Salon de la Musique et du Son Nord users and fans are welcome to Paris from Friday
12th to Monday 15th September 2008, to visit one of the biggest music events
in France; the Music
and Sound Show at the Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles - Salon de
la Musique et du Son. Each and every Nord product will be on display
and staff from our French distributor Algam
will be available to answer questions and to give demonstrations.
The Algam booth will be the size of a small country and can be easily located
at the coordinates A111-C111-E111. Rendez-vous à Paris! Nord were represented at the recent MIAC
2008 Trade Show in Toronto by our Canadian distributor Musicmarketing. New Feature: Have a Good Old Click on the image above for a short slide show presentation of some of the action in the
booth. All of our products were on display and the great crew (the mugshot
above shows Ray, Lyle, Lucas, Brandon and Lindsey) were quite busy answering
questions and demoing our products. There were even some memorable musical
moments when Canadian dealers took the chance for some impromptu jamming, as seen in the video clip below.
The C1 and the Nord Stage sure brings out the best in people!
Thanks and Merci to everyone who stopped by the booth, see you again soon. Product Highlight
The Nord C1 Combo Organ has been acclaimed as "probably
the best gig-organ in the world" by several satisfied users. In
a compact package, weighing in at only 15 kgs (33 lb), you get an unrivaled
portability, and a massive Wall of Sound from the tonewheel and the transistor
models, complete with an amazing Rotary Speaker simulation and some great
effects to spice up the sound even further.
Read more about the C1 and hear some examples on our Product
Pages. And don't take our word for it, give yourself a personal Nord
C1 Combo Organ experience at your local retailer.
We are very pleased to announce the immediate release of the new Nord
Stage operating system version 3.12 and the Nord Stage Manager
version 3.12. These updates are accompanied by a new USB driver version
2.06 and one new Grand Piano sample, the Studio Grand mk 2 Yamaha C7
Close. These updates are compatible with all previous and current
Nord Stage models and revisions.
The new features in the Nord Stage OS v3.12 are:
Mono Piano mode - this will apply to all the acoustic stereo grands
and uprights in the Stage. The Mono Mode will be activated from the panel
by pressing the Clav EQ Soft/Medium button, no substitution of the samples
in the Stage will be necessary.
Improved Sustain Down functionality - some of the more elaborate
Nord Stage acoustic pianos have pedal-down samples, which are activated
when the sustain pedal is operated. The activation of these samples have been improved.
Extended Synth Program Library - the new Stage OS will increase the synth program library to include a total of 300 programs.
New digital waveforms - the selection of digital waveforms in the Synth Section have been increased to 77.
Improved Sys Ex support - the Sys Ex capabilities will allow users to be able to dump or load banks and/or individual synth programs via MIDI.
Voice Allocation - the voice allocation of the Synth Section is improved, minimizing any issues when the available polyphony runs out.
Velocity Curves - the Extern Section have been updated with velocity curves in order to better cater for the control of external units.
Swell input as Volume - a system setting provides users with the choice to use an expression pedal connected to the Swell pedal input as a volume pedal for all the sections in the Nord Stage.
Copy Panels - users will be able to copy settings between the Panels A and B.
Nord Stage Manager 3.12
The Nord Stage Manager version 3.12 has librarian
features that can handle the transfer of pianos, programs and synth patches,
to and from the Nord Stage. It is also equipped with convenient backup and
restore functionality. The
new Studio Grand mk2 Yamaha C7 is the first of the new generation
pianos samples that are scheduled for release in 2008. The grand itself
were prepared specifically to provide a warm, expressive and very dynamic
sound. This sample is the close-up version.The
updates are available in the Software
Updates area and the new grand in the Nord
Stage Sound Libraries area. The documentation of the new features
can be found here.
The Nord Wave Sample Instrument library just
got a lot bigger.
On July 3, we added 11 new archives with lots of new Sample Instruments;
these archives also contain some new versions of the factory samples in
the Nord
Wave Sound Library area. This installment contains 281 MB worth of
material, and is of course available for free.Use
the Nord Wave Manager to download the new Sample Instruments to
the Wave and don't forget to try the Samp Init function
on the Wave (press Shift+Vibrato) to activate the default parameter set,
for the sample you have selected as a waveform in oscillator 2.Alan
Pasqua, an extremely talented musician and Nord Stage user came by
the office to pick up the new Stage OS, the new Stage Manager
and the new Grand mk2. If you want to see and hear a magnificent player
do things with a Nord Stage that goes well beyond the ordinary, check
out this
clip or this
song from the Live at Yoshi's DVD where Alan joins Allan Holdsworth,
Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Haslip in a great live performance.
