Personally i need physical ones, something i can pull rapidly and i can feel with my fingers, i don't use presets so when i have to switch sound i just reach for the drawbars and pull them without even watching them, i don't care to see the value of the drawbar cause i can ear the sound, i adjust them by sensation.
Exactly. To each their own, there's no right answer but I'm looking forward to the 5D with physical because I got my drawbar chops from a real hammond. You can "fade" the sound (as he desires) when playing live (hand palm). You can easily go from muted jazz / blues to staduim / gospel with a fistful of drawbars. Presets don't matter too much (to me). Hard to explain I guess. I have an Electro 2 now, can't wait to get a 5D. Good video though for just the opinion and close up shots of the Electro 4! Wow, looks so much better than my older one. :D
Spoken like a true organ player.......who needs presets on an organ?...the whole thing is made for tweaking the sound live till you like it. I’ll take the one with actual drawbars...if I ever could pay for one of these nords.
@@chris.dillon ability to fade the sound in time is also my argument for the physical drawers. To me I don't like the presets. And, I don't want to be offensive, but if one don't get into the drawers and need presets, it is almost about not knowing to work with them, not knowing what he is doing with the sound.
The 5D shows the Drawbar setting in the OLED display which is just fine if you want to see the sound you're playing and you will see it change in real time when you move them. The display also gives a lot more information. You don't get that on an actual Hammond anyway when you call up the preset stops, so what's the difference? The Drawbars are detented so they don't feel like Potentiometers. They click into position so you can feel them. You don't have to look. I'm not the so-called die hard Hammond player but I bought the 5D specifically for the drawbars. Sure. Nord make dedicated Organs with two sets of Drawbars, one for each manual but I think the Electro has one set just to give you a taste of physical drawbar control. I personally don't care for monkeying around with increment and decrement buttons for dialing in a sound while playing.
When switching from a preset back to the physical drawbars, does the sound conform to the physical drawbar registration as it would on an actual Hammond? On a real Hammond, going from say, a ‘G’ preset back to the ‘Bb/B’ would return to that registration. If this is the case with the Nord 5, I’d prefer the actual drawbars where I can move them back and forth rather than pressing buttons.
If you are a experienced organ player that knows how to pad and will be using this board for live sessions, Real Drawbars are better for you. If you are a recreational organ player that primarily plays jazz style for Studio use, LED drawbars will be the better fit.
for me the addition of split - layer rev - delay and most importantly the set list function. if you assign the sounds you want to the empty programme slots - you can tweak the sounds of those programmes for each song - then assign them to your set list and it will remember all your changes including any transpose changes. yes - no more hunting for that transpose change the singer made. so i have all my set songs named with all changes and layers and everything at the twist of one knob. perfect . and that's why i chose the 5d.
Wait until you play a 5d for a longer period of time. I have owned the 4d for two years and I'm very happy with my 5D. If there is a downside to the 5d, the only that i can think of is the lack of filters for the clavinet. I think the mismatch between played sound and position of the drawbars is very easy to work around. The only moment it is actually a problem is at the beginning of the songs or just the moment after or changing registrations of the lower manual. Which is hardly ever. Sure it takes some adjusting, but that is massively outweighted by all the other features, such as a massively bigger memory for your piano's.
Brilliant, but I dont know if anyone designed one that wouldn't break after a little while. If someone engineers a motorized fader with a long life and can take daily use of manual control as well as automatic recall, then I am all for this option!
Penny&Giles have motorized faders that'll survive a nuclear blast, I swear. Theres old flying fader desks that are 20+ years old now and still are fine.
It would not be as pleasant as what you would think. Nord would have to compromise between keeping them as drawbars with actual clicking feeling or turning them into faders like every other non based instrument does. Otherwise you're going to hear clicking noise every time the motors move and they will sound annoying!
Alot of it has to do with tonation and what you are lookin for. I owned a B3 with a 147 leslie and did alot club and road gigs with it for many many yrs. (A BAC BREAKER) Can't beat the sound out of a B3 and when you get use to that; you are always lookin for that certain sound. When the Nord came out the Electro 2; I got one right away because of the portablity, 20 lbs; the Rhodes sounds, the clav sound, the B3 sound and the Acoustic Panio and I am pretty happy with it. To make it more versaitle, I added a Motif XS module and It's a killer rig. My whole rig weighs about 35 lbs. verses 400 lbs. for the organ and 125 lbs. for the leslie. The Nord is a good keyboard, but I still like that Hamond sound also. But as far as ergonomics I will pick the Nord! Make the wise choice, and don't fuck up your back cause you only got one!
Good points. Motorized faders seem like the ultimate solution and surprised I haven’t seen it yet. I guess the Yamaha YC61 comes closest with the LEDs adjacent to the physical draw bars. Nice Leslie on ver. 1.2 and $1000 cheaper. Not red, oh well.
As someone from the synth world: Loved the Nord lead 3 for the exact same reason: unlimited-turn virtual knobs that let you know the preset settings. instantly. Unfortunately methodology out of production with lead 4/nord wave - due to unfavorable production costs it is said. There was only one manufacturer willing to produce the "LED rings" and it increased the prices and got very unreliable.
Some organists, like John Modeski, like to fiddle the drawbars while they're playing. Plus, there's just something about actual physical tactile contact between man and machine. Lol, okay, maybe that's a bit melodramatic but some people might prefer that.
I agree with your reasoning, Woody. The Electro 4 LED drawbar configuration is a useful feature for its intended purpose, to graphically show the draw bar configuration for each preset. If I want a keyboard with Hammond-style physical draw bar controls, I'll buy a Hammond or a Hammond clone. If I want to use sliders for drawbars, I can use a MIDI controller like my Roland A800 Pro with Mainstage 3's Vintage Organ B3.
When I first heard that the nord electro 5 also features the physical drawbars I wanted to have this keyboard only because of this fact and on the electro 5 you can split and layer which is great in my opinion. This was something I was waiting for since the electro 3 but theres more. The electro 5 features 2 new effects and the delay is seperated from reverb that´s great too. After all those facts it was clear to me which keybord I want to buy the electro 5d .
yes arjan, you're right, the electro 5 does have a number of advantages and improvements over the 4, but nothing that was important to me, or compensated for the lack of led draws! Oh, i forgot to mention that my used NE4 is about half the price of the NE5 ;)
When I bought the electro 5d 73 (upgraded from ne3) I didn't know that I wanted to tweak the sound "in the action" so much that I do now. It's more playable and give me that feeling to instantly try out something different. So i hear you, but not agreeing. 😊 The "drawbar live" and "drawbar sync" is two useful buttons...
was really hoping to hear from 'D' model owners. Cool that it's working out for you, yes it might be just me that dislikes. it goes back to a Hammond XK that I used to own, and I never learned to live with the drawbars.
It's so funny how the Nord-Crowd are so excited about the newer models having splits/layers and other things that much less expensive and great sounding keyboards have been doing forever :-)
also funny that when the electro was launched nord were super proud that it didn't have all of those workstation features. not a swiss-army knife was the phrase they used.
I agree with you about playing organ on hammer weighted keys. I was apprehensive when I bought my Stage 2 88 a couple of years ago. Idk if it's the same as the Electro HP, but in the Stage 2 turns out you can raise the trigger point of the keys for the organ so that they behave very much like semi weighted keys. You can do the tremolo notes and all very easily. Just for your info. I wouldn't be surprised if their was a 'pickup' setting for the physical drawbars. Seems like Nord would have though of that. Maybe not.
A bigger issue is that real Hammonds use multi contact keys with 9 positions and I'm yet to see this behavior simulated, where velocity (how deep the key is pressed in the actual Hammond) determines how many drawbars you hear, regardless of how many you have on. Only Hammond has done that with their digital B3.
Hey Woody. I have an Electro 3 and and Electro 5D.... and a Nord C1. They are all great instruments in their own right. I like the LED drawbars for the same reason as you. Its a great system if you use presets but it is less natural when playing the drawbars as most Hammond players do. The 5D drawbars are brilliant if you want to play the drawbars. I have to say, in my opinion the 5D is a better instrument all round, with its larger memory, splits/layer etc. The OLED display shows the drawbar positions but it is a little strange getting used to this at first....... but I have really been enjoying playing this instrument... now motorised drawbars, that would really be something....
This is where the Yamaha YC61 really shines, both the physical drawbars and the leds to match the patches. Maybe Nord will do a combination in the future.
I never had problems with the physical drawbars being at the wrong position when using presets. To be honest, I can change the drawbars so fast that I no longer need the presets ... ;) I'd say this is to personal taste ...
Being an owner of a variety of Nord keyboards, I never ever worried about the preset change thing so far. So, your point about using the LEDs instead of the drawbars is quite comprehensible. I am actually looking forward for the Stage 3 which has incredible new features, as the seamless transitions when changing sounds or programs, but Clavia will just offer the 73 version with the physical drawbars. Stage 3 HP76 and Stage 3 88 won't have it. I was amongst those, who always were missing the possibility to have a more precise influence on the B3 sound using drawbars, but now I am not really sure anymore, whether this or that might be the best solution. Anyway, thanks for your argument. ;-)
There was an octave in reverse colours on the B , C, and A100. These were presets. There were 9 of them: Bb and B switched between drawbar sets. When playing on drawbars, if any of the other 10 were switched during play, what you saw on the drawbars was not what you heard. I don't recall being confused by this. I have the NE3 and love it. The drawbar system makes no difference to me I just get on and play the f*****g thing whenever I get the time. I rarely talk about such trivia but I guess you got me here.
Yes, I find this function confusing. Here is my attempt to summarise, based on experiments on my NE5D 73. Preset 1 and Preset 2 will each sound with the most recent drawbar changes you made after you last selected each Preset or switched to the Organ program, whichever came later. Preset 2 has the added feature that switching DRWB LIVE on or off allows you to toggle Preset 2 between the current drawbar settings or the most recent drawbar changes you made with Preset 2 selected (bearing in mind the settings could be identical). I don't have an Electro 4, but I think the E4 manual provides a clue as to the thinking behind LIVE vs SYNC: (where E4 'Preset' setting seems to be equivalent to E5 DRWB SYNC) "When Preset is active (the LED is lit), the drawbar settings in the preset will be used, and the drawbars on the panel will not affect the sound. This allows you to use one setting, and prepare the drawbars on the panel with a new setting to which you can change during the performance". So perhaps the intended equivalent action on Electro 5 is to make changes to drawbars and then apply them on the fly by applying DRWB LIVE with Shift-Preset 2. However, I can't see how you can prepare drawbar changes without also affecting the current sound (if you are already playing an Organ sound) - maybe with the KB SPLIT function - eg with Preset 2 selected, you play Part Lower to hear just the Preset 1 sounds, all the while preparing drawbar changes which you will hear when playing Part Upper - but you could do that without using DRWB LIVE. As with a lot of the keyboard functions, I am probably missing something obvious, which the more experienced Nordists can put right. :) JXrays Posts: 22 Joined: 02 Nov 2015, 14:09 Has thanked: 6 times Been thanked: 6 times Your Nord Gear #1: Nord Electro 5
The physical drawbars are what i thought i wanted. After using my Electro 6D 73 for 3 weeks I admit that those LED drawbars would've been wonderful to have instead.
Hey Woody, was in total agreement with you about the LEDs after owning the original Electro for 10+ years and eventually upgrading to the 5D. And didn't opt for a 4 for the same reason you knicked the Nord Piano (only 64GB of sample memory). Have to say, the drawbars combined with the OLED display showing their positions is not bad. The benefit of "playing the drawbars" in Live Mode was worth the trade-off, IMO. But totally get where your head is on this.
swan, very nice to hear from one of the converted! perhaps i'll give it a another shot one day. you're right the memory is a pain, but it bothers me less on the electro, because focus is on e-pianos, clavs and organ, so i'm ok with having just one grand loaded. cheers!
