Congratulations Ane!

2009-11-16Ane Brun, the young and very talented Swedish/Norwegian singer-songwriter receives the prestigious 'Prins Eugenes Kulturpris' award. We send our warmest congratulations to Ane, who is a happy Nord keyboard user.

From Renato with love

2009-11-11Well acknowledged mr Renato Neto sends a greeting from stage. Renato has an impressive biography and has, besides his own project Straight Jackets, played with artists such as Scott Henderson, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle, Luther Vandross, Michael Ruff, Dianne Reeves and Prince to name a few.

Red alert with Jernstahl

2009-11-09Swedish keyboard player Stefan Jernstahl is playing Nord instruments. Right now Stefan is seen on stage on Swedish Stadsteatern and with multi talent artist Eric Gadd, but has also recently played with artists such as Nils Landgren, Stephen Simmonds, Eros Ramazzotti, Magnum Coltrane Price and Victoria Tolstoy to name a few.

Nord on stage with Pål Svenre

2009-10-29Grammis awarded producer Pål Svenre plays with prominent names such as Robyn, Westlife, James Ingram and Lisa Nilsson to name a few. Here seen playing a Nord Stage keyboard on the rehearsal for Swedish live TV broadcast ''Världens barn''

Nord Achievement Award 2008/2009

2009-10-21We are happy to announce 4Sound Stockholm, Sweden as the recievers of the Nord Achievement Award 2008/2009 for best retail sales three (!) years in a row. Seen here from the left: Tomas Enochson (Nord Sales Manager) and the 4Sound keyboard crew: Mikael, Joachim, Linus and Magnus.

Melody Club on Nord

2009-10-15Melody Club keyboardist Jon Axelsson plays Nord Lead 2X on stage.

New Electro 3 Videos

We proudly present two new Electro 3 videos, made by our Italian distributor Mogar Music. This first video is a walkthru of the organ section.

New Electro 3 Videos

2009-10-12The second part takes you thru the piano section of the Electro 3.

Nord entering the stage

2009-10-08Talented mr. Pete Levin entering stage at Moody Jazz Café with Pete Levin Trio, playing his Nord C1 Organ. Visit Pete Levin for more information, sound clips and tour dates.

Cruzin' with Nord

2009-09-10Cruzin' keyboardist Bong Singson performing at the Nord Grand Launch in Ortigas, Philippines. Mr Singson plays a Nord Electro 3 and a Nord Lead 2X to jam with bandmates Bong Gonzales and Willy Elazegui.

Jean Michel Jarre speaking up

Hear the world famous french synthesizer guru Jean Michel Jarre describing his passion for Nord products. Make sure to visit Jean Michels site for tourdates and updated info!

Nord Catalog Summer 2009

The Summer 2009 catalog is out, filled with the latest Nord essentials. Read about the Stage EX, Electro 3 and of course the steaming hot new Nord C2 Combo organ. Click image to download.

News archive

You can find our archive with selected Nord World news here.

Nord Stage Classic OS v4.20

2009-11-12The Nord Stage "Classic" OS has been updated to version 4.20. This update includes an improvement that has been made to the reverb algorithms. The reverb is now smoother and a bit wider which creates a more pleasant sound.

We have also made an overhaul of the USB handling, which has addressed some issues that could occur when you connected a classic Stage to a computer. This means that the annoying bug that sometimes caused the Manager to display the totally erroneous "Partition 1 (Piano) seems corrupt" message has been fixed, together with another USB timing issue.

The update also makes the classic Stage able to read Programs that has been made on a Nord Stage EX, even though it will discard any Piano Unison and String Resonance settings.

A complete list of fixes can be found on the Stage Classic Update History page.

Get the update in the Download area.

Nord Stage EX OS v5.16

2009-11-06The OS of the Stage EX units have been updated to version 5.16. This update includes an improvement that has been made to the reverb algorithms. The reverb is now smoother and a bit wider which creates a more pleasant sound.

Apart from the reverb change, we have addressed some issues with the piano engine and also improved its functionality. One of these improvements lies in the behavior of the string resonance feature and how the pedal-down and normal samples are integrated with each other when you release the pedal during sustained notes or chords. If you repeat a note or chord with the pedal down, hold the chord and then release the pedal, the resulting sound will be correct in that the normal, pedal-up sample will be heard.

A complete list of fixes can be found on the Stage EX Update History page.

Get the update in the Download area.

Nord Electro 3 OS v2.06

2009-10-27The Electro 3 operating system have been updated to v2.06. This update addresses a few issues, some of which have been discovered by Electro 3 users. As always, we are very grateful for the reports that are sent in.

This update fixes a problem that occurred if MIDI Local was set to Off, and the Piano Type selector was used. The Electro could in this circumstance select a Piano type that wasn't available in the Piano partition.

Another fix was made for a Organ Vibrato MIDI bug that was found by Mr Georges Rodi. Vibrato Mode/Enable didn't work very well for any organ if controlled via MIDI. This issue led to the implementation of a new CC: CC107 controls B3 lower manual vibrato enable (CC85 still controls B3 upper manual vibrato enable).

Waleed in the US have very good ears, and he made us aware of the fact that the rotary effect had a bad influence on the reverb sound quality during the last lingering moments of the audible reverb decay.

Very small nsmp files could give a checksum error in the sample partition, this was discovered by several users, almost at the same time. Everybody seemed to get a craving for single cycle waveforms. This issue led to an error message in the Electro 3 LED during startup and necessitated a manual removal of the offending sample in the Electro 3 from the Nord Sound Manager. Rest assured, this has now been taken care of.

