From eslawson@comcast.net Sun Oct 27 17:51:01 2002
Subject:RE: Nord Electro - Octave switching (was....wow!)

Tony,

Thanks for your very thorough first evaluation of the Electro based on your
weekend gigs. Between you and all the other Electro devotees in this group,
looks like I'm going to probably check one of these out for myself.

The thing about the octave switching of non-organ sounds seems bothersome
and you are the first person that has mentioned this, to my knowledge. Are
you saying that the clav sound can't be octave switched and the default
octave is not low enough? With 73 keys, I would hope Clavia picked the
proper range? Do any other users have similar concerns about the octave
choice for Rhodes and clav sounds???
Regards,
Eric Lawson
CloneWheel Support Group Moderator
eslawson@comcast.net

-----Original Message-----
From: ynottnaro [mailto:ynottnaro@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 12:38 PM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CWSG] Nord Electro....wow!

Hey guys...

Well, I bought a Nord Electro and used it on 3 gigs
and a rehearsal this weekend, and I gotta say, I'm
stupefied. It is so far and above the first version I
heard that it really feels like a totally different
instrument. I got home from school and had to rush
out the door to rehearsal, so when I saw the Electro
by the back door, I literally took it out of the box,
stuffed it into an SKB case with a towel and its
manual and put it into my van. I decided to throw
caution to the wind and left my XK2 at home, only
taking my V5 (which also had just shown up via UPS
after Bruce did the percussion mod for me) as a
back-up.

However, I was a little disappointed to hear something
rolling around inside the keyboard. Apparently a
screw or washer or something had come loose, but the
organ fired up, and Sweetwater gave me the go ahead to
use it until they sent me another one (due Monday).

First the rehearsal: We share a space with another
band, so there is a little Roland KC100 there to plug
into. I took the Electro out of the box, set it on a
stand, and plugged in. Without using the manual, I
was able to dial up a very good sound in about 1
minute. The control panel is rather small, so it took
a few seconds to find the Instrument select button
(upon powering up, it defaults to a rhodes patch) and
then another few to find the leslie sim button.
Immediately, I was pleasantly surprised.

Um...so were the guys in the band. They are very
traditional in nature and their take on things is
keyboards should sound like pianos, electric pianos,
clavinets and organs, not violins, horns, banjos (no
matter how convincing), or anything else; so you can
imagine how my "little red keyboard" made an
impression! But the minute they heard it coming out
of that little amp, they were very surprised. "Man,
that sounds pretty good, it doesn't sound like a
'patch!'" I had to admit, I agreed. By the time
rehearsal was over, I had already tried the Wurli
(nice!) and the rhodes (with phasing) and the piano
(uh, nice try, but NO DICE). Through that little amp,
I thought "if nothing else, what an amazingly
kick-butt practice keyboard" (did I mention our space
is up a very long flight of stairs?). When they saw
how light it was they were like "that going to
Singapore?" To which I replied "I'm seriously
considering it." (To solve my organ dilemma, I was
going to take the V5 and that Motion Sound 3t/lopro,
but in a case, I was still over the weight limit, but
had decided to take my chances.)

Packed up (took almost 2 minutes to get out the
door...nice change that!) and took off for the night's
gig. This gig was with a violinist and her worldbeat
band (and they are truly amazing players!), and I had
just met a couple of them the night before. I was not
well acquainted with her music so this was going to be
an interesting evening. I got there a while before
the band arrived, so I pulled in my rig for the
evening, which included my Bulldog leslie and the
Electro (not to mention my trusty Speakeasy!) and set
it up. I needed some time to set up a couple splits
with octave shifts on the Electro to prepare for the
show.

Finding the SPLIT button was no problem, but I wasn't
having any luck setting a point, so I looked in the
manual, and there it is: The split point is
pre-determined, but with a 73 note keyboard and the
octave shift buttons, its SO DARN EASY it's sick! I
couldn't see it in the club's lighting, but the manual
pointed out that on the unit itself is a small gray
arrow which shows you where the split point is. Wow,
this was nice: I had much more room for left hand
comping than on my XK2...pretty cool! And the octave
shift buttons (up/down) are very self explanatory with
LEDs showing their status.

I decided to just plug into my Yorkville for a while
and experiment instead of firing up the leslie right
away. Through the better combo I could hear how
gorgeous this keyboard really is. What you have heard
about the chorus/vibrato is NO exaggeration. It is
FINE! I found myself unable to turn off C3. The
shimmer it added was truly inspiring. And through the
stereo combo, the leslie sim was REALLY impressive.
Ramp up/down is nice and realistic, the top speed
feels right, and slow is very lush. There is not a lot
of tweaking to be done (well, actually none that I
could find, nothing in the manual indicates it either)
but to be honest...it sounds Right, right out of the
box.

The drawbar buttons provided some consternation. I'm
a drawbar puller, and I have to say that I wasn't
crazy about the buttons; whats more, I REALLY wasn't
crazy about their placement. Why not put them at the
left where they belong??? Move the interface jacks to
the center, and put the controls where they should be.
I was having a little trouble making the transition
with the buttons, but it was certainly not a real
obstacle. But, we'll see how it fares during actual
performance.