I don't consider myself a Hammond purist, especially since I have very little experience playing organ. That said, I used to own a Hammond XK-2, and I loved it very much. It had these incredibly fast and comfortable waterfall keys, and the manual drawbars allowed me to use my hand to blindly "feel" and adjust the shape of the timbre while playing. I found this to be very intuitive and fun. I understand your disappointment with the way Nord presets interact with physical drawbars, but my thinking is that I wouldn't want presets to affect the drawbar positioning at all. I don't have the Hammond XK-2 anymore, but I think that's how it worked or that it could be set up to work that way. I don't own a Nord, and I wonder if the drawbar settings could be ignored in presets. My wish would be for changing the presets to only affect the circuitry, amp, or speaker modeling, eq, or effects, but not the drawbar positions. That way you always have a visual match to the physical control over the sound. And changing the drawbars is super fast and easy if you want to quickly transition. It's just a different way of looking at the experience. Kind of like how some synths take a "one knob per function" approach.
Got the original Nord Lead (expanded). Later the original Nord Electro, which was capable of fully utilizing the Electro 2 software. After adding the GeForce M-Tron to my DAC, never had any urge to update. Really digging back into that Clavicord of late.
I have both the Nord electro 3 as well as a Hammond XK-5. When you use the presets on the Hammond, the drawbars don't change when you use the preset keys on the left side. Hammond players know this and merely memorize the drawbar sounds they created and saved for each preset. Most Hammond players either don't even use the presets, or use them very seldom. I also like the LED lights on the Nord 3, it's different from the Hammond and it's nice to see the different drawbar positions lit up when you change presets. . I like both systems that's why I have both. Others may prefer one or the other. I think Nord was trying to entice the Hammond players by changing from LEDs to sliders. Other features of the Electro series are way more important than the drawbars vs. LEDs. That would be my reason to buy a Electro 5 if I wanted other more advanced keyboard features. The main thing I like about the Nord 3 is that it weighs less than 20 pounds! - very easy to carry to a gig and have decent organ as well as piano sounds. I also highly recommend a QSC K8, K10 or K12 PA Amp rather than a regular keyboard amp. Way more power, low cost, light weight, and the piano and organ sounds way better when played through it.
Even if I had lighted faders the most annoying issue about the presets is that all sound is cut until crossfading in NE6. Sound cut alone would be more of a pain than the drawbar issue. NE 5 also has organ bass and a better split so it works well for a a close to True organ experience with my MIDI pedalboard.
I have a Nord Stage 2 EX and a Hammond Xk-3c as well as an old Hammond L-100 (actual tone wheels). I don't have any problems with either setup but for my taste Nord made the right decision with physical sliders.
But since the electo5 shows you the positions for drawbars (both at the same time when running split) it seems like the problem is stillsolved. If anything the showing both drawbar setting option on 5d is better than one the 4d is capable of
Everyone has some opinion on a preference or another. My preference was for the 5D. My reason for this was longevity of the product. Buttons that you activate frequently fail eventually. Fader potentiometers fail if you don't protect them. But the risk of eventual failure is way more likely in the actual use over time of continuous pressure that a performer wanting to use the expressive control of draw bar style controls. It's plagued most keyboard players over time. Every board I've ever owned is affected this way. From Yamaha's legendary DX-7 to Korg's Wavestation. Ever have a remote control stop working? It's the same mechanics. A rubberized button input that collapses against a printed circuit card mounted potentiometer. It is all but unavoidable that routine contact displaces, or damages the actual potentiometer. I'm sure it's all personal preference though.
You have many valid points. Physical drawbars vs led is at the end of the day a matter of playing style. I like using physical drawbars is to change the sound while I´m playing without looking, just by feeling. Of course that meant on my Nord Electro 4D (which I sold, mostly because the organ sound and leslie sounded to harsh to my ears) it didn't make sense neither to use presets nor split during a live gig. But it did the trick using it as a one manual organ with a Korg SV-1. I sold it, replaced it with a Mojo61(amazing sound), sold the Mojo and now got a VR-09... Go figure... It´s about having the right tool, none does everything 100% so there will always be trade-offs...
I still have a dual manual Mojo ;-) I got the VR-09 for the combo, that means the synth in addition to the organ. I´ll use the VR-09 with my Kurzweil Artis with the David Bowie tribute band, and the dual manual Mojo for blues. Hard to compete with the Mojo´s organ sound, especially after I got the Tall&Fat with the MiniVent II... The VR-09 is impressive for its weight and price and is certainly (more than) "good enough" for live performance. At least that´s the theory. Will use it on stage in January for some Bowie music...
I feel same way on the LED drawbars, it's a must have. It's definitely a love it or hate it thing. With the LED drawbars, I can see what settings all the keyboard players are playing on television if I want to try and replicate what they're playing.
the faders can be solved with automated faders, like in the mixers, they just move by themselves when needed, so they match the visual reference. Maybe they add this feature in the next versions :O
With physical drawbars i don't need programs for the organ, i reset manually each time. but that's a matter of personal preference. Interesting idea though. Been using Roland for 20 years and moving from stage / live performance keyboards that don't have any issues with effects chain, switching tones, etc. I wish my Roland would sound like a Nord (but still behave like a Roland ... )
I believe the 6D retains the drawbar settings per patch and displays their virtual position on the screen. And a simple button press sets the sound to be as the physically bars appear.
please could you not just have said it in the beginning of the video "i like LED drawbars as they change with the presets and here i will show you how it works" instead of talking around it for 3-4 minutes before saying it. I really like your channel in general but i dislike this type of "keep the viewer watching" flow tv tactic. Great channel otherwise and i have just subscribed and the video still gets a like .. so im not trying to be a grumpy pants just trying to give a bit of constructive criticism.
Agreed, this is why I'm not a subscriber. He doesn't respect the viewers time very much. it could have been said in one sentence, and ThEN do the elaborating.
Not disagreeing with you Woody, it is "each to their own" at the end of the day... but me, I prefer physical drawbars :-) Now, I'm not a "Hammond purist" at all, but a proper set of drawbars, you can put your fingers or even hand/palm on during playing and move them how/when you want.... My biggest issue with the Nord is separate buttons for up and down drawbar. A "halfway house" solution on the Nords would have been to use touch sensitive LED faders, similar to the Yamaha Reface DX....? But frankly, for the money Clavia charge for Nords, I would have thought they could fit motorised sliders/drawbars to appease those like you, who don't like the settings being out-of-sync with presets. :-) For what its worth, I bought a Roland VR-09, which is a great "all-in-one, go anywhere, do anything" keyboard for pianos, orchestral, synth sounds and organ - with *physical drawbars* - that was the great selling point for me. Yes, it has those issues of out-of-sync drawbars compared to presets and upper/lower register splits - but it does show all the preset drawbar settings on the oled screen. (I also love the way the pitch bender becomes the Leslie switch in organ mode, similar to a "proper" Leslie switch). The least desirable feature of the VR-09 is the lightweight 61 key synth-like keybed..... So you probably wouldn't like it, but it honestly doesnt bother me, all my keyboards/synths are different anyway and I've got used to it... But I know a lot of piano and organ players dont like it. However, the VR-09 is a *fraction* of the price of a Nord..... ;-)
I think the VR09 is by far the best bang for the buck. I have it sitting next to 6 grand worth of Hammond XK3C, and I end up playing the Roland probably 75% of the time horsing around just due to the extra voices. I put it on a stand made for a lap steel so there's actually room for my knees and a pedal... I despise X stands. But as you pointed out the preset thing is an issue on anything with physical drawbars, not just the Nord 5, but the VR09, as well as my XK3C, and even a real B3 with its factory presets that you change with a soldering iron. I also have a junky L112 spinet. Very weak sound but it's fun to play. I love the close overlapped upper manual diving board keys, the mechanical key contacts, and the genuinely dirty sound. It has toggle presets, God knows what drawbar positions they represent. It cost me next to nothing and it's a real tonewheel. Some day I'll figure out how to get it up two flights of stairs, and maybe even figure out how to hitch it to my 2101 without starting a fire.
Gary, I agree. I have a Roland RD-2000 and it has 9 physical draw bars on it. I couldn't picture myself on stage clicking the up and down buttons to set each bar while live. With draw bars, all you do is slide them, DONE!
Yamaha made some OTT monster 'home' organs in the 1980s. FX-10 and FX-20 had fully motorised sliders.
7 лет назад
I've got a 5d 73. In my opinion, 1gb for pianos + bigger display + 2 independent layer volumes are more than enough to attest that electro 5 is much more complete than electro 4.
i would agree that the 5 has some interesting new features, but not super important in my opinion. the e-piano and organ engine is still the same so i was happy to get the 4 and save some cash,
Um, on a B3 you get the same thing. 2 adjusts per manual, and 9 presets. Pick a preset, drawbars don't move and have no bearing on the sound. That said, yeah, the UM/LM thing is a deal breaker. They should have made it so you could have a 2nd set as an add on - or just an add on in general. I think I recall an outfit called Turtle Beach made a MIDI drawbar controller years ago as a response to that "vocal minority" you spoke of.
I'm not a Hammond player - other than faking it briefly from time to time. However, my Hammond sort of purist buddy, a really good player, likes "playing" the drawbars. As he's playing, he's frequently changing a couple drawbars at the same time, bringing out the higher harmonics for a passage and whatnot. I'm thinking that's where the B purists might be coming from. Let's be real, the Nord is emulating the B, right? You can hit a black key present and play with no visual feedback on the settings. However, you can manipulate the drawbars before switching back to their control. Anyway, I'm not one, but I admire good B players; what an instrument it is!
Ok brother, why didn’t you buy the electro 6 D ? What do you think about the stage 3 and what is the difference between the stage 3 and the electro ? I’m buying a Nord in the next few days and I want to make sure I buy the right “one “
never tried it, but it comes down to if you need the mod/pitch controls, synth engine, and your budget, choice of keybed. but i have vids about NE6D and NS2.
So if I understood you correctly you have one (!) argument against the physical drawbars, which is the lack of the already mentioned little motors to adjust the position of the drawbars to the actual preset. "What you see is what you get" might be right here, but I see more advantages than disadvantages. Why don't you talk about both sided then? Physical drawbars are very intuitive to use especially in a live context. They are much more easy to adjust on the run as you can move them all the same time using your hand instead of using all your fingers for pushing little buttons. When you use 800000008 and want to change it to full drawbars during a song, you can even hear a slightly difference between the use of LED-knob-system and the physical drawbars (because the smoothness of grabbing these and pulling them slowly is not doable with the knobs!). In the end I agree, that it's definitely a matter of personal taste - but (without being a so called hammond-purist) if you want to play all the Nord Instruments in a proper way because you love the variety of it you should be glad about the physical drawbars instead of putting so much effort in looking for arguments against them. (as I mentioned earlier, there's only one I see....)
I never thought about it that much before, but I enjoy playing most music on weighted piano style keys. I noticed when I play a regular synthesizer I hit the keys way too hard and my fingers have the ability to play so much faster. :) Excellent video. I've never played on any nord. I guess I'll have to check them out. :) Take care.
Flying "faders" drawbars would be perfect. Still physical feeling drawbars, but they'll motorboat their way to where the positions are in the preset automatically. If behringer can build a dirt cheap flying fader mixboard then the motorized sliders cant be TOO expensive to add.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing. But in my opinion, It's not about E4 vs E5, but LED vs Drawbars. All the characteristics you mention here are present in E5 as well in E4. I own an E5 HP and in my opinion, E5 has a lot of advantages over E4, but this advantages has noting to do with LEDs or Drawbars. In fact, E5 and E4 are identical on this. I think that this video should have another name, maybe LED vs Drawbars, or something like that.
