Information Specification Accessories Update History In the Press


The music press around the world have given the Electro 3 some very favourable reviews recently. Here are a few quotes that we'd like to share with you.

• Worship Musician May/June 2010 - USA

"The Electro 3 has seen a vast internal redesign and is satisfying the craving of the most demanding audiophiles.

New features, along with the stage-friendly design results in an instrument with limitless potential and ultimate practicality for the touring or church musician.

If you are purchasing a keyboard for church or touring use anytime soon, do yourself a favor and consider the Nord Electro 3."

• Future Music - UK
"There are plenty of very useable sounds on board here including lush and authentic strings and flutes from the Mellotron Library along with pipe organs, accordions, harmoniums and some analogue synth samples too.

Clavia provide several [Electric Piano] models sampled with different tone and pickup placement that adds greatly to the versatility. Further tone shaping can also be applied to the [E Pianos] or the organ, samples and pianos via the on-board EQ, FZ and amp simulators so the permutations are pretty endless and you can truly personalize your sound.

The Electro 3 undoubtedly delivers sonically and its feature set, while a compromise in some areas, is certainly very powerful and improves greatly on previous models.

If you like the C1 organ/onboard sample capability in one box, the Electro 3 is the only option. Couple that with great pianos, FX, portability and a high-quality simple approach, I fell Clavia have another winner on their hands. A worthy successor to the Electro 2, it builds on its solid heritage while adding key new features."

• Swedish Musikermagasinet:
"The Electro 3 is very easy to understand. You have access to most of its functions directly on the panel and it is very clear how the instrument works. The effect section is very good and it is able, in spite of having just a few controls, to bring out everything from subtle nuances to pure out-of-this world sound effects.

The Nord Electro 3 feels like a keyboard players Dream Team, where each individual component is nothing less than brilliant. The Nord Piano Library acoustic grand's and pianos are superb and the electric's are amongst the best in the world.

Each part in the Electro 3 has an organic quality, and the result is a sound that blends together with any other instrument. "

• Keyboard Magazine - US:

"Where the C1 has a bass part for jazzers who want to plug in MIDI bass pedals; the NE3 has upper and lower manual parts only. That said, the NE3's organ section is more tweakable, starting with the choice of clean tonewheels or three flavors of vintage. Want over-the-top leakage and grunge? The third vintage setting has it. Overall, the sound quality is definitely more airy and spacious - the NE2 has a boxy, almost phasey character compared to the NE3. The virtual tonewheels now sound more muscular, with more presence and balls.

The same holds true for the onboard rotary simulator, which has a more defined sense of rotation, not to mention speed and acceleration fine-tuning not available in prior Nords. Disabling the sim and running through my real Leslie delivered outstanding results, with raw tone edging out the older NE2 and Stage organ sounds. Harmonic percussion is both more editable and better-sounding than the NE2's, with a great clunky character across the full key range.

The new Vox and Farfisa combo organ models (sourced from the Stage) are every bit as tweezy and cheesy as the real thing. If you need to cop Elvis Costello, Doors, or Smash Mouth tunes, you're in the right place!

All sounds from the Nord Stage are compatible with the Nord Electro 3, and what comes pre-loaded is far superior to the Electro 2 piano sound. I couldn't hear or feel any differences when I played the Electro 3's piano sounds from the weighted Stage EX keyboard action. I'd never have used my Electro 2 for my main gig piano sound, but I'd sure use the Electro 3!

The Nord Electro 3 could be your only organ, your only acoustic piano, electric piano, and Clav source, and a well of gig essentials such as strings, pads, and "straight" comping synths. That makes it a lightweight only in the physical sense, and a definite winner for pro gigging. "

• The swedish magazine Studio issued a "Recommendation" award the the Electro 3:

"We started out by listening to the acoustic pianos and were pleasantly surprised. The Electro isn't marketed primarily as a digital piano, but the pianos are amongst the best you can find on the market today.

The B3 sound is simply just how a tonewheel organ should sound like. The realism is totally right. It is doubtful if this model can be made any better.

The Electro 3 is very inspiring to use, simply because the sounds are so genuine. Pick a sound, play a few notes and you will get an idea for a song or start jamming in a certain style. Compared to the predecessor , the improvements are huge. You get an instrument that is much more flexible and with a sound that has been significantly improved."

• In the UK magazine Sound on Sound Paul Nagle took the Electro through its paces:

"I found the Electro 3 a vision of crimson beauty, from its LED drawbars to its red-lacquered end cheeks. Construction is as unflinchingly robust as we expect from the Nord line, yet, thankfully portability is not compromised. At 9kg (7.6kg for the five-octave version), this is one collection of classic keyboards that shouldn't leave you in need of surgical support.

The Hammond B3 emulation became my instant favorite; its percussion is bitingly effective, with a choice of either normal or softened levels, fast or slow decays. The "third" button switches its percussion effect to use the third partial, and you can even transcend a B3 restriction in which the ninth drawbar is cancelled whenever percussion is activated, choosing either faithful reproductions or both at once.

A well-established breeding stock facilitates pedigree choices: organs from the C1 Combo, pianos from the Stage and samples from the Nord Wave. Due to a willingness to respond to reviews and user feedback, Clavia have continued to improve their original design, producing their best collection yet of classic instruments in convenient, modern form. The Nord Electro 3 I a mature, highly evolved, organ-based keyboard, capable of covering electric pianos, Clavinets, acoustic grands and any sample you case to feed it.

If you are looking for a single keyboard to deliver classic rock organs, pianos and lots more besides, the Nord Electro 3 comes highly recommended. "

• Rounding off with parts from Music Tech Magazine, UK:

"There are four types of [electric pianos] (all with different variations), a Wurlitzer and a Clavinet D6. Each is supremely playable and can be tweaked and saved, giving you a wide range of patches from just a few core sampled instruments. The presets are excellent, too, and there's even a harpsichord on offer for the truly adventurous. Crucially, sounds are easy to manage using the accompanying software, so you can load more of the sounds you like and remove the ones you don't.

The Electro's waterfall semi-weighted keys are rather light for grand piano-style playing, but they are perfect for more or less all its other sounds, especially the organs.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Electro 3 is its organ emulation. This was great in the Electro 2 but has been significantly improved and extended for the Electro 3.

Playing the Electro 3 is a hugely inspiring experience and many people will find that its sheer playability and the wonderful sounds it produces help you to improve as a player. The expanded memory enables you to use far more sounds than before, while the ability to add new instruments is a welcome step forward.

The Electro's greatest strengths lie in its supreme portability, its focus on fingertip control, and its stunning sound and keyboard action for organs and electric pianos. Tweaking and saving sounds in the studio is also simple, and despite having only simple LED displays, it's a remarkably easy instrument to learn and use. "