I switched from organ mode to the pianos mode. The
rhodes sounded very very good. The effects section
gives you some nice variations. The wurli is also
really cool (I'm not sure I prefer either of these to
my Motif, but they are truly playable.) The clav?
WOW! This is where this unit really shines. Using
the 2 "Clav Filter" and "Clav Pickup" knobs, you have
a WORLD of totally usable kickin clavinet sounds.
REALLY REALLY COOL! However, my major complaint with
this keyboard: WHY DOESNT THE OCTAVE SHIFT BUTTON WORK
IN THE PIANO MODE? This is a total travesty. The
manual's rationale is that due to the range of the
actual keyboards simulated, the octave shift button
doesn't work. I owned a Rhodes for 10 years, and I
can say that the uppermost keys were not playable as
their tone was sorta shrill and almost squarewavey;
and the lower bass stuff tends to get in the way of
bass players. And where they have allocated the
sounds on the Electro means you are playing to the
left end of the keyboard. Who doesn't want to layer
underneath the bassplayer with some clav? I know I
like to do it, and I can't imagine I'm alone in that.
Having 2 or 3 octaves of useless clav is just wrong
when you're depriving the player of 2 octaves of
NECESSARY playability. I only hope they fix that on
updates.

I plugged the organ into the leslie. Man, what a
smoker! It sounded kicka$$! And with the C3 on ...
oh man, this thing sounded so much cooler than my Xk2.
After playing with it for an hour, I decided to give
the club's employees a break. That night's gig was
really good: the band (including the guys I hadn't met
yet) immediately complimented on the organ's sound.
To make a long story short (at least I'll try!), that
night's show was really cool, and the organ's sound
was really inspiring. There were a couple spots where
at first the drawbar manipulation was tricky, but it
took very little time to get accustomed to the
drawbuttons, although those excruciating slow drawbar
pulls were a little tricky to keep that slow: you have
to push/lift, push/lift, push and lift your finger to
keep it from just zipping all the way out to 8. But
you learn to compensate.
A couple times I felt like I had trouble hearing, but
I realized it really had to do with the way THESE
Drawbars sound as opposed to my XK2 or my V5. No one
else noticed anything awry, and I got compliments all
around.

The next 2 gigs were with my regular band. The first
night was at a downstate club with a nice stage and a
kickin PA, and we usually do capacity at that room
(500). The soundman there is very good, and actually
plays B3 himself. Immediately he was very impressed
with the keyboard and wanted to know about it. Make a
long story short, being comfortable with the music and
being comfortable playing loud allowed me to have some
fun. This thing truly killed! The soundman and I
discussed it after the show. He's mixed me numerous
times with the XK2 and Bulldog, as well as the rigs
that other keyboardists have brought in, and he said
the Electro's sound was consistent top to bottom: no
weird EQ anomalies, no need to boost or cut certain
frequences due to shrillness or presence dips. He
said if he were me, he'd get a flight case and retire
my other units (but he still prefers the real thing).
You should have seen his face when I told him to pick
it up. LMAO That was priceless! I had experienced a
few moments where I felt the Electro had sort of
disappeared into the mix, but I realized I had to
rethink my drawbar usage with this organ: It isn't
voiced like the other ones. It's very pretty sounding
especially with the C3 setting, and the drawbars
activate different frequencies (probably more
accurately than my other clones which is why I was
having to compensate). But everyone in the band
thought the keyboard was awesome, even if it was red.

The next night was more of the same. That soundman
also plays keyboards and was truly excited by how the
Electro sounded. I played it the first set, and on
the second set without telling anyone, I brought in
the V5. Immediately, I noticed the beef factor. The
V5 had that girth we associate with rock organ, and
that girth wasn't present with the Nord. But while it
had more of that fatness, the percussion (even the
very much improved mod'ed perc) wasn't as pronounced,
and of course there was no comparison as far as the
chorus/vibrato. I love the V5, but it didn't have the
shimmer and the "glisten" factor that the Electro had.
The soundman commented on it after our 2nd set: He
thought it sounded rather dull. When I told him I'd
switched, he told me to go back to the other organ
immediately. And frankly, I had to agree. While it
didn't have all the girth, it had everything else. I
had run the output level all the way up, and the
volume knob at about 2/3:00. The bass was all the
way, and the treble also was at 3:00. On my
Speakeasy, all knobs were full. The bottom line is,
all things considered, the Electro was still Kicking
my V5 up and down the street. This thing was amazing.

All told, the key difference with the Electro is the
2nd drawbar (5 1/3). This is where it is most
different than other clones. It provides a different
take on the whistle factor, but it is amazing. Once
you get that into your head, you'll have no problems
dealing with the Electro. The drawbar buttons should
still be moved, but by the second night, I was so
acclimated to the way they felt and reacted that when
I did plug my V5 in, it felt sluggish.

The keyboard feels really incredible to play, and when
I was back on my hometurf so to speak, I felt totally
inspired to play and rip to my heart's content. I
never used the piano's side the whole weekend, but I
can see where I will be incorporating that as well. I
gotta say, unlike my CX3 experience, after putting the
Electro into context, it's a SPANKER! She's a total
keeper.

They fix that octave shift issue (THEY GOTTA!!), and
then they have a truly unbeatable keyboard. The
weight factor is truly truly amazing. By the way,
last night, because of the time change, the club
wanted us to do another set. So we did, but we
switched instruments which was a treat for us and the
crowd (we played 45 mins of covers that we never do,
and of course playing other instruments, we had a
totally different sound...most fun we've had in a
while I think!). I played bass, and the soundman
actually came up and played keyboards, and he was
freakin drooooooooling over the Electro. He couldn't
take his hands off it. And when I looked over, I
happened to catch sight of the red woodpanels in the
light: Man, this is a COOL LOOKING KEYBOARD! If they
had covered the entire organ in that wood...wow, red
or not, it was stunning in the lights. Really as
beautiful to look at as it was to play.

I totally love this keyboard. And if Nord figures out
how to do a 73 note PIANO that sounds this good, I'll
buy it immediately. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gonna put my XK2 on the auction block now; in good
conscience too.

Tony

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