Hi Javier, thanks for the feedback! i stand by my choice of title, I would have loved the NE5 for the extra memory, but since they don't offer LEDs any more I had to look to the previous model. I did think about the 5HP, but didn't like the form factor (no backpack case) and weighted keys for organ is a turn-off. Great board though and hope it's working out for you though, this was purely my personal preference. :)
Hi Woody! Yes, you are right about that the only NE5 that has LEDs is the NE5HP. I didn't notice that. I'm almost sure that when I bought my NE5HP last year, there was an NE5D with LEDs, but I could be wrong. Hence, the title of your video is appropriate. Thanks again for sharing your great videos!
Just seeing this now. How do you feel about the touch screen drawbar setup that Korg put on the Vox Continental? To me, they seem better, as it's much quicker to get the drawbar settings you like. You still get the instant recall of the drawbar settings, but you can very quickly get all the drawbar settings you want, as opposed to the Nord LED drawbars, which must be handled individually.
i haven't tried one, but in general i dislike operating synths from a touchscreen. you need buttons or drawbars that you can easily grab, touchscreens require too much looking at and precision to operate.
I can understand getting a 4 instead of a 5D. The led drawbars do have some advantages but I chose a 5D 61 with the physical drawbars. As always, enjoy your perspective. BTW you should check out the new Dexibell Combo J7, that has motorized drawbars. It is a wonderful keyboard. Dexibell's piano sounds are even slightly better than Nord's.
Well, the Dexibell J7 does have motorized faders (not real drawbars, as Woody pointed out). It does have great sounds as well, whereas playing piano on an organ keybed is just as pointless as the other way round. But the J7 organ sounds are crap, esp. the distortion and the fast rotary effect. So I wouldn't buy it and rather accept static faders / drawbars for a good clonewheel sound.
Dude, that’s really a very god point about it! I thought the Electro 5 Drawbars (actually faders) were motorized, like those in digital mixing consoles. That would be really good to have, but now, thinking deeper about it, I wonder those mechanisms is probably too big and heavy for an instrument whose main advantage over the competition is the construction quality, the excellent sounds and the low weight, actually, for its qualities and specifications, the lightest in its market. Would it be possible for Nord to motorize those Drawbars in the future?
Interesting discussion on the drawbars... LED vs. physical or the classic analog vs. digital debate. I'm a total novice organ player, I've been at it only about 6 years on a part time basis. I've never played a real B3. I have an XK3C with dual manuals and a Leslie 2101, and I also have a Roland VR09 which has physical drawbars. The thing is, with physical drawbars on any instrument - Nord, Roland, XK3C, or even a real B3, when you hit a preset, the drawbars will not match the sound you have pulled up. I would think any experienced Hammond player is used to this. The thing is when I watch Hammond players in action, I rarely if ever see them use a preset. I use presets on my Roland almost entirely for other synth voices where the drawbars are irrelevant. Although on some, they do affect the sound but maybe only half of them have any effect. This is undocumented and weird. But even as a middle aged beginner I found myself gravitating toward the legacy B3 setup - dual sets of physical drawbars to control upper and lower manual. Ok, I don't have the whole nine yards extra sets of a true B3 or A100 or the "New B3" which is basically a way to get way, way, way more money for an XK3C setup. I could not stand the pushbutton Leslie controls. The Leslie has three states - off, slow, and fast. The three buttons can produce 8 different combinations 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. Quick, which of these represent off, slow, and fast? So one of my first additional purchases was a moon switch. Again, no prior B3 experience but a three position switch seems utterly logical to control a 3-state device. I bought the Roland to act as a portable everything. I was stuck using an 88 key Korg Chrome for our band because it was what they had, and I wasn't about to lug my XK rig. I looked at the XK1, but for half that money the Roland VR09 gives me real drawbars, a kinda-sorta moon switch (I still have to push a button for "off"), and extra voices not present in the XK3C like piano, EP and other synths although the EPs are not very good unless you really slam the keys. I'm contemplating plugging a guitar chorus pedal into the mix to see what that does, I'm told it vastly improves the EP sounds if I want something more like a classic Rhodes or Wurli. The Roland also has a halfway decent OB-XA (it's called "JMP BRASS") and I have it on a preset because it seems like I'm always working on Van Halen 1984 stuff, badly. But we did record "I'll Wait", my first ever keyboard lead with a bunch of punch-ins but I played the bridge in one take... lol. I truly suck as a player, but I guess even as a beginner it's not all that strange to have developed preference for the physical controls. I imagine the Nord 4 or 5 does a better Hammond than my Roland. But hey, 15 lbs, 800 bucks and it fits in a guitar gig bag. In January... we're getting the band back together. I will probably end up playing bass or keyboard but I might be allowed to strum a guitar line or two. I am basically a horn player... trombone and saxophone. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm about a 5 on the sax, 3 on the trombone, 2 on keyboard, 1 on bass guitar, and about a minus 6 on guitar.
Regardless of why they did the change , people are confused. NORD needs to create a FIX. If I were NORD and I was going to put drawbars on a KEYBOARD I would make them MOTORIZED to move when you select the preset so they match or they should have 2 sets of drawbars at least. I am wanting to try the NORD C2 but actually wanting the new Hammond XK 5 Pro.
i wouldn't personally want motorized faders on a gigging keyboard, too complex and fragile for a gigging keyboard. does the recent hammond xk models have them? some guys have said that live drawbar mode on the electro solves the problem when switching between programs, i can see that, but wondering about what happens when switching between lower and upper manuals. others have said that you tend to use the same settings on lower manual like 808, so maybe not such an issue after all. i'll have to try one again.
Is it a good idea to use ribbons instead of buttons or drawbars? In this case, perhaps we can get some of the touch of a drawbar, and not have to worry about presets.
I guess it totally depends on who you are.... I love the physical bars for during-play/jam fun while being able to slide them at the exact speed and finesse that I need
Exactly why i traded my electro 2 for my Mojo. I love how it basically starts with one sound that can be tweaked and changed using the classic Hammond effects. Nords are great but not necessary when you're just trying to play a clone
Glad i watched the whole video though. I've probably become more of a "Hammond purist" but I definitely see how the LED bars are super helpful for quick actions during gigs. would be nice to have best of both worlds with physical bars that can move automatically and manually. the technology exists
Each to their own methinks. I'm no Hammond purist, I do have a real C3 though, it has presets (the inverted lower octave keys are each a preset, they are programmed up by wire links in the back). I tend to know where the drawbars need to be for a certain sound, I just slowly move them as desired. Not hard to learn. You make a good point about not knowing what the presets have been set to, mind you neither do real C3 players! But if there is a mimic on the display that's fine. Personally all those bargraph leds and button pressing to move them would drive me nuts, so each to their own. I'm thinking if to buy the 5D, I nervous as I have the real thing and would be so upset when I do the 1:1 comparison and find they are way different, I assume the 5D has the key foldback. Leslies play a big part too. One thing I'm wondering is, if I could sample my own C3 and load the samples into the 5D, do I sample/load each tonewheel and the 5D does the rest (drawbar mixing). anyway, thanks for the vid.
well glad you appreciated the vid and awesome to hear some thoughts from a C3 owner, that's a magnificent organ! You're very lucky. Couldn't say it better, to each their own, Thanks for the post.
Hi Woody, I also disagree with your opinion. But don't panic! The 2 types of drawbars depend on personal favor. That's why Clavia make them seperately for 2 types of keyboardist. I thought that the idea of physical drawbars make for player who want to play for various instruments keys such as Organ for Electro 5D 61, 73 that both have a waterfall keys. And then Clavia has continuous product The brand new Nord Stage 3 73 compact with physical drawbars, And in the part of pianist who focus on portable keyboard, Clavia make some Electro 5HP with hammer portable action and they don't play on organ to much so LED virtual are enough, I'm a big fan of your channel, So thank you for shared video and your experiences.
that's great to hear the other side of the story! it's just that clavia are phasing out the leds, they are now only available on the HP models, which aren't suitable for organ anyway! thanks for checking out the vid :)
couple of quick questions regarding nord keyboards.first one is,if you buy one with these"proper drawbars" can you set these to the sound you like then write the sound into memory? I take it that you can do this with the L.E.D drawbars too?.My next question is,why do not ALL the nords come with a music holder rest at the rear and only selected few.I'm a reader and i'd really want a compact stage 3 or stage 2 with non weighted keys as weighted is no good for me,cheers.lee
Maybe your opinion is due to what you've written below, you are no drawbar player. But the Hammond is a drawbar instrument and drawbars add a lot to the playing, maybe compared to switch situations on comparable organs of the time. With drawbars you have a physical indication of the sound as a shape if you want. You can simply modify them with the left hand while you are playing with the right one and thus create morphings and blendings whithout even having to watch. One great example where that's done which comes to my mind is "Fly like an eagle" from the Steve Miller Band. Now how would you do that with these silly knobs on the Electro 4? Also, motor faders would not help with that. You are right they should have 2 or 3 groups of drawbars for the manuals. BUT: This as you pointed out is no dedicated only organ simulation. It's a question wether you would use the splits on your keyboard for that anyway instead of combining it with let's say a piano. But however if you do that, you're gonna have rather common and constant settings for lower manual and bass where the tweaking should be less necessary. The part where it's important will be the upper manual. There you need it and you can't fullfill that with these buttons the same way as with drawbars. So the decision in my point of view is absolutely the right one.
hi torben, appreciate the comment as i wanted to hear the other side of the coin! You make some very good points. thanks. yes, i'm not coming from a tonewheel hammond organ background, i'm just a casual player who makes do with some basic drawbar settings for comping in a band. i've never been one of those cats who "plays the drawbars". :) my experience of real drawbars comes just from my Hammond XK1 where I found their positions to be constantlyout of sync with the actual sound. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be using presets anyway! One day I'll pick up a NE5, in which case I'll post an update on the channel. You have a huge Winwood fan here btw, in particular About Time album.
It's funny, but I don't care much about this--I really like having physical drawbars, but I also like the LEDs. Best compromise is to get something like the Ocean Beach digital drawbars. I didn't go for the Electro 5 because of the sudden lack of clavinet flexibility--canned clav sounds instead of dynamic clav switch emulation.
Yeah, I've been told that you can shift between clav presets, but not modify it in the dynamic way, mimicking the old rocker switches, like you can on the 2-4.
Woody, guess what I just saw. Nord stage 3 has a parameter that tells the keyboard's organ to snap to the physical drawbar location when you choose a new program. :). How about that?
thanks hugh, that's interesting, yeah think that would work. i suppose you can choose to have just the upper manual snap to the drawbars, which is perfect, since i usually keep lower on 808.
On Nord's physical drawbars, like a lot of modern workstation/synths, or just midi controllers controlling your DAW on your computer, I believe you can set the faders to "catch" the registered values and would only modify the value when the physical sliders reach the registered values, instead of "jump". True this might still be a disadvantage but definitely something that you can get used to.
There's no comparison. The 5 is better. If you're a real hammond player, and you're used to working drawbars on the fly, LED draws are very clumsy. I never use presets, and theres enough time to change from swirly gospel to Jimmy smith, to all out scream. It takes time to learn. Plus you can save presets on the 5, so thats no issue. LED is nice for those who just need to plunk a preset and play, but if you work drawbars, this is so incredibly hard to use with LEDs.
