Nord User Forum

Kirsty, do you play with a heavy hand. If Jerry Lee Lewis saw you play would he say "dang, I don't know how her hands can take the abuse"

JayDee wrote:Kirsty, do you play with a heavy hand. If Jerry Lee Lewis saw you play would he say "dang, I don't know how her hands can take the abuse"

Hehe, no I dont I mainly play stripped back Acoustic covers as a Duo, or sometimes im part of a 4/5 piece that does pop/rock stuff, but nothing I would describe as heavy

kbrkr wrote:When I purchase through a local dealer, they will loan me a board for my gigs. Have you tried asking?

I did ask G4M about this but they said they are unable to do that. As a side thought wouldnt it be cool if they cant repair it, and will have to give me a Stage 3 instead

A heavy hand and the HP action won't get along well, AFAIK. Some of the material I play (rock, blues, bar room, stomp, etc.) is basically me banging the living cr*p out of my boards. Strong fingers, wrists and upper arms. I've snapped keys on lesser boards in the past. Broken a few strings in my time. Not being abusive, just what the style calls for.

The HA actions can take it. I will testify.

cphollis wrote:A heavy hand and the HP action won't get along well, AFAIK. Some of the material I play (rock, blues, bar room, stomp, etc.) is basically me banging the living cr*p out of my boards. Strong fingers, wrists and upper arms. I've snapped keys on lesser boards in the past. Broken a few strings in my time. Not being abusive, just what the style calls for.

The HA actions can take it. I will testify.

It's one thing I loved about my Yamaha CP300, it was so beefy it felt like it could take a hammering. But I don't think you really need to hit keyboards that hard as you max out the velocity pretty quickly in most of them. Especially if you set the velocity curve to light, saves a lot of effort!

Real pianos on the other hand there's no limit to how hard you can hit them and it just keeps getting louder and sounding better. On a few occasions I've got carried away at gigs and broken strings on my CP70 but I blame that on the fact that they're 40 years old and it was kept in a house near the sea for an extended period before I bought it.

cphollis wrote:A heavy hand and the HP action won't get along well, AFAIK. Some of the material I play (rock, blues, bar room, stomp, etc.) is basically me banging the living cr*p out of my boards. Strong fingers, wrists and upper arms. I've snapped keys on lesser boards in the past. Broken a few strings in my time. Not being abusive, just what the style calls for.

Last year at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival (1200+ concerts in 10 days), I talked to one of the very popular gigging keyboard cats here, that basically sits with many groups during the days. He's somewhat of a heavy handed player, I'd say.

He uses a Nord Electro 5HP, and was extremely happy with the package. Light and easy to carry around, and responds very well to his playing of acoustic/epiano stuff (and some organ too). And he really liked the action.

After I had seen that concert (in a small place, so I sat just 1 to 2 meters away (<6 feet for some of you)), I figured that if the HP was surviving this kind of playing, it may be able to withstand quite a bit more than what what I would have guessed

I feel that the amount of force I have to use aftertouch on my Nord Stage2 76 (HA) is a little more than I feel comfortable with - I understand I should not trigger aftertouch without intention, but still - I feel I nearly bend down the keys here. Anybody else with the same feeling ?

Aftertouch are also heavy on my new HP, but I compared it with my old 88Classic, and they are similar.
Most useful for single notes.
I guess the compact are a bit more human.

That to me is the only downfall of the instrument. The aftertouch is so inhumanly difficult it's unusable.

I never played a Compact, but I sincerely hope the aftertouch is more appropriate on it.

Hi, I have a Stage 2 73, and the aftertouch is very easy reachable, a lot easier than my DX7 mk1, and others keyboards I had over the years.

Sure, the aftertouch in my DSI's seems to me to be the perfect ones as a synth keybed aftertouch but I was "lucky" enough to start my Piano journey on several upright said "Piano d'études" where at the end of a 7 pages of a "Claude Bowling" boogie you were feeling the heat coming from your muscles (that's why my mom was always asking me to practice these boogie when she wanted to cook/fry some sunny side eggs....To save on gas....) that I feel quite "comfortable" with the Stage 2 aftertouch HA 88, even with chords....You just have to remember that you want to use it at that time in the piece you are playing, you cannot just decide on a "Coup de tête (Zidane most famous move when France's soccer team plays Italy...) that you will have aftertouch here and there....