Nord User Forum

Hello !
I'm new here, come from France and I apologize for my poor English.

I have a project to buy a Nord keyboard for my 50th birthday (next year).
Most probably a Piano 5 but not totally sure of that.

It's just for plaisure at home, I have no intention to go gigging or so

I'm growing interest on synths but I have no idea if this interest will last long enough to justify the investment on a powerful keyboard with many synths functions.

I have experienced VST connected to my Yamaha digital piano, but this is really not a good configuration to start and learn the basics.
For that I need a keyboard with buttons and switches on it, to experiment and understand efficiently how to use a synth.
Right now I don't know if I will be happy with just sample synth + effects, or if I will really want something with synthesys features.

In the first case, sure the Piano 5 will makes me happy.
In the second case, that means that I should plan to buy either a Stage, or a NP5 + a separate synth.

I was thinking about buying a used synth to discover and decide what I need, but for that I am completely lost in the amount of existing material ...
First I was thinking about a used Nord Lead, to get familiar to what I could have if I finally buy a Stage, but I understood that the Lead does not have sample library, which means I could not compare the use of samples+effects vs synthesis.
Maybe the Wave could do the job, but it's way to expensive just for a few months test ...

In the end, I would just say "help, what should I do ... !"

I'm fairly new to the world of Nord Keyboards but I've had a few other synths over the years so I thought I might as well throw in my 2 euro-cents...

As you mention that you're interested in synths, I think you would find the synthesis options on the Nord Piano to be quite limited. It has only a sample-playback-based synth section with quite limited "tweakability" compared to Nord's other products like the Nord Lead / Wave / Stage.

If money is no object, I would seriously consider getting a Nord Stage 4, as it has pretty much everything that Nord offers in one keyboard (piano + nord wave synth engine + organs). As you said you already had a Yamaha digital piano, you could get save some money and get the Stage 4 compact with the semi-weighted keys (instead of the hammer action), and connect your Yamaha digital piano via midi if you wanted to play the Nord piano sounds with weighted keys.

An obvious suggestion would be to find a retail store where you can try them all out in person, but that might not be possible for you. If not, there are many online retailers with a return policy if you're not satisfied.

Hope that's useful!

I don't see why you would want to get a Nord. And I don't understand why you aren't looking into a Grand 2. What is it for - living room or studio?

Is there a reason not to get two different instruments - one digital piano and one synth? There's quite a number of possibilities for each of the two categories.

And what sort of music do you want to make? - The appropriate tool depends on the work to be done.

"I'm growing interest on synths but I have no idea if this interest will last long enough to justify the investment on a powerful keyboard with many synths functions."

If I were just starting to explore the world of hardware synths, I'd start with one of the Behringer clones. The keybeds are never the greatest, but you've got the Yamaha digital piano for that. The DeepMind 12 comes to mind, but there are others. They are great for scratching an itch for not much $$$. Plenty of inexpensive used ones on various online forums.

In the Nord product line, it's the Wave 2 which has four synth sections. The Nord Stage 4 has three, along with organ and piano sections.

Welcome @N8CVD! I don't have any advice to what you should buy, but aside from the keybed and number of keys, here are some additional things to think about:

- The Stage 4 appears to be around 2,000 dollars/euros more expensive than the Piano 5, but that difference in price will be less if you also buy a hardware synth.

- What is the user experience you are looking for when you play your new keyboard(s)? Is it a single keyboard that does everything and can be moved from room-to room and you can directly plug in headphones or speakers? Or is it multiple, specialized devices that are on a multi-tier rack or multiple stands and connected to speakers and headphones through a mixer?

- Do you want a large library of preset synth sounds and samples including those from popular songs (like a Roland Integra 7 module), or do you want to create/program your own sounds?

- If you want to create sounds, do you want to create stand-alone synth sounds, or layer them with higher-quality pianos and organs?

- Are you going to create unique sounds for fun (the Behringer DeepMind 12 could be good for that) or try to mimic sounds from recordings so you can understand how they were created and play along?

- Do you want a large library of free samples created specifically for your instrument?

Hi

I been thru the experience you are about to enter.

Started out with an Electro 6. Then I wanted the 88 keys so I bought a Piano5.
When sitting with the Piano 5 I was missing the organ section.
So I ended up with an Stage 4, 88 keys, and found the synth engine to be fun to play with.
I now have a great organ, a great piano and a descent synth at my fingertips.
It is used at home, just for self entertainment.

To echo others' comments - it will depend on what you want - what type of music you like, and how much you want to be turning knobs and sliders. Have you considered a hardware synth module to add via MIDI to the piano - like the Behringer Pro800 (very analogue) or Roland Sh-4d (lots of things to play with including a sequencer). This will be cheaper and smaller than a separate synth keyboard, and will still be useful if you buy a full size synthesiser in the future.

Thank you very much for your suggestions and questions, that are not that easy to answer, at least for a few of them
Well ... it's a good thing and makes me progress in the analysis of what I want.

Well for the moment, the only elements of which I am sure are:

1. I can not use my digital piano as a MIDI master, because it's a Yamaha Arius YDP-162 that has only USB interface. I had another digital piano with a much better keybed and many features including MIDI in/out/thru, a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-745, but it's gone with my daughter when she left home last year

2. In the end I will be looking for an 88 keyboard with a good keybed action, at least better than that of the Arius concerning the touch for the nuances

I'm almost done searching for information and come back soon with answers and probably new questions.

First of all, You are welcome.

N8CVD wrote: ↑04 Sep 2024, 00:42 Thank you very much for your suggestions and questions, that are not that easy to answer, at least for a few of them
Well ... it's a good thing and makes me progress in the analysis of what I want.

Well for the moment, the only elements of which I am sure are:

1. I can not use my digital piano as a MIDI master, because it's a Yamaha Arius YDP-162 that has only USB interface. I had another digital piano with a much better keybed and many features including MIDI in/out/thru, a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-745, but it's gone with my daughter when she left home last year

2. In the end I will be looking for an 88 keyboard with a good keybed action, at least better than that of the Arius concerning the touch for the nuances

I'm almost done searching for information and come back soon with answers and probably new questions.

Well,

1. with USB MIDI Host you can add standard MIDI Ports to it, but if your objective is to experiment a synth, better buy one with its own synth-action keyboard and forget about MIDI for now (or add it later, if needed + if also the synth has USB MIDI you can use the computer as MIDI router between them)

2. that's quite generic, there are plenty of models from many brands. You should dive deeper in what you expect and so what are the key features it must have (e.g wooden keys or in general "top" piano-action keybeds are not something you'll find on a Nord as they are made for gigging so they compromise on that aspect)