Let's leave the dinosaurs for a while and be pragmatic this time. Isn't the idea of having all electromechanical classics in one lightweight keyboard appealing? The Fender Rhodes, Yamaha CP70, Hohner Clavinet, Wurlitzer EP and the Hammond organ, in a stress free, maintenance free, digital form. To me it was.

Preset A1
In 2001 I heard about the Nord Electro, saw the first strange looking prototype in a magazine. I slept in my sleeping bag in front of the local music shop until they had one in stock, played the preset 'A1' for one and a half hour, and sold everything I had to buy one of the first ones. Ah well, I've exaggerated a bit, there was no sleeping bag. But I was seriously blown away by the dynamic feel of the instrument. Until then most of my sounds came from a Roland JV1080, which is a serious piece of kit, even today. But it didn't get close to the multisampled Rhodes of A1.

My bandmates were quite scared at first.

• "What, there's no strings in it? No synthesizer sounds? No JUMP? No Final Countdown?"
  
  
• "It can only do one sound at the time?"
  
  
• "Where's the display? Now how much did you pay for that?"
  
  
• "Why is it so, erm, RED?"

I bravely declared that from then on, I was going to play real keyboard sounds only. And it worked. The little Nord opened a whole new world of music for me and a new style of playing. Almost all electromechanical keyboards, the Rhodes, Hammond and Wurly in particular, have a tremendous range of expression that allows you to fulfil many different roles in the band, without changing the sound.

Be background pad. Push the rhythm forward. Or outsolo the guitarist (a thing we keyboardists always wanted to do, right?). For many synth-enthusiasts, effects are only the icing on the cake and the focus should be on the programming. For electric pianos and organs, the effects are vital to the sound, so they were also included in the Nord. Because the keyboard is so small and light, I take it everywhere (by bike, as a real Dutchman). That is ideal for band-rehearsals, and jam-sessions.

Leave the manual at home
This is a very simple instrument. It is split up into two parts. The left half is the organ section. The LED bars that symbolize the drawbar positions are the most striking feature here. They have pros and cons. By changing the preset, the LED bars reflect the actual settings of the organ, what-you-see-is-what-you get. There are buttons for each bar, which react in a 'natural' way, which means that once you hold the button, you draw out the virtual draw-bar at a certain speed.

You can also load drawbar presets with these buttons. It is a very immediate way of editing, in practise I hardly use presets, I start with my standard organ patch and then change the drawbar settings until the sound fits. Many great organ players change the drawbars while playing to add interesting changes in timbre. I'm not a very skilled an organ player so I don't do that, but I imagine it can be a problem with the buttons. You could add a midi drawbar controller by Doepfer to overcome this.

All Hammond organ (side)effects are there, with the exception of the spring reverb (which was also invented by mr. Hammond). If you're in a jazzy (or cheezy) mood you can add vibrato or chorus, in three typical variations. You can adjust the keyclick, and most importantly, all percussion settings are there. No worries, we're not talking about samba patterns here (I leave those to the Vermona rhythm machine) but about the 'dub! dub!' sound that you get when you play staccato. I got addicted to that, very funky. Addictive is also the Leslie simulation. As with anything on the Nord, you cannot do in-depth editing here (although they included variable ramp-up and ramp-down times in OS3.0), but it just sounds right, especially over a PA, in stereo, in a big hall, playing 'a whiter shade' (sorry). Strangely, the leslie speed button is on the wrong (right) side of the panel, but the good thing is that even the 'stop' feature (featured in the famous song Green Onions) behaves realistically, it sounds like the leslie horns stop at a specific point. You can also add all effects of the piano section, like phaser and flanger, we'll get to that later.