Re. touch sensitive LEDs... I would never consider it. I don't even like touch pads on my laptop, I disable it and get a cordless USB mouse. Too much can go wrong there especially if there's no secondary way to move the drawbars. Motorized drawbars to jump at presets - that could be cool but it's probably something that would drive the price up and a high probability of breaking at an inopportune time. I think the best answer to the whole preset thing is... don't use presets. But with a jack-of-all-trades like the VR09, there's going to be weirdness. One of them is, it doesn't remember the drawbar settings when powered off. Regardless of the physical drawbar positions, when you power on, you get 888000000. Or if you switch to piano and switch back to organ... yep, 888000000 regardless of physical position. That is one difference from a real Hammond. But hey, 800 bucks and I've got a Hammond, piano, OB, a bunch of really strange junk I'll never use, and maybe a Rhodes if I can figure out how to filter the output.
I've had the 4D for a while and love the drawbars, until I take it out live and am changing patches over MIDI and then it becomes a huge pain for the reasons you describe! Maybe Nord could adopt the approach that Kurzweil did with the Forte - real faders but with an LED ladder next to it to show its position in the current present. Best of both worlds?
The faders aren't motorised, they're just faders, but they do give you some visual feedback if the physical position is different from the internal position.
It's funny - it took drawbars appearing on the E4D to get me to buy a Nord! But funnily enough I did find exactly the same problems as outlined here, especially after coming from an old tonewheel A100 where you've got two sets of bars per manual and thus four sounds at your fingertips (as well as the preset keys). Of course, learning to live without drawbars IS the answer - then you can have your multiple registrations set up like on a real organ, and switch between them with clear visual reference. But no - I decided to solve the problem by trading the E4D in for a C2D, and don't regret that, although I have finally succumbed to lugging an Electro around as well for the EP sounds! I think the statement in the video is right - put the drawbars on the C2D and keep the all-in-one Nords on the old button system. Or at least offer the buttons on the 61 and 73 SWs again. The moral of this story: I eventually played a festival in Norway with hired in gear (a Stage 2) and of course...the dreaded draw-buttons that put me off going Nord for years were absolutely fine in reality.
@@MikaelLewisify they do indeed, but they are the only way of making one set of drawbars work when you switch presets short of motorised faders, which I just know would get knackered quickly. Don't get me wrong: I'm an A100 and two leslies man at heart, nobody likes seeing lots of drawbars more than I do ;-)
It would be much better if you said at the beginning that this is just your personal opinion as an un-trained B3 player; that people should reach their own conclusions, and there's a lot more to think about. Especially since the difference in price online between the 4D and 5D can be as little as $200 now that the Electro 6 was announced. This is designed to be a working musician's stage keyboard. Do YOU play out much? I play out enough to know it would be almost impossible to argue the Electro 4 is a better value than the 5 for what they can be purchased for online. The 5D is SO much more powerful than the previous versions in so many ways. You can't just overlook it on the basis of the drawbars. You could have also mentioned the missing Clavinet models on the 5 vs the 4 - that's a huge one for me... But 1GB of sample piano memory on the series 5 Electro vs. 380MB (or 180MB on the 61-Key 4D) goes a long way towards letting you get whatever sound you want. So does the ability to split and layer different models. So does a new church organ model, OLED display, set lists, dedicated delay...and on and on. For live performing the Nord Electro 5 is a very big step up - arguably Nord's biggest evolution of this keyboard. Don't take it from me, just read the reviews. Regarding the drawbars, so much about playing the B3 like the pros is in the manipulation of the drawbars and other controls on the organ. As a player, I want real drawbars to master the proper physical technique - I own a Nord Electro 2 and an Electro 5D - and I really dislike the LEDs for that reason. The LED lights can be very difficult to adjust accurately when playing on stage (especially adjusting more than one drawbar at a time), and they add nothing to the functionally of the organ since you should be adjusting the drawbars by ear anyway - like a synth player adjusts filter cutoff. They are just a picture of the sound, like a preset name. After two minutes of playing the 5D, it's pretty obvious which drawbars need to be adjusted to get more treble or bass; and after a week you can recognize the most common settings by ear. The LEDs are fine for the infrequent organ player who just wants too know what to expect; but are a poor reason to overlook all the other significant improvements of the Electro 5D. I can respect the OPs personal choice - he is free to have his own preferences - but it's not a choice I would seek to advise others to follow, since he is recommending a much less powerful keyboard overall for no real long-term benefit to the player. I much prefer the drawbars of the 5D as a learning tool for playing the B3 with proper nuance; and I hope I'll be better prepared to rock the drawbars the next time I sit down at the real thing.
the title of the video is "I didn't buy... here's why", not "you shouldn't buy..." and it goes without saying that this is my personal opinion voiced on my channel and I'm obviously not advising anybody else what opinion they should have. I've owned 4 Nord Electros and 2 Hammond organs and played out 4 nights a week for 15 years (blues, pop, soul, jazz) although I confess to not lugging around a B3 and leslie so perhaps I'm unqualified to share my opinion... :) thx for commenting, it was a really good read and you and many others disagree with me, and that's fine! you get the model that suits you and I'll do the same.
If you had tried the Nord Electro 5, you'd know that you still have visual feedback on the fantastic OLED screen and when you move a drawbar, there are no glitches, it is like adjusting a touch fader in relative mode. When you change presets, the new faders are shown on the OLED and you can move the real ones to adjust as needed. If you're 'not sure how it works' (your words), then please don't base your recommendation [or share an uninformed opinion] on it. The Nord LED faders are a total mess for actually playing the drawbars unless you press the button one press at a time. Otherwise, they scroll too fast to control properly. (Nord didn't get rid of them because they were 'too popular') On the 5D I can always see the upper, lower and pedal drawbars - all at once - in the OLED, without having to hit a switch (like on the 4). You don't give up anything on the 5D from the 4. To recommend keeping a tiny crap two-digit LED display and sacrificing all the great features of the 5 because you like LED drawbars is absolutely absurd. This review gets a huge thumbs down from me and illustrates the hazard of comparing features from online browsing without trying it first. I'll never miss the LEDs and welcome the amazing and powerful new features of the 5 and 6 series. (If you're a weekly player, they are a HUGE upgrade well worth it. You should try one.) They are major revisions to the platform and both get two big thumbs up! Thanks for listening!
Erm...programmable synths with knobs and sliders (like my SuperNova) have exactly the same problem as you highlight with the draw-bars. Did Clavia/Nord not implement a "pass through" function on the models with physical draw bars?
hi andrew, totally good point, this occurred to me too. yeah synths like my nord lead have panel mode, which is perfect and what i often like to use. but when using split keyboard for lower & upper manual it doesn't work, since two sets of drawbars are necessary. cheers.
Physical vs LED drawbars is only one of the issues in that comparison. Didn't really think about how convenient the LEDs could be compared with the "real" drawbars in terms if visibility. I've been a really satisfied user of Electro 3 for years and some months ago I decided it's about time to upgrade and to go for Electro 5. What a disappointment it was! OK, there's dual and layer, much more memory, real advantages, I agree. But there goes the Hammond simulation/new leslie adjusment - so thinner and raspier than E3's. Not to mention the outputs are adjusted to be too hot and crackle when volume is set a bit louder - something that doesn't happen with E3 and I compared both models with the very same settings and PA. Also, the E5's pots feel significantly cheaper than E3's (Nord introduced these with Stage 2 EX describing them "smoother" - well, I still prefer the E3 ones a lot more, after all these years they still work great, with a very pro feel on them). I admit the size of E3 is just pathetic for the novadays standards, but having in mind it's a stage piano, doesn't have monophonic mode and arpeggiator, these 68 MB could accommodate only poly sounds - pad, synths - and using them wizely with the Nord Sample editor, you could end up with a very handy and satisfactory sound set. As for the B3 - many will argue that E4 and E5 (having the C2D engine onboard) have much more "authentic" organ. Well, that's why I have Neo Vent II :) So I returned E5 and got back my old and trusty Electro 3. Best regards to all!
very interesting! i skipped the 3. i've only briefly played the organ on the 4 but I can hear slight improvement over the 2. it's the same from the C2, the E3 has same as C1 if i recall. the output on the ne4 seems to be much lower than my other keyboards. you have to crank it to get a hot signal.
Hm, I'm not sure about the level of E3 outputs compared to other synths/keyboards. Recently I play only in blues projects (though I'm a prog rock lover), so I don't bring anything more than just E3. But you're right, it's a C1 based engine. BTW I really do miss a monophonic option . With the so many possibilities to get hold of some Moog samples and with the beauty of Nord sample editor (with its velocity and filter settings), it would be great to have some fat mono quasi analog sounds within Electro.
I can tell you never owned a Hammond Organ Woody. You have to have those drawbars Bud. I have tried to pull down multiple drawbars on a Nord Electro 2 live at a Gig and it Sucks. Thank You Nord for putting real drawbars on my Electro 4. These Nord Electro Keyboards were originally designed to do 3 things, Organ, Electric Piano and Piano. They did not want to build a Jack of all master of nothing machine.
they should come out with motorised drawbars or something. Also I like the idea of the led ones but for visually impaired user I could see it becoming a problem.
no tactile response, not ideal for blind people, but they are very bright and clear if you have poor vision. Or you can always just use your ears to dial in the sound.
yeah I actually had no trouble seeing the leds change shapes on this video. you have a good point though with fully blind persons using there ears to operate the organ drawbars. my computer music professor once brought in a synth to show the class it was called a micro moog. It had something simillar to the drawbars but it was a strip which you could feel. It was in place of where you would normally find the mod wheel.
The ability to split & layer and to use both delay and reverb at the same time made me choose the 5!
QTijn Driessen
Exactly. That split and layer function is so vital.
Yes me too
me too
Personally i need physical ones, something i can pull rapidly and i can feel with my fingers, i don't use presets so when i have to switch sound i just reach for the drawbars and pull them without even watching them, i don't care to see the value of the drawbar cause i can ear the sound, i adjust them by sensation.
Exactly. To each their own, there's no right answer but I'm looking forward to the 5D with physical because I got my drawbar chops from a real hammond. You can "fade" the sound (as he desires) when playing live (hand palm). You can easily go from muted jazz / blues to staduim / gospel with a fistful of drawbars. Presets don't matter too much (to me). Hard to explain I guess. I have an Electro 2 now, can't wait to get a 5D.
Good video though for just the opinion and close up shots of the Electro 4! Wow, looks so much better than my older one. :D
Spoken like a true organ player.......who needs presets on an organ?...the whole thing is made for tweaking the sound live till you like it. I’ll take the one with actual drawbars...if I ever could pay for one of these nords.
@@chris.dillon ability to fade the sound in time is also my argument for the physical drawers. To me I don't like the presets.
And, I don't want to be offensive, but if one don't get into the drawers and need presets, it is almost about not knowing to work with them, not knowing what he is doing with the sound.
The 5D shows the Drawbar setting in the OLED display which is just fine if you want to see the sound you're playing and you will see it change in real time when you move them. The display also gives a lot more information. You don't get that on an actual Hammond anyway when you call up the preset stops, so what's the difference? The Drawbars are detented so they don't feel like Potentiometers. They click into position so you can feel them. You don't have to look. I'm not the so-called die hard Hammond player but I bought the 5D specifically for the drawbars. Sure. Nord make dedicated Organs with two sets of Drawbars, one for each manual but I think the Electro has one set just to give you a taste of physical drawbar control. I personally don't care for monkeying around with increment and decrement buttons for dialing in a sound while playing.
Same here. I'm not "extreme" or a 'minority" either. I just happen to like drawbars the way I bet the vast majority of organ players do.
When switching from a preset back to the physical drawbars, does the sound conform to the physical drawbar registration as it would on an actual Hammond? On a real Hammond, going from say, a ‘G’ preset back to the ‘Bb/B’ would return to that registration. If this is the case with the Nord 5, I’d prefer the actual drawbars where I can move them back and forth rather than pressing buttons.
i didn't buy any of them, here's why
im just broke
Yeah same.
