NORD STAGE 4 officially announced for February 16th 2023

[cgrafx]

I hope it's got a sensible amount of memory. An amount that reflects the fact it's 2023 ...

Unless there has been a fundamental change to the CPU architecture (and there ins't any reason to believe that has happened), the storage is going to be constrained by the type of memory that is being used and is never going to be massive in comparison to other types of general purpose computing architectures.

This question has be asked and answered many many times.

[dcjams]

I hope it's got a sensible amount of memory. An amount that reflects the fact it's 2023 ...

Unless there has been a fundamental change to the CPU architecture (and there ins't any reason to believe that has happened), the storage is going to be constrained by the type of memory that is being used and is never going to be massive in comparison to other types of general purpose computing architectures.

This question has be asked and answered many many times.

One of the reasons I hope it’s got more memory is just to stop the naysayers whining about Nord products.

“I can get a software piano that’s 100Gbs for the tenth of the price.”

Facepalm.

I actually think my Piano 5, for example, has enough memory for the ways I use it, but that said, more never hurts.

[Gambold]

>And not too pricey.<

That's going to be the magic number. Since they are a boutique company with arguably the best keyboards out there (no argument here, but maybe the rest of the world)...they don't have to "compete" pricewise like Korg, Roland and Yamaha do with each other.

BUT - they can't get unreasonable either. They don't want to position their top board so high that only professionals and institutions can afford it. Especially because unlike their competitors, they don't have entry-level boards in their lines - all Nord models are specialized and expensive. There is no sub-$2000 basic Nord to rope in newbies or college kids and develop new customer loyalty that way.

I went to Sweetwater to see the current most expensive 88 key models from each major manufacturer. Based on that list we would hopefully see the Stage 4 88 go for around $5400:

Korg PA5X - $5300
Nord Stage 3 - $4200 (reduced from $5300, now we know why)
Roland Fantom-8 - $4200
Yamaha Montage 8 - $4000
Kawai MP11SE - $3500
Kurzweil K2700 - $3000 (there is a $4000 Forte but it's only 76 keys. Apparently there is also an 88 key Forte but Sweetwater and Musician's Friend do not carry it, so maybe discontinued?)

A price point of $5400 would put them 28% and 35% over Roland and Yamaha's top models, respectively.

[Amadrius]

Don't you get "parameter jump" with drawbars though?

Or maybe you move the drawbars to match the LED points before they then takeover?

How does it work in the Wave 2? Does the volume of each layer jump when you touch the fader, or is there a "catch-up" or "pass-through" mode?
I agree that for volumes having instant jumps would be inconvenient, it seems like an easy fix.

Volume levels jump on the wave 2 when you move the faders. Seems like they could offer few options on how to deal with that in the menus though.

[Hlaalu]

For drawbars it's a different matter, since the haptics have the priority there and should come first no matter what. I see the addition of LEDs there as a nice thing to have, but this is a case where you need the physicality of sliders.

True motorized drawbars could help a lot, but will increase the price even further

Motorized drawbars would be nice "in theory", but I guess that (apart from the price problem), they would have greater resistance when moved quickly, being less comfortable to use. Also durability over the years is another point of concern.

Dexibell did implement this though: https://dexibell.com/prodotto/combo-j7/ ... 82673-9c13

But who knows, maybe the NS4 will have physical and LEDs AND motorized drawbars!

[neomad]

2 organ, 2 piano, 4 synths, direct mixer for all parts (as NW2), audio/midi class compliant USB, a pair of audio input, multisampling capacity, increased Gb for samples, and then done, the only keyboard you might need until you die

[Bjosko]

Nah, until Nord Stage 5,6,7 and so on

[dcjams]

2 organ, 2 piano, 4 synths, direct mixer for all parts (as NW2), audio/midi class compliant USB, a pair of audio input, multisampling capacity, increased Gb for samples, and then done, the only keyboard you might need until you die

You missed out "88 key hammer action polyphonic aftertouch enabled keybed"

Then I'm done

[Schorsch]

A price point of $5400 would put them 28% and 35% over Roland and Yamaha's top models, respectively.

A price of around $5000 / 5000 Euros would not justify changing from my Stage 3(s) to the Stage 4. I am not missing much from the Stage 3 except of a better Hammond/Leslie engine. Something which really compares to the HX3 from Carsten Meyer (https://shop.keyboardpartner.de/en/) would be a major step forward, but it would still be too expensive to change gear just because of this (I hope my opinion stays like this and the ugly devil called GAS will not win )

[Nord33]

I saw some of you wrote, about new volume controls for different sound engines, that it's probably not an A&B panel anymore because everything is "in the front" now. Some also asked how it will be regarding the effects section that used to have the option to set different effects for each A&B panel.

I think that A & B panel still exists but instead of A & B (global) panel buttons, we will get A & B organ, A & B piano, and A & B (& C ?) synth.
I assume they made some kind of notation (A, B, C or 1, 2, 3) to differentiate "panels" within each sound engine.