Nord Stage?

[profkojo]

Anybody out there had any experience with the nord stage? Looking for a stage piano for the Piano/Rhodesy/Organy things. Need a hardware board for gigs. What's the word?

[echorec]

Tested it briefly in a music store. The sounds, keys and the overall feeling was very nice.

[OHA]

Originally Posted by profkojo

Anybody out there had any experience with the nord stage? Looking for a stage piano for the Piano/Rhodesy/Organy things. Need a hardware board for gigs. What's the word?

Go for it!

I don't do livegigs anymore, but if I did, I would defently go for the nordstage. It sounds GREAT on all the things you name, and its compact and doesnt weight a ton.. (I think its 18kg)

It also has a simple but nice sounding synthesizer part.

[Matthew Murray]

I own one.
Hands down, the best keyboard purchase I've ever made. The rhodes/whurlies are even better than the electro2, thanks to the addition of the amp simulator.

The acoustic piano's are a whole different game from the electro --they're actually useable. I got rid of a Yamaha P250 in favour of these piano sounds. They're different than many other boards in that they really sit well in mixes at gigs. Might be *slightly* thin on their own, but in a live scenario in a full mix, they absolutely kill.

And yes, the organs are also wayy better than the electro. The B3 is as always amazing, but the farfisa and vox continentals are killer too!!!

Oh, and the synth section, while simple, is really quite bloody useful, and it's great sounding.

To top it all off, you can blend each instrument type, TWICE OVER! Really lots of great tones can come out of this thing.

I might sound biased, I guess I am -- I'm in love with this thing. I wouldn't trade it for anything else right now. Let me know if you have any other questions...

[Pasta4lnch]

If the "stage" is anything like the Electro the organ's and electric piano's are frickin' killer!! as are fx and the ease of use. the acoustic piano's really didn't blow my skirt up though . . . they are good, but compared to everything else are simply marginal.

for live . . . I guess it's the right ticket, all in one easy box!

[chrisso]

I just did a North American tour and our keyboard player used it as the master keyboard.
The music was organic, rock, Dylan, Neil Young type stuff, so the piano and organ sounds had to cut it. They definitely did.
We didn't use the Rhodes sounds much, but when we first took delivery of the keyboard we were all struck by how realistic and useable all the sounds were.
thumbs up.

[edham]

I have recently auditioned several stage piano oriented synths. The Nord stage 88 wins hands down.
It's clearly better at Rhodes/organ sounds than the yamaha/roland competition but the piano sound (the C7 patch) is simply great.

Both the Yamaha S90es and the Roland RD 700sx have that smiley face eq sound to them with really scooped mids. And the forte velocity layer is way brighter than the medium velocity layer.
The Nord hangs together as one sound not 4 noticable velocity changes. And its full in the mids which are crucial in a live context.

Some could be easily seduced by the yam/roland scooped mids but on stage you need a more balanced piano sound to hold its own in the mix.

The Nord action is not as pianoish as either the yam or the roland but is certainly decent and when you factor in the reduced weight I think its a good trade off.

Now all I have to decide is if I can live with the 76 keys and save a few more pounds in weight ... or not.

The piano sounds are licensed from Sampletek. I own all the sampletek piano libs and absolutely love them. Nord did a killer job of reducing the size of the samples to fit in the stage88.

[robd]

I am not a pianist, and I have never tried the nord stage. Bearing that in mind, I have always found the yamaha's to have the most piano-like action. My former roomate had a rig where he used aa yamaha to control a nord electro rack. From what these guys are saying, it's probably not on the sme level as the nord stage, but together they only cost about half what a nord stage does. Something to consider.

[kanker]

I had a Stage and returned it. First off, no mono piano. That could change, but it has been over a year now since the thing came out, and there's still no mono piano. Second, no sweepable mids. The Electro has sweepable mids. The Stage has a set midrange EQ. I can't even begin to describe how important the sweepable mids are on my Electros. Crucial. Third, there have been a variety of reports that the action can get a little noisy. Fourth, the Rhodes and Wurly were not a significant upgrade from the Electro, nor was the Clav. For my tastes, that Rhodes were a step back, and the lack of sweepable mids made getting a sound that I wanted impossible. Fifth, no true ADSR on the synth section. The synth section is also pretty anemic. It feels like an afterthought.

For the money, it's just not worth it IMO. For as much as it costs, each section should be of world class quality, and while the organ section is great, the piano section is only good, and the synth is comparatively lame. That's just not at all acceptable in a instrument that's that expensive. Having 2 Electros, there was no reason for me to keep the Stage as the Hammond was no better, and the pianos were not any better for my uses.

[profkojo]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll definitely have to check one out. My dilema is this. At the moment, although I have a real rhodes, when I need a keyboard, rhodes/organ/pno I'll use software a lot of the time. I gig regularly but I mainly do the funky/synthy stuff which I prefer but every now and then I need to do the rhodes/organ thing and I think it makes sense to have a good for that. From what I can see, the Nord Stage seems to be the only Stage Piano that covers all those bases. I have a friend that has an RD700 and even though it's a beast (sizewise) I've never been that impressed and the rhodes sound corny to me. The stage does seem pretty expensive and for the price I'm kinda expecting it to be top of the tree (soundwise). What's the verdict? The problem is, what I don't want, is to spend the money only to find my plug-ins better but at the same time, I'm definitely not the one to do the live laptop thing. Don't trust it. All opinions on the subject are welcome and much appreciated.
Thanks.