If you are a experienced organ player that knows how to pad and will be using this board for live sessions, Real Drawbars are better for you.
If you are a recreational organ player that primarily plays jazz style for Studio use, LED drawbars will be the better fit.
for me the addition of split - layer rev - delay and most importantly the set list function. if you assign the sounds you want to the empty programme slots - you can tweak the sounds of those programmes for each song - then assign them to your set list and it will remember all your changes including any transpose changes. yes - no more hunting for that transpose change the singer made. so i have all my set songs named with all changes and layers and everything at the twist of one knob. perfect . and that's why i chose the 5d.
Wait until you play a 5d for a longer period of time. I have owned the 4d for two years and I'm very happy with my 5D. If there is a downside to the 5d, the only that i can think of is the lack of filters for the clavinet. I think the mismatch between played sound and position of the drawbars is very easy to work around. The only moment it is actually a problem is at the beginning of the songs or just the moment after or changing registrations of the lower manual. Which is hardly ever. Sure it takes some adjusting, but that is massively outweighted by all the other features, such as a massively bigger memory for your piano's.
2 sets of motorized sliders that s the answer
Brilliant, but I dont know if anyone designed one that wouldn't break after a little while. If someone engineers a motorized fader with a long life and can take daily use of manual control as well as automatic recall, then I am all for this option!
Definitely would be a cool concept!
Penny&Giles have motorized faders that'll survive a nuclear blast, I swear. Theres old flying fader desks that are 20+ years old now and still are fine.
If it was motorized then you only need 1 set of them so it works like the LED, right?
It would not be as pleasant as what you would think. Nord would have to compromise between keeping them as drawbars with actual clicking feeling or turning them into faders like every other non based instrument does. Otherwise you're going to hear clicking noise every time the motors move and they will sound annoying!
Alot of it has to do with tonation and what you are lookin for. I owned a B3 with a 147 leslie and did alot club and road gigs with it for many many yrs. (A BAC BREAKER) Can't beat the sound out of a B3 and when you get use to that; you are always lookin for that certain sound. When the Nord came out the Electro 2; I got one right away because of the portablity, 20 lbs; the Rhodes sounds, the clav sound, the B3 sound and the Acoustic Panio and I am pretty happy with it. To make it more versaitle, I added a Motif XS module and It's a killer rig. My whole rig weighs about 35 lbs. verses 400 lbs. for the organ and 125 lbs. for the leslie. The Nord is a good keyboard, but I still like that Hamond sound also. But as far as ergonomics I will pick the Nord! Make the wise choice, and don't fuck up your back cause you only got one!
Good points. Motorized faders seem like the ultimate solution and surprised I haven’t seen it yet. I guess the Yamaha YC61 comes closest with the LEDs adjacent to the physical draw bars. Nice Leslie on ver. 1.2 and $1000 cheaper. Not red, oh well.
As someone from the synth world: Loved the Nord lead 3 for the exact same reason: unlimited-turn virtual knobs that let you know the preset settings.
instantly.
Unfortunately methodology out of production with lead 4/nord wave - due to unfavorable production costs it is said.
There was only one manufacturer willing to produce the "LED rings" and it increased the prices and got very unreliable.
Good point. I quite prefer the LED drawbars, too!
Some organists, like John Modeski, like to fiddle the drawbars while they're playing. Plus, there's just something about actual physical tactile contact between man and machine. Lol, okay, maybe that's a bit melodramatic but some people might prefer that.
Paul TheSkeptic totally agree 100% you can really express your self with physical drawbars.
I agree with your reasoning, Woody. The Electro 4 LED drawbar configuration is a useful feature for its intended purpose, to graphically show the draw bar configuration for each preset. If I want a keyboard with Hammond-style physical draw bar controls, I'll buy a Hammond or a Hammond clone. If I want to use sliders for drawbars, I can use a MIDI controller like my Roland A800 Pro with Mainstage 3's Vintage Organ B3.
When I first heard that the nord electro 5 also features the physical drawbars I wanted to have this keyboard only because of this fact and on the electro 5 you can split and layer which is great in my opinion. This was something I was waiting for since the electro 3 but theres more. The electro 5 features 2 new effects and the delay is seperated from reverb that´s great too. After all those facts it was clear to me which keybord I want to buy the electro 5d .
yes arjan, you're right, the electro 5 does have a number of advantages and improvements over the 4, but nothing that was important to me, or compensated for the lack of led draws! Oh, i forgot to mention that my used NE4 is about half the price of the NE5 ;)
that's a very important fact but today I bought the NE 5d 73 for a very good price in a bundle so it wasn't too expensive
Woody Piano Shack so is a Casio buy that then
When I bought the electro 5d 73 (upgraded from ne3) I didn't know that I wanted to tweak the sound "in the action" so much that I do now. It's more playable and give me that feeling to instantly try out something different. So i hear you, but not agreeing. 😊 The "drawbar live" and "drawbar sync" is two useful buttons...
was really hoping to hear from 'D' model owners. Cool that it's working out for you, yes it might be just me that dislikes. it goes back to a Hammond XK that I used to own, and I never learned to live with the drawbars.
It's so funny how the Nord-Crowd are so excited about the newer models having splits/layers and other things that much less expensive and great sounding keyboards have been doing forever :-)
also funny that when the electro was launched nord were super proud that it didn't have all of those workstation features. not a swiss-army knife was the phrase they used.
It's so funny watching yall play "organ" sounds off a big touch screen with no drawbars in sight
@@vforvillain77 you're terribly confused
@@iltoni6895 aw honey
@@vforvillain77 you are
I TOTALLY agree with you about the drawbars. They look cool and less to break, some people prefer the drawbars and those just don't seem sturdy.
I agree with you about playing organ on hammer weighted keys. I was apprehensive when I bought my Stage 2 88 a couple of years ago. Idk if it's the same as the Electro HP, but in the Stage 2 turns out you can raise the trigger point of the keys for the organ so that they behave very much like semi weighted keys. You can do the tremolo notes and all very easily. Just for your info. I wouldn't be surprised if their was a 'pickup' setting for the physical drawbars. Seems like Nord would have though of that. Maybe not.
A bigger issue is that real Hammonds use multi contact keys with 9 positions and I'm yet to see this behavior simulated, where velocity (how deep the key is pressed in the actual Hammond) determines how many drawbars you hear, regardless of how many you have on. Only Hammond has done that with their digital B3.
If you're blind, the physical controls are the best.
Hey Woody. I have an Electro 3 and and Electro 5D.... and a Nord C1. They are all great instruments in their own right. I like the LED drawbars for the same reason as you. Its a great system if you use presets but it is less natural when playing the drawbars as most Hammond players do. The 5D drawbars are brilliant if you want to play the drawbars.
I have to say, in my opinion the 5D is a better instrument all round, with its larger memory, splits/layer etc. The OLED display shows the drawbar positions but it is a little strange getting used to this at first....... but I have really been enjoying playing this instrument... now motorised drawbars, that would really be something....
I own a Nord Electro 2-73 that I bought in 2007 it’s never had an issue and I agree with you. I also prefer the led drawbars.
This is where the Yamaha YC61 really shines, both the physical drawbars and the leds to match the patches. Maybe Nord will do a combination in the future.
I never had problems with the physical drawbars being at the wrong position when using presets.
To be honest, I can change the drawbars so fast that I no longer need the presets ... ;)
I'd say this is to personal taste ...
Being an owner of a variety of Nord keyboards, I never ever worried about the preset change thing so far. So, your point about using the LEDs instead of the drawbars is quite comprehensible. I am actually looking forward for the Stage 3 which has incredible new features, as the seamless transitions when changing sounds or programs, but Clavia will just offer the 73 version with the physical drawbars. Stage 3 HP76 and Stage 3 88 won't have it. I was amongst those, who always were missing the possibility to have a more precise influence on the B3 sound using drawbars, but now I am not really sure anymore, whether this or that might be the best solution. Anyway, thanks for your argument. ;-)
There was an octave in reverse colours on the B , C, and A100. These were presets. There were 9 of them: Bb and B switched between drawbar sets. When playing on drawbars, if any of the other 10 were switched during play, what you saw on the drawbars was not what you heard. I don't recall being confused by this. I have the NE3 and love it. The drawbar system makes no difference to me I just get on and play the f*****g thing whenever I get the time. I rarely talk about such trivia but I guess you got me here.
Yes, I find this function confusing. Here is my attempt to summarise, based on experiments on my NE5D 73.
Preset 1 and Preset 2 will each sound with the most recent drawbar changes you made after you last selected each Preset or switched to the Organ program, whichever came later. Preset 2 has the added feature that switching DRWB LIVE on or off allows you to toggle Preset 2 between the current drawbar settings or the most recent drawbar changes you made with Preset 2 selected (bearing in mind the settings could be identical).
I don't have an Electro 4, but I think the E4 manual provides a clue as to the thinking behind LIVE vs SYNC: (where E4 'Preset' setting seems to be equivalent to E5 DRWB SYNC)
"When Preset is active (the LED is lit), the drawbar settings in the preset will be used, and the drawbars on the panel will not affect the sound. This allows you to use one setting, and prepare the drawbars on the panel with a new setting to which you can change during the performance".
So perhaps the intended equivalent action on Electro 5 is to make changes to drawbars and then apply them on the fly by applying DRWB LIVE with Shift-Preset 2.
However, I can't see how you can prepare drawbar changes without also affecting the current sound (if you are already playing an Organ sound) - maybe with the KB SPLIT function - eg with Preset 2 selected, you play Part Lower to hear just the Preset 1 sounds, all the while preparing drawbar changes which you will hear when playing Part Upper - but you could do that without using DRWB LIVE.
As with a lot of the keyboard functions, I am probably missing something obvious, which the more experienced Nordists can put right. :)
JXrays
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Your Nord Gear #1: Nord Electro 5
I have the Electro 5d and I absolutely love it.
The physical drawbars are what i thought i wanted. After using my Electro 6D 73 for 3 weeks I admit that those LED drawbars would've been wonderful to have instead.
Hey Woody, was in total agreement with you about the LEDs after owning the original Electro for 10+ years and eventually upgrading to the 5D. And didn't opt for a 4 for the same reason you knicked the Nord Piano (only 64GB of sample memory). Have to say, the drawbars combined with the OLED display showing their positions is not bad. The benefit of "playing the drawbars" in Live Mode was worth the trade-off, IMO. But totally get where your head is on this.
swan, very nice to hear from one of the converted! perhaps i'll give it a another shot one day. you're right the memory is a pain, but it bothers me less on the electro, because focus is on e-pianos, clavs and organ, so i'm ok with having just one grand loaded. cheers!
I don't consider myself a Hammond purist, especially since I have very little experience playing organ. That said, I used to own a Hammond XK-2, and I loved it very much. It had these incredibly fast and comfortable waterfall keys, and the manual drawbars allowed me to use my hand to blindly "feel" and adjust the shape of the timbre while playing. I found this to be very intuitive and fun. I understand your disappointment with the way Nord presets interact with physical drawbars, but my thinking is that I wouldn't want presets to affect the drawbar positioning at all. I don't have the Hammond XK-2 anymore, but I think that's how it worked or that it could be set up to work that way. I don't own a Nord, and I wonder if the drawbar settings could be ignored in presets. My wish would be for changing the presets to only affect the circuitry, amp, or speaker modeling, eq, or effects, but not the drawbar positions. That way you always have a visual match to the physical control over the sound. And changing the drawbars is super fast and easy if you want to quickly transition. It's just a different way of looking at the experience. Kind of like how some synths take a "one knob per function" approach.
