very helpful, and open to suggestions and improvements, but most importantly - a lot of issues have been finally resolved by now, particularly in v1.32 with the improved organ sound, most of the MIDI bugs fixed, and the release of the Sample Conversion tool.

Cheers!

First of thank you this reply MrTobbe, I couldn´t agree more with yours thoughts. By the way I love long posts, it seems like someone cares.
I totally sure I am minority at this point, and I know how this may sound like a boring person trying to expose his own point of view. But I have been trying to do this always indicating that it is my personal perception and trying to post some audios that corroborate what I say in the posts.
I might be dissapointed but still love Nord Keyboard (maybe because of that I´m dessapointed, ) I just want to share my experience, and be sure my unit is not differet from others Stage 3 on the market, by revision or not.

I already sent 3 emails to clavia, a guy from a store that not even have or had the Stage 3 to sell, first ask about where I bought and where were the invoice and that´s all.

I don´t know if it´s my own NS3 or all of them but the eq section is not sounding even close to my NS2.
I recorded DX7 FullTines lrg with 127 velocity from Nuendo doing the same thing. Both keyboard with full master and module volume.
First Nord Stage 3 than Nord Stage 2. Let´s listening?

Here the couple playing with no Eq no Reverb.

• DX7 FullTines Lrg no verb no eq - NS3.mp3

• DX7 FullTines Lrg no verb no eq - NS2.mp3

Now with the master eq with treble in max (15db)

• DX7 FullTines Lrg no verb treble at max - NS3.mp3

• DX7 FullTines Lrg no verb treble at max - NS2.mp3

Now without any eq but with stage2 reverb at 5 ( nord stage 3 with bright turned on)

• DX7 FullTines Lrg Reverb Stage2 no Eq - NS3 .mp3

• DX7 FullTines Lrg Reverb Stage2 no Eq - NS2.mp3

[aureliopenna]

In fairness to the OP about his thoughts on this post, I too noticed (or rather "felt") the piano sounds had changed. I also felt I was crazy that no one else seemed to notice it. Not a huge change, but enough for me to feel there was a tangible difference. And I have nothing scientific to prove it, only the experience through my JBLs in my church worship space.

Where I differ is I felt the change was more mid-sy, boomy, maybe it's right to say. Not quite as clear or pronounced, but a little round in the mid-EQ. I've adapted, and it still sounds glorious played through a Big Sky shimmer effect. But I did feel there was a difference in each piano sound, overall, subtly, in an area I loved about the Stage 2.

Still feel the Stage 3 is a huge step up and an incredible instrument. An ideal instrument in 2017, especially with the synth improvements, which are way better to me than the synth sounds of the Stage 2.

Nice to hear that I´m not alone. Now is two man´s opinion

[Copia]

I'll share in that.

I'll also add that the pianos sound exceptional and glorious through my HS8s at home. So I'm still pleased. The only thing I struggled to getting sounding as good are the Rhodes. I put two of them together and fiddled with EQ and drive to get what I like. Perceptions, right?

Love the Stage 3 so much I bought two, NS3 88 and NS3 Compact.

[NordNerd431]

[quote="MrTobbe"]Warning for a seriously long post…

Very well stated.