Pic: Effect section of Nord Electro 3

MP3s - Clavia Electro ORGAN Sounds
	JudithsSong	Yamaha CP70 (original) plus slow, dreamy Nord Electro organ	Roald Lingbeek
	Seriously_Not	Song with funky Nord Electro organ, Bass: Micromodular	"
	Foodchain	Session with Nord Electro Organ & guitar solo. Guitar: Sjors van der Heijden. Voice at the end: Jimmy Smith in a BBC-interview	"
	Juicy Salif Guitar	Song with Nord Electro Organ, original Rhodes , guitar: Klaus Vöge	"

Sadly, there is no connector for a real leslie box so you'll have to buy a specific leslie preamp if you like to use the real thing. Otherwise, connectivity is great with separate jacks for the swell pedal and the leslie speed switch (for which I also use a pedal). There also is a sustain-pedal jack, cleverly it can be used for the leslie-speed as well when you don't use sustain during organ playing (historically, you shouldn't anyway). Back to the manual, erm, I mean the keyboard this time. You can use two as the Electro has two separate, fully polyphonic, organ sections. The Electro's own keybed is an organ style semi weighted, waterfall keyboard that allows smearing and sliding and all the dirty elbow tricks, and plays sufficiently well for the piano sounds too. This brings us to the right section of the Electro!

I want it all
In the previous review I've explained the differences between the early Mk1 Rhodes, the later Mk1s and Mk2s and the ultimate Mk5. And that in fact not the model, but the setup determines the sound. Well, the Electro has it all. It has "deep", "shallow" and "ideal" Rhodes samplesets and Mk1s, Mk2s and a Mk5. There are six slots to load piano samplesets, and you can load any combination into the instrument via USB. For the Rhodes sounds, this is a lot of fun. I have the "ideal" Rhodes for funky playing and the "deep" one for ballads. The technology behind the samples and sample engine remain something of a mystery (not even the polyphony is mentioned in the manual) but judging the nice and smooth transitions from sweet to barking, there must be quite a lot of multisamples behind each sound. This sets the Nord apart from multi purpose romplers. Listen to the following mp3, where the "ideal" Rhodes ' sampleset is followed by the "deep" one, and finally the real thing (my MkII).

MP3s - Clavia Electro RHODES Sounds
	Sixtyone Seventythree	Nord Electro Rhodes Mk1 and Mk2 sample. Then "The real thing" (original Fender Rhodes)	Roald Lingbeek

Another great sampleset is the Wurlitzer. When the Rhodes would be the Beatles, the Wurly would be something like the Stones. It sounds more aggressive and gritty and it works great in a rock band. Due to the design of the Wurlitzer, the sustain is a little bit short.

Pic: Piano section of Nord Electro 3

The Nord people have put a lot of effort into the Clavinet-samples. Here the parametric EQ knobs get a different function, they switch between the positions of the rocker switches on the real D-6. Unfortunately, I have never played the real thing so I cannot really judge how realistic it sounds, but boy, it is funky. You have to study the playing style of all those famous 70s songs to get the best out of it, play percussive short stabs, in between the notes of the rest of the band. I'll have to jump to the effects section now, as the Clavinet just begs for a wahwah. There are three variants, a LFO-controlled wah, autowah and a wahwah that you can really play using an expression pedal. As everything on the Electro, the effects have their own knobs (speed, depth and on/off) and work just as simple as a stompbox would. You cannot edit much, just the most important stuff, which might sound like a limitation, but I think it's liberating.

Forget about presets, just switch stuff on and off while playing! You'll find out that the clavinet sound is actually quite flexible, as it can also be more padlike when you add phaser, or leslie.

MP3s - Clavia Electro CLAVINET Sound
	Clavinet	Nord Electro "Clavinet D-6" with various (effect) settings: dry, autowah, phaser and through a leslie	Roald Lingbeek

Finally some real pianos
The Yamaha CP80 got a lot closer to a real piano sound than the Wurlitzer and Rhodes, but it still has a very distinctive sound, as you've found out in a previous review. It's also included in the Nord's soundset, in all its thunderous glory. In my opinion it sounds a bit flatter than the real thing. In the following mp3 examples you hear the same song played on the Electro's CP70 and on the real thing:

MP3s - Clavia Electro CP70 SAMPLE versus Yamaha CP70
	Unlike Denmark NE	There's that hint more "electronic" sound ...	Roald Lingbeek
	Unlike Denmark CP70	The original Yamaha CP-70/80 sounds so warm...!	"