When the electro 9 comes out 50 years later, they're going to introduce magnetic draw bars like the ones on some high-end mixing boards today.
and low-end controllers like the Behringer BCF 2000
www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/behringer-behringer-dj-controller-bcf2000-bcf2000/10320077.aspx
bashful228 this actually looks neat I might take a look into it. Thanks
More like 15 years to see electro 9
Got the original Nord Lead (expanded). Later the original Nord Electro, which was capable of fully utilizing the Electro 2 software. After adding the GeForce M-Tron to my DAC, never had any urge to update. Really digging back into that Clavicord of late.
I have both the Nord electro 3 as well as a Hammond XK-5. When you use the presets on the Hammond, the drawbars don't change when you use the preset keys on the left side. Hammond players know this and merely memorize the drawbar sounds they created and saved for each preset. Most Hammond players either don't even use the presets, or use them very seldom. I also like the LED lights on the Nord 3, it's different from the Hammond and it's nice to see the different drawbar positions lit up when you change presets. . I like both systems that's why I have both. Others may prefer one or the other. I think Nord was trying to entice the Hammond players by changing from LEDs to sliders. Other features of the Electro series are way more important than the drawbars vs. LEDs. That would be my reason to buy a Electro 5 if I wanted other more advanced keyboard features. The main thing I like about the Nord 3 is that it weighs less than 20 pounds! - very easy to carry to a gig and have decent organ as well as piano sounds. I also highly recommend a QSC K8, K10 or K12 PA Amp rather than a regular keyboard amp. Way more power, low cost, light weight, and the piano and organ sounds way better when played through it.
Even if I had lighted faders the most annoying issue about the presets is that all sound is cut until crossfading in NE6.
Sound cut alone would be more of a pain than the drawbar issue. NE 5 also has organ bass and a better split so it works well for a a close to True organ experience with my MIDI pedalboard.
I have a Nord Stage 2 EX and a Hammond Xk-3c as well as an old Hammond L-100 (actual tone wheels). I don't have any problems with either setup but for my taste Nord made the right decision with physical sliders.
But since the electo5 shows you the positions for drawbars (both at the same time when running split) it seems like the problem is stillsolved. If anything the showing both drawbar setting option on 5d is better than one the 4d is capable of
Nord should have just made separate drawbars that could be plugged into the back of the keyboard as an optional accessory!
There are third-party developers that already did the reverse when the LEDs we're only available. I'm pretty sure they can do the reverse
Everyone has some opinion on a preference or another. My preference was for the 5D. My reason for this was longevity of the product. Buttons that you activate frequently fail eventually. Fader potentiometers fail if you don't protect them. But the risk of eventual failure is way more likely in the actual use over time of continuous pressure that a performer wanting to use the expressive control of draw bar style controls. It's plagued most keyboard players over time. Every board I've ever owned is affected this way. From Yamaha's legendary DX-7 to Korg's Wavestation. Ever have a remote control stop working? It's the same mechanics. A rubberized button input that collapses against a printed circuit card mounted potentiometer. It is all but unavoidable that routine contact displaces, or damages the actual potentiometer. I'm sure it's all personal preference though.
You have many valid points. Physical drawbars vs led is at the end of the day a matter of playing style. I like using physical drawbars is to change the sound while I´m playing without looking, just by feeling. Of course that meant on my Nord Electro 4D (which I sold, mostly because the organ sound and leslie sounded to harsh to my ears) it didn't make sense neither to use presets nor split during a live gig. But it did the trick using it as a one manual organ with a Korg SV-1. I sold it, replaced it with a Mojo61(amazing sound), sold the Mojo and now got a VR-09... Go figure... It´s about having the right tool, none does everything 100% so there will always be trade-offs...
nice summary, that's what I should have said! :) curious how you're getting on with the roland after the nord and mojo.
I still have a dual manual Mojo ;-) I got the VR-09 for the combo, that means the synth in addition to the organ. I´ll use the VR-09 with my Kurzweil Artis with the David Bowie tribute band, and the dual manual Mojo for blues. Hard to compete with the Mojo´s organ sound, especially after I got the Tall&Fat with the MiniVent II... The VR-09 is impressive for its weight and price and is certainly (more than) "good enough" for live performance. At least that´s the theory. Will use it on stage in January for some Bowie music...
I feel same way on the LED drawbars, it's a must have. It's definitely a love it or hate it thing. With the LED drawbars, I can see what settings all the keyboard players are playing on television if I want to try and replicate what they're playing.
hi dylan, guess you can copy the drawbar positions too, unless they happen to be using a preset that doesn't match the drawbars :)
the faders can be solved with automated faders, like in the mixers, they just move by themselves when needed, so they match the visual reference. Maybe they add this feature in the next versions :O
With physical drawbars i don't need programs for the organ, i reset manually each time. but that's a matter of personal preference. Interesting idea though. Been using Roland for 20 years and moving from stage
/ live performance keyboards that don't have any issues with effects chain, switching tones, etc. I wish my Roland would sound like a Nord (but still behave like a Roland ... )
I believe the 6D retains the drawbar settings per patch and displays their virtual position on the screen. And a simple button press sets the sound to be as the physically bars appear.
i believe so too, it just becomes a bit clunky when changing between upper and lower manuals which have different registration.
@@WoodyPianoShack I see, thanks (and for all your videos!) It’s nice that they are refining it with each model.
please could you not just have said it in the beginning of the video "i like LED drawbars as they change with the presets and here i will show you how it works" instead of talking around it for 3-4 minutes before saying it. I really like your channel in general but i dislike this type of "keep the viewer watching" flow tv tactic. Great channel otherwise and i have just subscribed and the video still gets a like .. so im not trying to be a grumpy pants just trying to give a bit of constructive criticism.
Agreed, this is why I'm not a subscriber. He doesn't respect the viewers time very much. it could have been said in one sentence, and ThEN do the elaborating.
You actually went to my channel to find something to criticize? I didn't even remember writing this, lol......
Physical drawbars = moving parts; they break.
Not disagreeing with you Woody, it is "each to their own" at the end of the day... but me, I prefer physical drawbars :-)
Now, I'm not a "Hammond purist" at all, but a proper set of drawbars, you can put your fingers or even hand/palm on during playing and move them how/when you want.... My biggest issue with the Nord is separate buttons for up and down drawbar. A "halfway house" solution on the Nords would have been to use touch sensitive LED faders, similar to the Yamaha Reface DX....? But frankly, for the money Clavia charge for Nords, I would have thought they could fit motorised sliders/drawbars to appease those like you, who don't like the settings being out-of-sync with presets. :-)
For what its worth, I bought a Roland VR-09, which is a great "all-in-one, go anywhere, do anything" keyboard for pianos, orchestral, synth sounds and organ - with *physical drawbars* - that was the great selling point for me. Yes, it has those issues of out-of-sync drawbars compared to presets and upper/lower register splits - but it does show all the preset drawbar settings on the oled screen. (I also love the way the pitch bender becomes the Leslie switch in organ mode, similar to a "proper" Leslie switch). The least desirable feature of the VR-09 is the lightweight 61 key synth-like keybed..... So you probably wouldn't like it, but it honestly doesnt bother me, all my keyboards/synths are different anyway and I've got used to it... But I know a lot of piano and organ players dont like it.
However, the VR-09 is a *fraction* of the price of a Nord..... ;-)
I think the VR09 is by far the best bang for the buck. I have it sitting next to 6 grand worth of Hammond XK3C, and I end up playing the Roland probably 75% of the time horsing around just due to the extra voices. I put it on a stand made for a lap steel so there's actually room for my knees and a pedal... I despise X stands. But as you pointed out the preset thing is an issue on anything with physical drawbars, not just the Nord 5, but the VR09, as well as my XK3C, and even a real B3 with its factory presets that you change with a soldering iron.
I also have a junky L112 spinet. Very weak sound but it's fun to play. I love the close overlapped upper manual diving board keys, the mechanical key contacts, and the genuinely dirty sound. It has toggle presets, God knows what drawbar positions they represent. It cost me next to nothing and it's a real tonewheel. Some day I'll figure out how to get it up two flights of stairs, and maybe even figure out how to hitch it to my 2101 without starting a fire.
Gary, I agree.
I have a Roland RD-2000 and it has 9 physical draw bars on it. I couldn't picture myself on stage clicking the up and down buttons to set each bar while live. With draw bars, all you do is slide them, DONE!
Totally agree with you buddy. No physical Drawbars. It is absurd
Yamaha made some OTT monster 'home' organs in the 1980s. FX-10 and FX-20 had fully motorised sliders.
I've got a 5d 73. In my opinion, 1gb for pianos + bigger display + 2 independent layer volumes are more than enough to attest that electro 5 is much more complete than electro 4.
i would agree that the 5 has some interesting new features, but not super important in my opinion. the e-piano and organ engine is still the same so i was happy to get the 4 and save some cash,
Um, on a B3 you get the same thing. 2 adjusts per manual, and 9 presets. Pick a preset, drawbars don't move and have no bearing on the sound. That said, yeah, the UM/LM thing is a deal breaker. They should have made it so you could have a 2nd set as an add on - or just an add on in general. I think I recall an outfit called Turtle Beach made a MIDI drawbar controller years ago as a response to that "vocal minority" you spoke of.
I'm not a Hammond player - other than faking it briefly from time to time. However, my Hammond sort of purist buddy, a really good player, likes "playing" the drawbars. As he's playing, he's frequently changing a couple drawbars at the same time, bringing out the higher harmonics for a passage and whatnot. I'm thinking that's where the B purists might be coming from. Let's be real, the Nord is emulating the B, right? You can hit a black key present and play with no visual feedback on the settings. However, you can manipulate the drawbars before switching back to their control. Anyway, I'm not one, but I admire good B players; what an instrument it is!
Ok brother, why didn’t you buy the electro 6 D ?
What do you think about the stage 3 and what is the difference between the stage 3 and the electro ?
I’m buying a Nord in the next few days and I want to make sure I buy the right “one “
never tried it, but it comes down to if you need the mod/pitch controls, synth engine, and your budget, choice of keybed. but i have vids about NE6D and NS2.
So if I understood you correctly you have one (!) argument against the physical drawbars, which is the lack of the already mentioned little motors to adjust the position of the drawbars to the actual preset.
"What you see is what you get" might be right here, but I see more advantages than disadvantages. Why don't you talk about both sided then?
Physical drawbars are very intuitive to use especially in a live context.
They are much more easy to adjust on the run as you can move them all the same time using your hand instead of using all your fingers for pushing little buttons.
When you use 800000008 and want to change it to full drawbars during a song, you can even hear a slightly difference between the use of LED-knob-system and the physical drawbars (because the smoothness of grabbing these and pulling them slowly is not doable with the knobs!).
In the end I agree, that it's definitely a matter of personal taste - but (without being a so called hammond-purist) if you want to play all the Nord Instruments in a proper way because you love the variety of it you should be glad about the physical drawbars instead of putting so much effort in looking for arguments against them.
(as I mentioned earlier, there's only one I see....)
They don't use encoder knobs for drawbars, it's an LED matrix with up/down buttons and they work really easily
I never thought about it that much before, but I enjoy playing most music on weighted piano style keys. I noticed when I play a regular synthesizer I hit the keys way too hard and my fingers have the ability to play so much faster. :) Excellent video. I've never played on any nord. I guess I'll have to check them out. :) Take care.
I think exactly the same way to you about this issue! Same reason I have no problem with the controls on the Moog LP vs the Sub 37
Hammond organ presets (inverted color keys) work the same way as the Nord 5...you can select a preset and move drawbars on the fly.