Visit Alans official
website for more info and some great samples of his music. Click
here to read a feature article on Alan from All About
Jazz, Feb., 2008.Nord Catalogue 2008If
you'd like to get your hands and eyes on all the Nord product information
in one go, you can download the 2008 version of the Nord Product
Catalogue in the .pdf format. This special download friendly version
weighs in at 3.8 MB and is available right
here. Right- or Ctrl-click on the link to save the catalogue on
your hard drive. In order to commemorate the first 25th anniversary
for Clavia, we have created the Nord Lead Anniversary Model Limited
Edition. This collectible synthesizer will be made in a limited production
run that will consist of only 299 units. Read
more...Development newsOn January 24, 2008, members of the development
team at Clavia began the process on updating the editor and the drivers
for the Nord G2 Modular. The team are working simultaneously
on a Vista driver and an Intel compatible Mac version
of the editor. We cannot estimate on a release date yet, this will
be announced later.The Vista driver and the Intel-compatible editor will be available
as a free download on this website when they are completed. The first version of the Mellotron
Sample Library is available in the Nord Wave download area.
We've seen some more very flattering product reviews
that we'd like to show you (ok, bragging is probably the operative word
here). The internationally acclaimed UK based magazine Sound
on Sound had two Nord reviews, back to back in the April and May issues.
The Nord C1 Combo Organ was under the scrutiny of Mr Gordon Reid.
Here are a few quotes:
"Make no mistake: despite the lack of real drawbars, I like the C1 very
much. It's superbly playable, and the sound is excellent. Choosing the Hammond
mode, I experimented with jazz, blues and pop styles, and it responded and
sounded just as I wanted. I strayed deep into prog rock with Deep Purple
riffs, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Focus, and then - at the touch of a button
- transported myself into soul and gospel territory, and the C1 always delivered."
"I think you could justify the cost of the C1 for its Vox and Farfisa
modes alone!"
"The C1 is a first-class instrument. Its emulations are excellent, and the chorus/vibrato and Leslie effects are as good as I have heard. Would I use one? Certainly, and I believe that few, if any, listeners would be able to tell that I was not using an original Hammond, Vox or Farfisa."
In the May issue, Mr Paul Nagle took the Nord Wave through its paces,
leaving no sonic stone unturned. Here are a few excerpts from his review:
"Speaking of ethereal mush, the Vocal filter is my personal favourite after the low-pass. It employs two resonant peaks which can be manipulated to resemble vowel sounds. The resonance control varies the distance between the peaks, and cut-off applies a shift, which can be quite dramatic over its full range. I was able to generate some beautifully expressive choir patches using the morph function with its filter: I set the velocity to raise the cutoff frequency whilst the mod wheel swept the resonance."
"Effortlessly, [using the Nord Wave Manager] I assembled a bunch of drum loops over a short range of keys, a bass over a couple of octaves and a solo flute higher up. USB transfer to the Wave happened without me even needing to think about it."
"Make no mistake, when you start to build your own instruments you really appreciate the Nord Wave's strengths. Not that the provided samples, the Mellotrons especially, are anything less than wonderful. But Nords are for programming and this one raises the bar in terms of the uniquely rich, organic tones it can produce."
"Somehow Clavia keep managing to leap ahead of the pack by creating these
classic, simple-yet-powerful instruments. A winner."
Nord Stage and Nord C1 wins M.I.P.A Awards!100 magazines from all over the world got together
to vote for the best products of 2007/2008 in more than 40 categories.
The awards were presented to the winners at a special mipa-Party/Awards-Ceremony
held during Musikmesse / Prolight + Sound, March 13th, 2008. The entire
Clavia crew are extremely honored and proud to have received two awards
this year. The Nord Stage got voted Best Stage Piano for the
third consecutive year and the Nord C1 got the award in the
Best Organ and Portable Keyboard category. Thank you very much for
this recognition!