Nord Stage 2 HA76 Review
Nord has revamped its flagship performance range, introducing a raft of new features. Mike Willox takes to the Stage.
Price: £3,299.00
Manufacturer: Nord
Website: http://www.nordkeyboards.com
When Nord first unleashed the original Stage series on an unsuspecting public it couldn’t have foreseen the incredible success of these superbly made instruments across all walks of music-making life. It’s not often you can turn on the telly these days and find a keyboard player on any of the usual music shows who isn’t using a Nord of some description.
So, how does Clavia – the Swedish manufacturer of the red beasts – make any real improvements to the Stage while, at the same time, qualifying a hefty price tag for the basic model in the new range? Well, nearly quadrupling the available internal memory, adding sample playback, introducing a master clock as well as numerous program menu options and sprucing up the synth section with the addition of a new filter, arpeggiator and LFO are good places to start.
Panel play
For those of you who aren’t yet acquainted with the Stage series, it’s the perfect gigging solution, providing a dual-timbral keyboard that encompasses all of the signature keyboard sounds of the last 60 years. The new Stage 2 models have the same overall layout as previous incarnations (Classic and EX): pitch stick and mod wheel to the left, followed by the organ panel and its set of nine LED drawbars, piano panel (which now includes the harpsichord patches available on the Nord Piano), central LCD window and program functions, synth panel, effects section and, finally, global reverb/compression.
Double trouble
As previously mentioned, there are two ‘slots’ in a Stage, giving you two organs (with two switchable patches in each slot), two pianos, two synths and two sets of effects, all at the same time. All of these can be split up to three ways, enabling very complex program patches and a wide variety of controller options, making the Stage an ideal gigging keyboard.
The control surface and keyboard are wrapped in the traditional Nord red metal casing with red wood end cheeks and, as with all Nord products, is built to a very high spec, making it a supremely reliable instrument for taking on the road. As before, three flavours are available from the range’s menu: fully weighted 76- and 88-note versions, and a sprung, waterfall 73-note model, which weighs in at a mere 9.7kg.
Around the back there’s the usual connectivity options alongside a single addition: a 3.5mm stereo jack input that’s routed directly to the headphone output (this signal cannot be routed to the four assignable 1/4-inch jack outputs). This is a useful addition, giving you the ability to, perhaps, reorganise the Stage 2’s internal setup for a new set list while you’re on the road or learn a new song that’s been sent to your phone.
Like clockwork
The familiar USB type B port is there, but this time with a major bonus: it now enables MIDI via USB, making the Nord’s integration with your DAW a hell of a lot easier than previously. What’s more, with the master clock being controllable over MIDI, the USB functionality should all but eliminate the need for MIDI cables for most users. The Stage 2 automatically detects an incoming clock source and puts itself into external sync mode – very handy!
As you’d expect given the price, the Stage 2 features a lot of the recent developments in other Nord ranges: the organ sound engine comes from Nord’s C2 organ and has to be the best tonewheel organ emulation we’ve heard. Faithful models of the Vox Continental and Farfisa organs are there too, but the prize goes to the Hammond entry. The excellent Leslie rotary cabinet is as good as the B3 emulation and with three ‘sets’ of tonewheels available, ranging from straight-out-of-the-factory ‘clean’ to a road-worn ‘vintage’, it’s easy to find any sound you can think of.
The virtual drawbars are controlled by a set of up and down buttons, making the traditional grabbing of the bars a bit tricky. However, by using the very useful Morph function you can move gradually between two sets of drawbar shapes by using either the mod wheel, aftertouch or the controller pedal input. Each instrument has its quota of rotary encoders surrounded by LEDs, and any of the encoder’s parameters can be adjusted using the Morph function from the three above-mentioned controller types.
Resonance matters
All of the new features that found their way into the last year’s Nord Piano are present – plus a bit more besides. In addition to the adjustable string resonance and pedal noise we now have Selectable Piano Release, which basically adds a bit more decay to the sound when you lift your fingers off the keys. It does make the feel of the keyboard more natural, though, so it’s a worthwhile addition.
An optional Nord Triple Pedal will give you all of the acoustic nuances that go with the various pedals coming into contact with the soundboard as well as una corda and sostenuto functionality.
Slot detuning for the piano is possible as well, enabling dramatically swimming chorus effects; the four LEDs that indicate the depth of ‘swimmingness’ also double as tone controls for the Hohner D6 model. Excellent versions of various Rhodes models and the perennial Wurlitzer EP200A as well as a few harpsichords complete a veritable electro-mechanical and acoustic arsenal that should fulfil any role.
Hands-on synthesis
It’s the synth panel that’s had the most improvements, though: the introduction of an LFO and an arpeggiator – both of which can be sync’ed to the master clock – enable some real movement in the sound that was lacking from the synth on the old Stages. The arpeggiator’s pretty basic – up, down, up/down and random over one to three octaves – but it does the job. And if you use the Hold option – allowing you to take your hands off the keys and start twiddling knobs while the sound sustains – the Nord starts to feel like a proper synth. It certainly sounds like one as the factory presets are great and give you a broad idea of the machine’s full potential.
The all-new filter section is a real improvement as well: the 12/24dB low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and notch filter cover all the usual bases and can be tracked to the keyboard. As well as an amplitude envelope there’s also a modulation envelope, enabling full use of the very sweet-sounding filter.
Perhaps the biggest difference in terms of broadening the Stage 2’s sonic palette, however, is the introduction of sample playback from the synth engine. This brings not only the Nord Sample Library to the Stage but (with the use of the supplied Nord Sample Editor) the option to trigger your own samples and process them with the LFO and filter or trigger them with the arpeggiator. Around 380MB are available for the sample memory, so you can get a fair bit on top of the excellent Mellotron, string, wind, brass and synth samples that come with the Nord Sample Library.
An improved amp simulator and EQ section in the effects panel now has a sweepable mid as well as the standard Twin Reverb, JC120 and Wurlitzer speaker emulations. The rest of the effects can all be locked to the master clock, enabling tightly timed delays and modulations, with the delay unit now having a ping pong option as well.
As far as the organisation of all of this lovely stuff goes, the new program section offers much deeper house-keeping, with four program banks now offering up to 400 program patches.
Stage managed
Nord’s reputation is built not only on great-sounding keyboards, but also their durability, and its products are therefore the first choice for a lot of touring musicians. Given the real improvements to the Stage range seen here, we think there’ll be even more red beasts on the telly than ever before. MTM
VERDICT
WHY BUY
Truly authentic sounds
Proven road-worthiness
All-in-one gigging solution
Very easy to program
WALK ON BY
No real criticisms…
A versatile, durable keyboard that is just at home as a master keyboard in a studio as it is in any touring environment.
★★★★★★★★★★
Score: 10
This review first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 102
Filed under
Hardware,
Hardware Instruments,
Reviews,
Synths
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