Flying "faders" drawbars would be perfect. Still physical feeling drawbars, but they'll motorboat their way to where the positions are in the preset automatically. If behringer can build a dirt cheap flying fader mixboard then the motorized sliders cant be TOO expensive to add.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing. But in my opinion, It's not about E4 vs E5, but LED vs Drawbars. All the characteristics you mention here are present in E5 as well in E4. I own an E5 HP and in my opinion, E5 has a lot of advantages over E4, but this advantages has noting to do with LEDs or Drawbars. In fact, E5 and E4 are identical on this. I think that this video should have another name, maybe LED vs Drawbars, or something like that.
Hi Javier, thanks for the feedback! i stand by my choice of title, I would have loved the NE5 for the extra memory, but since they don't offer LEDs any more I had to look to the previous model. I did think about the 5HP, but didn't like the form factor (no backpack case) and weighted keys for organ is a turn-off. Great board though and hope it's working out for you though, this was purely my personal preference. :)
Hi Woody! Yes, you are right about that the only NE5 that has LEDs is the NE5HP. I didn't notice that. I'm almost sure that when I bought my NE5HP last year, there was an NE5D with LEDs, but I could be wrong. Hence, the title of your video is appropriate. Thanks again for sharing your great videos!
... and of course as you know you can get the led drawbars - or physical ones on the Stage 3
Just seeing this now. How do you feel about the touch screen drawbar setup that Korg put on the Vox Continental? To me, they seem better, as it's much quicker to get the drawbar settings you like. You still get the instant recall of the drawbar settings, but you can very quickly get all the drawbar settings you want, as opposed to the Nord LED drawbars, which must be handled individually.
i haven't tried one, but in general i dislike operating synths from a touchscreen. you need buttons or drawbars that you can easily grab, touchscreens require too much looking at and precision to operate.
I can understand getting a 4 instead of a 5D. The led drawbars do have some advantages but I chose a 5D 61 with the physical drawbars.
As always, enjoy your perspective. BTW you should check out the new Dexibell Combo J7, that has motorized drawbars. It is a wonderful keyboard. Dexibell's piano sounds are even slightly better than Nord's.
thanks for the comments thomas, and i'll keep an eye open
Well, the Dexibell J7 does have motorized faders (not real drawbars, as Woody pointed out).
It does have great sounds as well, whereas playing piano on an organ keybed is just as pointless as the other way round. But the J7 organ sounds are crap, esp. the distortion and the fast rotary effect. So I wouldn't buy it and rather accept static faders / drawbars for a good clonewheel sound.
Dude, that’s really a very god point about it! I thought the Electro 5 Drawbars (actually faders) were motorized, like those in digital mixing consoles. That would be really good to have, but now, thinking deeper about it, I wonder those mechanisms is probably too big and heavy for an instrument whose main advantage over the competition is the construction quality, the excellent sounds and the low weight, actually, for its qualities and specifications, the lightest in its market. Would it be possible for Nord to motorize those Drawbars in the future?
i'd be worried about the long-term reliability of motorized drawbars in a keyboard you typically carry around in the nord backpack! leds for the win
Interesting discussion on the drawbars... LED vs. physical or the classic analog vs. digital debate. I'm a total novice organ player, I've been at it only about 6 years on a part time basis. I've never played a real B3. I have an XK3C with dual manuals and a Leslie 2101, and I also have a Roland VR09 which has physical drawbars. The thing is, with physical drawbars on any instrument - Nord, Roland, XK3C, or even a real B3, when you hit a preset, the drawbars will not match the sound you have pulled up. I would think any experienced Hammond player is used to this. The thing is when I watch Hammond players in action, I rarely if ever see them use a preset. I use presets on my Roland almost entirely for other synth voices where the drawbars are irrelevant. Although on some, they do affect the sound but maybe only half of them have any effect. This is undocumented and weird. But even as a middle aged beginner I found myself gravitating toward the legacy B3 setup - dual sets of physical drawbars to control upper and lower manual. Ok, I don't have the whole nine yards extra sets of a true B3 or A100 or the "New B3" which is basically a way to get way, way, way more money for an XK3C setup. I could not stand the pushbutton Leslie controls. The Leslie has three states - off, slow, and fast. The three buttons can produce 8 different combinations 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. Quick, which of these represent off, slow, and fast? So one of my first additional purchases was a moon switch. Again, no prior B3 experience but a three position switch seems utterly logical to control a 3-state device.
I bought the Roland to act as a portable everything. I was stuck using an 88 key Korg Chrome for our band because it was what they had, and I wasn't about to lug my XK rig. I looked at the XK1, but for half that money the Roland VR09 gives me real drawbars, a kinda-sorta moon switch (I still have to push a button for "off"), and extra voices not present in the XK3C like piano, EP and other synths although the EPs are not very good unless you really slam the keys. I'm contemplating plugging a guitar chorus pedal into the mix to see what that does, I'm told it vastly improves the EP sounds if I want something more like a classic Rhodes or Wurli. The Roland also has a halfway decent OB-XA (it's called "JMP BRASS") and I have it on a preset because it seems like I'm always working on Van Halen 1984 stuff, badly. But we did record "I'll Wait", my first ever keyboard lead with a bunch of punch-ins but I played the bridge in one take... lol. I truly suck as a player, but I guess even as a beginner it's not all that strange to have developed preference for the physical controls. I imagine the Nord 4 or 5 does a better Hammond than my Roland. But hey, 15 lbs, 800 bucks and it fits in a guitar gig bag. In January... we're getting the band back together. I will probably end up playing bass or keyboard but I might be allowed to strum a guitar line or two. I am basically a horn player... trombone and saxophone. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm about a 5 on the sax, 3 on the trombone, 2 on keyboard, 1 on bass guitar, and about a minus 6 on guitar.
Regardless of why they did the change , people are confused. NORD needs to create a FIX. If I were NORD and I was going to put drawbars on a KEYBOARD I would make them MOTORIZED to move when you select the preset so they match or they should have 2 sets of drawbars at least. I am wanting to try the NORD C2 but actually wanting the new Hammond XK 5 Pro.
i wouldn't personally want motorized faders on a gigging keyboard, too complex and fragile for a gigging keyboard. does the recent hammond xk models have them? some guys have said that live drawbar mode on the electro solves the problem when switching between programs, i can see that, but wondering about what happens when switching between lower and upper manuals. others have said that you tend to use the same settings on lower manual like 808, so maybe not such an issue after all. i'll have to try one again.
Is it a good idea to use ribbons instead of buttons or drawbars? In this case, perhaps we can get some of the touch of a drawbar, and not have to worry about presets.
I guess it totally depends on who you are.... I love the physical bars for during-play/jam fun while being able to slide them at the exact speed and finesse that I need
Exactly why i traded my electro 2 for my Mojo. I love how it basically starts with one sound that can be tweaked and changed using the classic Hammond effects. Nords are great but not necessary when you're just trying to play a clone
Glad i watched the whole video though. I've probably become more of a "Hammond purist" but I definitely see how the LED bars are super helpful for quick actions during gigs. would be nice to have best of both worlds with physical bars that can move automatically and manually. the technology exists
Each to their own methinks. I'm no Hammond purist, I do have a real C3 though, it has presets (the inverted lower octave keys are each a preset, they are programmed up by wire links in the back). I tend to know where the drawbars need to be for a certain sound, I just slowly move them as desired. Not hard to learn. You make a good point about not knowing what the presets have been set to, mind you neither do real C3 players! But if there is a mimic on the display that's fine. Personally all those bargraph leds and button pressing to move them would drive me nuts, so each to their own. I'm thinking if to buy the 5D, I nervous as I have the real thing and would be so upset when I do the 1:1 comparison and find they are way different, I assume the 5D has the key foldback. Leslies play a big part too. One thing I'm wondering is, if I could sample my own C3 and load the samples into the 5D, do I sample/load each tonewheel and the 5D does the rest (drawbar mixing). anyway, thanks for the vid.
well glad you appreciated the vid and awesome to hear some thoughts from a C3 owner, that's a magnificent organ! You're very lucky. Couldn't say it better, to each their own, Thanks for the post.
Hi Woody, I also disagree with your opinion. But don't panic! The 2 types of drawbars depend on personal favor. That's why Clavia make them seperately for 2 types of keyboardist. I thought that the idea of physical drawbars make for player who want to play for various instruments keys such as Organ for Electro 5D 61, 73 that both have a waterfall keys. And then Clavia has continuous product The brand new Nord Stage 3 73 compact with physical drawbars, And in the part of pianist who focus on portable keyboard, Clavia make some Electro 5HP with hammer portable action and they don't play on organ to much so LED virtual are enough, I'm a big fan of your channel, So thank you for shared video and your experiences.
that's great to hear the other side of the story! it's just that clavia are phasing out the leds, they are now only available on the HP models, which aren't suitable for organ anyway! thanks for checking out the vid :)
You can see the drawbars position in the Display on the 5D , just a way how you make youre setting .
couple of quick questions regarding nord keyboards.first one is,if you buy one with these"proper drawbars" can you set these to the sound you like then write the sound into memory? I take it that you can do this with the L.E.D drawbars too?.My next question is,why do not ALL the nords come with a music holder rest at the rear and only selected few.I'm a reader and i'd really want a compact stage 3 or stage 2 with non weighted keys as weighted is no good for me,cheers.lee
Maybe your opinion is due to what you've written below, you are no drawbar player. But the Hammond is a drawbar instrument and drawbars add a lot to the playing, maybe
compared to switch situations on comparable organs of the time. With
drawbars you have a physical indication of the sound as a shape if you
want. You can simply modify them with the left hand while you are
playing with the right one and thus create morphings and blendings
whithout even having to watch. One great example where that's done which
comes to my mind is "Fly like an eagle" from the Steve Miller Band. Now
how would you do that with these silly knobs on the Electro 4? Also,
motor faders would not help with that. You are right they should have 2
or 3 groups of drawbars for the manuals. BUT: This as you pointed out is
no dedicated only organ simulation. It's a question wether you would
use the splits on your keyboard for that anyway instead of combining it
with let's say a piano. But however if you do that, you're gonna have
rather common and constant settings for lower manual and bass where the
tweaking should be less necessary. The part where it's important will be
the upper manual. There you need it and you can't fullfill that with
these buttons the same way as with drawbars. So the decision in my point
of view is absolutely the right one.
hi torben, appreciate the comment as i wanted to hear the other side of the coin! You make some very good points. thanks. yes, i'm not coming from a tonewheel hammond organ background, i'm just a casual player who makes do with some basic drawbar settings for comping in a band. i've never been one of those cats who "plays the drawbars". :) my experience of real drawbars comes just from my Hammond XK1 where I found their positions to be constantlyout of sync with the actual sound. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be using presets anyway! One day I'll pick up a NE5, in which case I'll post an update on the channel. You have a huge Winwood fan here btw, in particular About Time album.
It's funny, but I don't care much about this--I really like having physical drawbars, but I also like the LEDs. Best compromise is to get something like the Ocean Beach digital drawbars.
I didn't go for the Electro 5 because of the sudden lack of clavinet flexibility--canned clav sounds instead of dynamic clav switch emulation.
ouch, they dumbed down the clav in the 5? sure about that? the clav emulation is fab and flexible in the NE2, haven't explored it in the 4 yet.
Yeah, I've been told that you can shift between clav presets, but not modify it in the dynamic way, mimicking the old rocker switches, like you can on the 2-4.
To tell you the truth I was more focused on how loud the keys sounded? The key-bed is quite noisy for a keyboard costing this much...
motorized drawbars would be a great an futuristic solution.
Good point. Physical drawbars make more sense when you have 4 or 5 sets of them. ;)
well two would be enough for me! most serious hammond clones including c2 have two, some even have pedal drawbars.
Woody, guess what I just saw. Nord stage 3 has a parameter that tells the keyboard's organ to snap to the physical drawbar location when you choose a new program. :). How about that?
thanks hugh, that's interesting, yeah think that would work. i suppose you can choose to have just the upper manual snap to the drawbars, which is perfect, since i usually keep lower on 808.
