Wait..... so the music stand is not included?
I think I’ve blown a fuse. I’m going to need some therapy for this one.

Hello James, welcome to the thread

Have you been giving recommendations to Kawai and Clavia lately?

None of nord keyboards are including the music stand. You have to buy it separately, unfortunately.

BTW - this is first nord gear which has damped keyboard, using material tape (felt?).

Hi Arc7urus,

That looks awesome: good job I don't have €4000 to place my pre-order...

Kind regards,

Doug

RichieBill, I think I’m gonna have to pass on the Nord. With that kind of money, I’d rather get me a Gucci bag. Did you know that they actually include the straps along with the bag?
And these are not just any straps: these straps are detachable; which creates multifunctionality, doubling as a shoulder bag, while the top opening frame features a hinged lock on each side for a secure closure.

So no, this is not just an overpriced bag, it’s special!

But not everyone would feel the way you do. There are people who prefer Nord's piano sounds to Pianoteq. There are people who prefer Kawai RHIII to Yamaha's actions.

Plus there are people who prefer to not use a computer, whether for gig convenience, or aesthetic/ergonomic reasons, or the nuisance of moving things around and open and close apps when you want to play piano (unless you're going to dedicate a computer to the piano, in which case the rig probably no longer costs less).

Jesus, did I write that?
The meds are starting to kick in. I can see clearly now!
But seriously, I’m just messing around with the Nord crowd. I tend to get upset when nothing major is revealed at these events (Musik/Namm), plus to make things worse, James had winked at us and said,.... ‘ask me next week..’ I took this to be a hint for something big to come........and then nothing.
So blame it on James!

Yeah, I'm shocked myself that the only thing that appears to have been announced at Musikmesse was this Nord. None of Kawai, Yamaha, Roland, or Casio announced anything. Is this saying something implicitly about these large musical instrument manufacturers' views of the European market vs the American market?

This seems like a brilliant move, for both Kawai and Nord.

For Nord, they get to upgrade their grand keybed lineup and preserve a hold on those consumers that currently prefer the Nord look/feel/sounds and operating system.

For Kawai, they expand their revenue stream for existing well-established parts while getting the marketing bump that results from Nord explicitly pushing the Kawai brand name as top quality keybed grand action... it's the ultimate affirmation for Kawai's engineering excellence by Nord - which is already highly regarded for quality product engineering.

And of course for consumers, they get more choices.

Win-win-win for all involved. - OneWatt

I've owned two Nord pianos in the past and granted, I haven't used one in 5 years but I still have a good idea what the "Nord pianos" sound like - both on a gig and at home, through phones or speakers.

When this was announced yesterday I got excited like everyone else ...well maybe not here on PW but elsewhere. But knowing how I feel about the sound of those pianos and having them long term, I know this wouldn't be a DP for me. For home or a gig.

Again, the only DP in my sights, and for home , right now is the P-515. I can't see replacing the CP4 for gigs unless I play the CP88 in a more quiet environment then what I heard it at NAMM, and I'm blown away. But the more I hear even the best piano demos of the CP88, the more it reinforces my original impression of the pianos sounding synthetic compared to the CP4....and the P-515 too.

Without playing the Nord Grand, I'd make a guess and say I'd still prefer even the CP88 to it.

But I do think for hard core Nord fans, this is a great announcement and merger.

Not unexpected since the "big" manufacturers are focussing on the growing Asian markets. The American and European are about high profit margin sales through the higher-end instruments and most brands have refreshed their lineup recently.

Note that Casio, Roland and Korg are not even in the Musikmesse's exhibitors list. Only Kawai Europe and Yamaha Europe are there, along with brands like Clavia (Nord) and "niche" synth manufacturers. The number of Chinese manufacturers of all types of instruments on the exhibitor list is impressive...

You just described me to a tee!

I knew that Kawai would supply keyboard actions for a future Clavia instrument, but didn't have any direct involvement in the negotiations, I'm afraid.



Moreover, the Kawai booth (and I believe the Yamaha booth also) is a "Business to Business" booth, and only accessible to distributors and dealers - not the general public. I don't Clavia (Nord) are exhibiting at the show (the company does not appear to be listed on the Musikmesse website). As I mentioned last week, Musikmesse is very different this year.

Kind regards,
James
x

And you didn’t tell us beforehand?! I thought we were all your friends...

Yeah, any proprietary information would have completely stayed within this thread! For sure.

With friends like these...

We love you, James.

Somehow I knew that you knew all along!

Well, I happened to be in the area today and managed to visit the Musikmesse this afternoon The pianos and keyboard section was not what I was expecting. Kawai Europe had a booth for the dealers and an area open to the public. Yamaha only had an area for the dealers on another floor.

Kawai was displaying a K300-Aures, K500-Aures, CA98, CA78 and an NV10 along with three acoustic grands (two SKs and one GX). But someone at Kawai had the brilliant idea to jam the action of these grands (there was a wood contraption beneath the strings blocking the keysticks from moving). So, all the acoustic pianos and other instruments on the floor could be played except the three Kawai grands. I guess that the team that has developed the Kawai touchscreen GUI decided to introduce the same level of usability on the Kawai grands

I would say that 2/3 of the instruments on display were acoustics, including a Petrof concert grand. Apart from Petrof, which I think is still partially built in Europe, the acoustics were made in China but featured some fancy (or ridiculous) germanized or anglicized brand names. The digitals were mostly from Chinese brands unknown to me. Given their quality, I fail to understand why they were even on the show. Kurzweil was one few known brands and was there presenting their new PC4 workstation (anyway, Kurzweil is now also a Chinese company). The booths on this area that were not from Chinese brands were a few builders of organs and historic instruments, piano rebuilders and installers of aftermarket silent systems (good thing is that there were a couple of Yamaha and Steinway pianos on these booths ready to be played).

I also tried a Gvido music score reader. Impressive for score reading due to e-ink display but way too slow for annotations. And one can buy two big iPad Pros for the same price...

So, the positive outcome of visiting the piano & keyboard area was to be able compare (literally) side-by-side the NV10, CAs, Aures and a number of acoustic pianos. But, I left that part of the exhibition with the feeling that the acoustic and digital piano market is being flooded by mass produced, low quality instruments. On the other areas of the exhibition (drums, guitars, brass, woodwind, strings...) most exhibitors were displaying high-quality or concert-grade instruments and had a much more lively environment during my visit.

That's a real shame. Did you get the impression that those who were established and had the most to lose had the least to gain from showing up? Or was it just the case that the event was flooded by low-cost consumer offerings and everyone else was drowned out?