I like to add a little chorus to spice it up. It is a great sound for dreamy ballads, and for punchy rock riffs as well. The panning tremolo of the original (and of the suitcase Rhodes ) is also there. To be honest, the lower keys of a CP piano sound quite horrible, both on the real thing and in the Electro. Interestingly, the Clavia team fitted the CP pickups to a regular grand piano with proper bass strings, solving the problem in their 'Model-G' sampleset. I'm sorry if I come across as over-enthusiastic,but isn't it amazing how much effort and dedication went into this keyboard?

Well, they did mess up one thing: the acoustic piano. With the V1.0 OS, an acoustic grand sampleset was added as a "bonus". The piano played badly and sounded like it was 4 meters away from you. Clavia did respond to the criticism and produced new sets which sounded much better already but were still below the level of Roland and Yamaha stagepianos. A fun sampleset was the upright detuned barpiano that they gave us as a christmas present. That works really well when you need a piano sound with character, in a blues song, or a cool rocksong in the style of Coldplay. Anyway, I wasn't expecting much better acoustic grands in the V3.0 samplesets but I was amazed at the quality of the new Steinway and Yamaha. They were adapted from the Nord Stage sounds and are a pleasure to play. You can clearly hear the different characters of these grands. Compared to the leading stagepianos by Yamaha and Kawai, you will find that the Nord pianos are less smooth and shiny, but somehow they 'breathe' more. This goes for all samplesets by the way: the Rhodes sounds of, for example, the Yamaha Motif series are great too, but not as breathy as the Nord's.

MP3s - Clavia Electro ACOUSTIC PIANO Samples
	Play What	Brilliant Nord Electro acoustic piano sound: NE (OS3) Yamaha C7 grand.	Roald Lingbeek
	Requiem for a Cellphone	Song with Nord Electro acoustic piano sound (OS 2.2), Micromodular - bass & lead	"

Pic: Features of Nord Electro 3

Clever Swedes
The Electro was specifically built for live performance and there are some handy functions specially for this. The sustain pedal switches from sustain to leslie speed switch when you use the organ section, so you only need one pedal. You can even choose the polarity with the push of a button. The expression pedal can either be the wahwah controller or a volume (swell) pedal for the organ. There is a second volume control on the right of the keyboard, which controls the level of the patch, and it is stored in memory. Something all keyboards should have! A two band equalizer is also present, very convenient because each PA sounds different.

Patch selection is carried out in 8 groups, from A to E. In each group you can choose 8 variations with the up-down key. I have them organized instrument by instrument, and then from straight and simple to effects-orgies, but you can save everything everywhere. There is only a 2-character display so you have to remember which sound is which. (B3 is a Wurly patch in my Electro, sorry). But please, leave those patches for what they are and dial in your sound on the fly. It's so easy and much more fun. Switching from the modelled organ to the sampled piano engine takes a little time, which is annoying when you have to change during a song.

All knobs send MIDI data so the Electro makes a nice controller too. Too bad that there is no pitchbender, mod-wheel or aftertouch.

Conclusion
I hope I was able to convey that besides the fact that the Electro is very clever and..pragmatic..the soul of the instruments in there survived for a great deal. The Electro conveys the character of the instrument really well. Like swedish design, there's nothing on it that detracts from the main features, and unlike assembling IKEA furniture, you'll instantly find what you were looking for. I do feel that at some features should have been included, for example a reverb, and at least bi-timbrality would have been fantastic. If you're more into the EPs than the organ, please check the feel of the keyboard. Personally, the portability wins it over the ultimate mechanics feel for me, and I use a Fatar SL880 at home.

The possibility to take this Nord everywhere at any time brings be back to the start: this keyboard has inspired me more than anything else, and brought me many new musical friends and lovely jam sessions. It was more than worth it, to sacrifice the strings and analog brass sounds.

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Review, pictures NE1, sounds: Roald Lingbeek
Layout, pictures NE3: Theo Bloderer