Nord User Forum

Valpurgis wrote:Also had the NS3 for a month after buying the NS4, my experience was no degradation in sound for the NS4. Getting rid of the panel philosophy and getting independant effects for the layers alone has made me not miss the NS3 for a second. Personal opinion/experience of course.

aureliopenna wrote:Well this personal, but, in my opinion, I believe that you probably will enjoy NS4 someday if you keep it...
I my personal experience, I had the NS2 compact and bought the NS3C. I was so desapointed with the pianos sounds that I wrote a lot of stuff here in forum about how the Piano sound Weak, Thin, 2D, hollow, and without Harmonics on NS3.
Some guys made a very "scientific" analysis with both and by that people decide they sound the same.
Well, I repected that but, not for me. Ok, I moved on, but even today everytime I play on a NS2 I think the pianos still sound so much better. So much realistic, full body, 3d image.
Even so I kept the NS3 because of synth section and bigger piano memory.
Today I can't go for NS4 because I have 340 sounds for all my gigs, so buying a NS4 Would be useless for me.
I Still miss the piano sounds on NS2 but it was wise to keep the NS3 and today I'm really glad with that. If you buy NS4 someday (maybe more than a year) you will get used to that and you'll never think about NS3 anymore... I guess...

GpKey wrote:I'm mainly referring to the timbre. The SN3 sounds warmer than the NS4 in my opinion. Initializing both in the Synth section and loading my own sample or one from Nord, I hear a lot of difference in the low frequencies, where NS4 is poorer and false, and where instead it exaggerates in the high frequencies. By setting the filter envelope values the same on both, it decays much sooner in NS4. The resonance filter, 12/24 db, sounds different. The Delay, Chorus and Reverb effects are much less warm in all variants. The LFO between synths is out of sync. The only positive thing is the keyboard (Fatar). Compared to that of the NS3 -76 HP, that of the NS4 73 HP is much more playable and much less noisy. Then there is certainly a personal taste. I think I still have good ears. For example, when I bought the Minimoog Model D Reissue, I compared it with my friend's old Model D and the sound was identical, or rather, better than the new model, because the oscillators are more stable. Nord continues to fool us with the story of the incompatibility of the various versions. You always have to start over. I found other differences in the Synth. The Nord Wave I own, sounds warmer. I think that Nord used not very good converters and loaded the control panel too much, however taking away a lot of personality from the sound. Features like “Song” are gone and those added are bad. Do we want to talk about MIDI and the EX KEY?
They should have released it later, without all these defects, perhaps listening to the advice of some professionals, before putting it on the market. We are now the Beta Testers. The speakers I use are Adam Audio and AKG K240 MKII headphones. The instruments are connected to a Mackie 24-4-2 analog mixer (made in USA) and the instruments are Nord Stage 4, Nord Stage 3, Nord Wave, Minimoog model D, Prophet 10 Rev4, Yamaha TX 802, Roland D550, Akai S300 XL, M-Audio Keystation 61, Cakewalk A500,
Mooger Fooger MF104 M, TC Electronic SCF Gold, Universal Audio Starlight Delay and Universal Audio Golden Reverb. I have had various Nord keyboards over the years. Nord Electro, NS2, NS3 and now NS4. In short, I think I'm a little prepared, after about 50 years of music and various Synths passed through my hands. I am convinced that this time North was wrong.