Is this the best performance keyboard on the market?
Clavia, the Swedish manufacturer behind Nord keyboards, on 15 February teased an update to its flagship performance keyboard, the Nord Stage 3.
Today, Clavia has officially announced the release of the Nord Stage 4. The instrument has been revamped with a new control panel design, an improved keybed, expanded effects section, an updated synth engine and more, making it a strong contender for one of the best performance keyboards on the market.
The Stage 4 new control panel design is aimed at making the instrument more intuitive to use and features a completely new layout and dedicated LED faders for each sound layer, with the majority of knobs and switches controlling one dedicated parameter. The keyboard has been equipped with a new preset library, to make accessing sounds quicker and easier.
The instrument keybed has been redesigned, an improvement many Nord fans were hoping for. The previous generation’s keyboard has been replaced by a triple-sensor hammer action keybed with aftertouch, with the triple-sensor technology constituting the update.
The Stage 4 Piano Library has been bolstered with an enhanced collection of grands, uprights and electric pianos, while the instrument’s synth engine has been upgraded to operate using Nord’s Wave 2 technology, taken from their synthesizer of the same name. This offers virtual analogue, FM, wavetable and sample-based synthesis, an updated arpeggiator, and an expanded stock sample library with an increased 1GB of onboard memory.
Nord new keyboard has also been outfitted with physical drawbars to control the onboard organ emulator, a feature taken from the Stage 3 Compact that was notably absent on the Stage 3. The effects section has been improved significantly, delivering a complete and independent set-up of effects for each sound layer. The new pump effect allows for tempo-synced or pedal-controlled sidechain modulation, while an upgraded reverb has been bolstered by spring, booth and cathedral settings.
The Stage 4 comes in three different models: an 88-key version, a 73-key version, and the Nord Stage 4 Compact, a smaller and more portable 73-key edition. Clavia has also announced the release of a new premium pedal range that controls a variety of the Stage 4’s new features.
The Stage 4 88 is retailing at $5699/£4399, with the Stage 4 73 coming in at $5399/£4111 and the Stage 4 Compact at $4899/£3869.
IK Multimedia has launched the TONEX Pedal, completing what it describes as an eco-system of digital electric guitar tones with a compact hardware unit that pares seamlessly with its TONE Max software and the guitar amp and effects models of its ToneNET user community.
The TONEX Pedal is a self-contained guitar rig, powered by AmpliTube’s AI Machine Modeling, capable of storing up to 150 Tone Model presets at any one time, arranged across three banks of 50. These could be entire rigs, or a pedalboard, or any combination of amps, effects and speaker cabinet emulations. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
With its own IR loader, players can hook the device up to the TONE Max software model their own gear and access it digitally via the device. Alternatively, choose from 1,000 premium Tone Models, or download a user-created rigs from the 6,000-plus presently available via ToneNET.
The pedal ships with five stereo reverbs from the AmpliTube X-Space pedal, plus noise gate, parametric EQ, and a compressor.
TONEX Pedal has an anodized aluminium enclosure, three-footswitch design for cycling through preset banks, a display at the top of the pedal that shows you which Tone Model preset is active, the bank number, or a parameter’s name and its value.
There are dual-action turn-and-press knobs for the Model, Preset and Parameter Encoders, plus dual-function knobs for adjusting Gain/Reverb, Bass/Compressor, Mid/Noise-Gate, Treble/Presence and Volume/Depth.
Around the back of the unit you will find 1/4” inputs for your instrument, stereo 1/4” outputs, a headphones output for silent practice and monitoring, MIDI, and an input for an external expression pedal. A USB connection allows you to hook up the pedal to the accompanying software for performing deep edits, or for using the unit as a guitar audio interface.
The TONEX Pedal uses 24-bit, 192 kHz processing, has a 5 Hz to 24 kHz response, and 123 dB of dynamic range. It has IK Multimedia’s VIR cabinet and mic simulation tech onboard, and a full version of AmpliTube 5 for integrating Tone Models with your studio setup.
This “full studio integration” is all about the workflows, streamlining the process for arranging your rigs digitally. The TONEX software has a librarian section with a drag-and-drop GUI.