I sold my 4D and bought a 3 LED for the same reason a couple of years ago
On Nord's physical drawbars, like a lot of modern workstation/synths, or just midi controllers controlling your DAW on your computer, I believe you can set the faders to "catch" the registered values and would only modify the value when the physical sliders reach the registered values, instead of "jump". True this might still be a disadvantage but definitely something that you can get used to.
got yoy. good point woody (and i'm playing a 2 manual xk3c with pedals, my piano is a nord2 88hp)
There's no comparison. The 5 is better. If you're a real hammond player, and you're used to working drawbars on the fly, LED draws are very clumsy. I never use presets, and theres enough time to change from swirly gospel to Jimmy smith, to all out scream. It takes time to learn. Plus you can save presets on the 5, so thats no issue. LED is nice for those who just need to plunk a preset and play, but if you work drawbars, this is so incredibly hard to use with LEDs.
Re. touch sensitive LEDs... I would never consider it. I don't even like touch pads on my laptop, I disable it and get a cordless USB mouse. Too much can go wrong there especially if there's no secondary way to move the drawbars. Motorized drawbars to jump at presets - that could be cool but it's probably something that would drive the price up and a high probability of breaking at an inopportune time. I think the best answer to the whole preset thing is... don't use presets. But with a jack-of-all-trades like the VR09, there's going to be weirdness. One of them is, it doesn't remember the drawbar settings when powered off. Regardless of the physical drawbar positions, when you power on, you get 888000000. Or if you switch to piano and switch back to organ... yep, 888000000 regardless of physical position. That is one difference from a real Hammond. But hey, 800 bucks and I've got a Hammond, piano, OB, a bunch of really strange junk I'll never use, and maybe a Rhodes if I can figure out how to filter the output.
I like the led drawbars. The Electro 5 HP has them.
I've had the 4D for a while and love the drawbars, until I take it out live and am changing patches over MIDI and then it becomes a huge pain for the reasons you describe! Maybe Nord could adopt the approach that Kurzweil did with the Forte - real faders but with an LED ladder next to it to show its position in the current present. Best of both worlds?
personally i wouldn't want motorized mechanisms in my keyboard, recipe for future maintenace issues i think...
The faders aren't motorised, they're just faders, but they do give you some visual feedback if the physical position is different from the internal position.
It's funny - it took drawbars appearing on the E4D to get me to buy a Nord! But funnily enough I did find exactly the same problems as outlined here, especially after coming from an old tonewheel A100 where you've got two sets of bars per manual and thus four sounds at your fingertips (as well as the preset keys). Of course, learning to live without drawbars IS the answer - then you can have your multiple registrations set up like on a real organ, and switch between them with clear visual reference. But no - I decided to solve the problem by trading the E4D in for a C2D, and don't regret that, although I have finally succumbed to lugging an Electro around as well for the EP sounds! I think the statement in the video is right - put the drawbars on the C2D and keep the all-in-one Nords on the old button system. Or at least offer the buttons on the 61 and 73 SWs again. The moral of this story: I eventually played a festival in Norway with hired in gear (a Stage 2) and of course...the dreaded draw-buttons that put me off going Nord for years were absolutely fine in reality.
I'll have to disagree with you on this one...the electronic drawbars suck!
@@MikaelLewisify they do indeed, but they are the only way of making one set of drawbars work when you switch presets short of motorised faders, which I just know would get knackered quickly. Don't get me wrong: I'm an A100 and two leslies man at heart, nobody likes seeing lots of drawbars more than I do ;-)
Why not going for tactile drawbar control like in the Kronos but this time full sized !
So both LED versions and drawbar versions do exist to choose from.. Everyone should be happy!
It would be much better if you said at the beginning that this is just your personal opinion as an un-trained B3 player; that people should reach their own conclusions, and there's a lot more to think about. Especially since the difference in price online between the 4D and 5D can be as little as $200 now that the Electro 6 was announced. This is designed to be a working musician's stage keyboard. Do YOU play out much? I play out enough to know it would be almost impossible to argue the Electro 4 is a better value than the 5 for what they can be purchased for online. The 5D is SO much more powerful than the previous versions in so many ways. You can't just overlook it on the basis of the drawbars. You could have also mentioned the missing Clavinet models on the 5 vs the 4 - that's a huge one for me... But 1GB of sample piano memory on the series 5 Electro vs. 380MB (or 180MB on the 61-Key 4D) goes a long way towards letting you get whatever sound you want. So does the ability to split and layer different models. So does a new church organ model, OLED display, set lists, dedicated delay...and on and on. For live performing the Nord Electro 5 is a very big step up - arguably Nord's biggest evolution of this keyboard. Don't take it from me, just read the reviews.
Regarding the drawbars, so much about playing the B3 like the pros is in the manipulation of the drawbars and other controls on the organ. As a player, I want real drawbars to master the proper physical technique - I own a Nord Electro 2 and an Electro 5D - and I really dislike the LEDs for that reason. The LED lights can be very difficult to adjust accurately when playing on stage (especially adjusting more than one drawbar at a time), and they add nothing to the functionally of the organ since you should be adjusting the drawbars by ear anyway - like a synth player adjusts filter cutoff. They are just a picture of the sound, like a preset name. After two minutes of playing the 5D, it's pretty obvious which drawbars need to be adjusted to get more treble or bass; and after a week you can recognize the most common settings by ear.
The LEDs are fine for the infrequent organ player who just wants too know what to expect; but are a poor reason to overlook all the other significant improvements of the Electro 5D. I can respect the OPs personal choice - he is free to have his own preferences - but it's not a choice I would seek to advise others to follow, since he is recommending a much less powerful keyboard overall for no real long-term benefit to the player. I much prefer the drawbars of the 5D as a learning tool for playing the B3 with proper nuance; and I hope I'll be better prepared to rock the drawbars the next time I sit down at the real thing.
the title of the video is "I didn't buy... here's why", not "you shouldn't buy..." and it goes without saying that this is my personal opinion voiced on my channel and I'm obviously not advising anybody else what opinion they should have. I've owned 4 Nord Electros and 2 Hammond organs and played out 4 nights a week for 15 years (blues, pop, soul, jazz) although I confess to not lugging around a B3 and leslie so perhaps I'm unqualified to share my opinion... :) thx for commenting, it was a really good read and you and many others disagree with me, and that's fine! you get the model that suits you and I'll do the same.
If you had tried the Nord Electro 5, you'd know that you still have visual feedback on the fantastic OLED screen and when you move a drawbar, there are no glitches, it is like adjusting a touch fader in relative mode. When you change presets, the new faders are shown on the OLED and you can move the real ones to adjust as needed. If you're 'not sure how it works' (your words), then please don't base your recommendation [or share an uninformed opinion] on it. The Nord LED faders are a total mess for actually playing the drawbars unless you press the button one press at a time. Otherwise, they scroll too fast to control properly. (Nord didn't get rid of them because they were 'too popular') On the 5D I can always see the upper, lower and pedal drawbars - all at once - in the OLED, without having to hit a switch (like on the 4). You don't give up anything on the 5D from the 4. To recommend keeping a tiny crap two-digit LED display and sacrificing all the great features of the 5 because you like LED drawbars is absolutely absurd. This review gets a huge thumbs down from me and illustrates the hazard of comparing features from online browsing without trying it first. I'll never miss the LEDs and welcome the amazing and powerful new features of the 5 and 6 series. (If you're a weekly player, they are a HUGE upgrade well worth it. You should try one.) They are major revisions to the platform and both get two big thumbs up! Thanks for listening!
Best solution would be real drawbars that are basically flying faders, would add a bit of cost but prob worth it
Erm...programmable synths with knobs and sliders (like my SuperNova) have exactly the same problem as you highlight with the draw-bars. Did Clavia/Nord not implement a "pass through" function on the models with physical draw bars?
hi andrew, totally good point, this occurred to me too. yeah synths like my nord lead have panel mode, which is perfect and what i often like to use. but when using split keyboard for lower & upper manual it doesn't work, since two sets of drawbars are necessary. cheers.
Completely agree with you...
Physical vs LED drawbars is only one of the issues in that comparison. Didn't really think about how convenient the LEDs could be compared with the "real" drawbars in terms if visibility. I've been a really satisfied user of Electro 3 for years and some months ago I decided it's about time to upgrade and to go for Electro 5. What a disappointment it was! OK, there's dual and layer, much more memory, real advantages, I agree. But there goes the Hammond simulation/new leslie adjusment - so thinner and raspier than E3's. Not to mention the outputs are adjusted to be too hot and crackle when volume is set a bit louder - something that doesn't happen with E3 and I compared both models with the very same settings and PA. Also, the E5's pots feel significantly cheaper than E3's (Nord introduced these with Stage 2 EX describing them "smoother" - well, I still prefer the E3 ones a lot more, after all these years they still work great, with a very pro feel on them). I admit the size of E3 is just pathetic for the novadays standards, but having in mind it's a stage piano, doesn't have monophonic mode and arpeggiator, these 68 MB could accommodate only poly sounds - pad, synths - and using them wizely with the Nord Sample editor, you could end up with a very handy and satisfactory sound set. As for the B3 - many will argue that E4 and E5 (having the C2D engine onboard) have much more "authentic" organ. Well, that's why I have Neo Vent II :) So I returned E5 and got back my old and trusty Electro 3. Best regards to all!
very interesting! i skipped the 3. i've only briefly played the organ on the 4 but I can hear slight improvement over the 2. it's the same from the C2, the E3 has same as C1 if i recall. the output on the ne4 seems to be much lower than my other keyboards. you have to crank it to get a hot signal.
Hm, I'm not sure about the level of E3 outputs compared to other synths/keyboards. Recently I play only in blues projects (though I'm a prog rock lover), so I don't bring anything more than just E3. But you're right, it's a C1 based engine. BTW I really do miss a monophonic option . With the so many possibilities to get hold of some Moog samples and with the beauty of Nord sample editor (with its velocity and filter settings), it would be great to have some fat mono quasi analog sounds within Electro.
I just use Ivory 2 with a laptop, use the Bosendorfer piano & be done with it all...... :)
I bet you also transpose the keyboard if the change the key..
He should just be real and say I brought the Nord Electro 4 because I got a steep clearance discount on it.
Hahaha!
I can tell you never owned a Hammond Organ Woody. You have to have those drawbars Bud. I have tried to pull down multiple drawbars on a Nord Electro 2 live at a Gig and it Sucks. Thank You Nord for putting real drawbars on my Electro 4. These Nord Electro Keyboards were originally designed to do 3 things, Organ, Electric Piano and Piano. They did not want to build a Jack of all master of nothing machine.
all fair points, thanks arthur!
@@WoodyPianoShack No disrespect Woody I like your channel a lot.
is there any moving parts on the led bars? any tactile feedback? or is it like capacitive buttons on an android phone?
Nope, none whatsoever. I hate them.
YC61? seems to have both
I think Yamaha made it so that you have to move the sliders past/through the current setting to “catch” and then start adjusting the drawbar settings.
Woody still needs to review the YC someday 😁
despite i preferred the phisical...i have to...agree!!!!
they should come out with motorised drawbars or something. Also I like the idea of the led ones but for visually impaired user I could see it becoming a problem.
no tactile response, not ideal for blind people, but they are very bright and clear if you have poor vision. Or you can always just use your ears to dial in the sound.
yeah I actually had no trouble seeing the leds change shapes on this video. you have a good point though with fully blind persons using there ears to operate the organ drawbars. my computer music professor once brought in a synth to show the class it was called a micro moog. It had something simillar to the drawbars but it was a strip which you could feel. It was in place of where you would normally find the mod wheel.