Get the update in the Download area.

New Addition in the Nord Piano Library

The BlueSwede R Large Upright is a slightly trimmed version of the previously released BlueSwede XLR. This new entry in the Nord Piano Library is a bit smaller in size thanks to some careful editing of the velocity layers and removing some of lowest octave pedal-down samples. This means that the new version is approx. 48 MB, compared to 66 MB for the XLR.

The R indicates that this piano is compatible with the String Resonance feature that is available in the Nord Stage EX from OS version 5.10 and later. Nord Stage Classic and Nord Electro 3 owners can still use the BlueSwede but without the advantage of the String Resonance feature.

The piano is available for free download on the Nord Piano Library page.

Chris Martirano's FM programs.

We asked Chris Martirano from Design Sounds to recreate some of the best known FM sounds from yesteryear and the results are nothing but spectacular. We got the #15 bass, several variations of the sparkly electric piano, the FM brass and loads of other great sounds. These are now available as a free download in the Nord Wave Super Sounds area.

One of the great and prominent features in the Nord Wave is the two ''oscillators on steroids''. Few other hardware synthesizers have the kind of flexibility that the Wave offers in this regard. Not only do you have a bunch of great sounding traditional analog style waveforms and sync capabilities, there is also a large selection of digital waveforms, sample playback capabilities with 180 MB of user replaceable samples and no less than 38 FM algorithms.

These FM algorithms have 1, 2 or 3-operator structures, with or without feedback and allows you to produce the sounds that are very similar to the original DX or TX units that made FM and digital synthesizers very popular in the mid eighties. The added bonus in the Wave is of course that the FM algorithms are then routed through the virtual analog architecture that allows you to further sculpt the sound using the envelopes, multi-mode filters and other functions in the Wave.

New samples added to the Nord Sample Library.

Once again Pontus Henrikson generously shared his favourite samples, made for the Nord Wave and Nord Electro 3.
Available now for download in the Nord Sample Library. Also check out Pontus at MySpace.

Sound examples from the Nord C2 Combo Organ!

Listen to a bunch of sound clips that demonstrate the sonic excellence and versatility of the Nord C2 Combo Organ.

Go to the Nord C2 Combo Organ product page for more info and sound examples.

Nord Wave Super Sounds Factory Programs

From the previously released Nord Wave Super Sounds we have assembled the Nord Wave Super Sounds Factory Programs - a selection featuring the best sounds that a handful of talented sound designers have created exclusively for the Nord Wave.

From these hundreds and hundreds of sounds we have filled up the internal memory to the rim with the most interesting and useable patches that they created. As always, this is available as a free download.
Click here to download

New additions in the Nord Piano Library

The Nord Piano Library has been updated with three new XLR pianos, the Concert Grand 1 XLR Stw D Close, the Studio Grand 2 XLR Ya C7 and a brand new acquaintance: The BlueSwede XLR LargeUpright.

The BlueSwede XLR is a tall upright of Swedish origin. Östlind & Almquist started doing business in 1888 in Arvika, Värmland and became one Sweden's major piano manufacturers back in the good old days, with a reputation for creating great instruments. The company later merged with Malmsjö.

This lovely upright was prepared with the objective to keep its unique personality and we are very pleased with the sound. The BlueSwede's "big" character will most certainly fit in nicely in a blues, rock and alternative context, on stage or in the recoding studio. The BlueSwede XLR was recorded in stereo at one of the Swedish national radio's studios.

The new XLR pianos take advantage of the String Resonance feature that is implemented in the new Stage EX OS (v5.x or later). XLR pianos can be used in Electro 3's and classic 128 MB Stage's but then without the string resonance functionality.
The XLR pianos can be found on the Nord Piano Library page.

Listen to the new piano sounds:

Our very good friend Christer Karlsson helped us with excellent chops on these clips. No effects, no reverb from the Stage EX or elsewhere have been used, just the String Resonance and, on one occasion, the Piano Unison feature.

Nord Wave Super Sounds

Not only can the Nord Wave use samples, FM synthesis and digital waveforms to complement its already fat and juicy analog style waveforms, it is designed around a very powerful synthesizer architecture that provides you with loads of modulation and sound sculpting capabilities.

We asked some of the planet's most talented synthesizer programmers to make their version of the ultimate Nord Wave Program Bank. The results were so amazing that instead of making a couple of best-of banks, we decided that all of these great sounds had to be released. Please have a look in the brand new Nord Wave Program Library section.

THE RETURN OF A
LEGENDARY SOUND

The classic sounds of the Mellotron - the tape-based sampling pioneer from the early sixties - are available in the Nord Sample Library to be used with any compatible Nord keyboard. When it comes to instruments having an impact on modern music evolvement, the Mellotron is second only to the electric guitar.

A tape-based electromechanical keyboard was invented by Harry Chamberlin as early as 1946, but it wasn't until 16 years later that the Mellotron company adopted the technology, making the instruments commercially available.

Playing back recorded sounds from a keyboard instrument had a major impact on the music scene in the sixties and the seventies, and opened the door to modern sampling technology.

A Nord Sample Library compatible unit comes shipped with a selection of the 68 tapes used by the Mk I, Mk II, M300 and M400 Mellotrons. The rest of this amazing library is available for free as downloadable archives. By sampling the sounds using fresh tape copies and a newly manufactured Mellotron instrument - built using vintage playback heads - the Nord units reproduces these sounds with all hisses and fizzes, exactly as they were meant to be.