List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $3,699.00
Today's Bonus:
- Packed with the award-winning sounds of the C1
- Dual manual semi weighted waterfall profile keyboard
- New stunningly accurate Pipe Organ featuring 21 stops
- Includes B3, Farfisa, and Vox
- Built-in effects to refine your sound
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The first thing I must say is that in general I am a purist, and I don't like most electronic instruments. When the church I work for started construction and had to move out of the sanctuary, I had them purchase this organ for me since it's the only one on the market that has classical stops as well as the Hammond and other electronic emulations. I was prepared to not love it but it was the best that could be done without spending from three to ten times more. Then it arrived, I hooked it up to good speakers, and I was absolutely blown away.The Nord Hammond B3 emulation has been lauded by just about everybody, like all of their vintage sounds. With an adjustable speed rotary speaker as well, I feel like I'm playing in a vintage gospel band. I'm less familiar with how the Vox and Farfisa originals sounded, but they're very good sounds to add to your performance palette.
What surprised me the most, though, was that this instrument has a 21 stop pipe organ. Not just some pipe organ sounds, but individual stops like a real organ or the very expensive Rodgers electronic organs. The sounds are uniformly very high quality, blend very well, and for a Christmas Eve service with good amplification, it sounded like Westminster Abbey. The only thing missing is a pedalboard; Nord has made a prototype of what they call PedalKeys to go with this organ and may be selling it in Europe, and I will be lining up to buy them when they're available in the USA.
At 34 pounds, I can carry this from the back of my car under my arm. Definitely different from most organs that are made from fiberboard and bricks, and the distinctive red color gets comments from my congregation every week. So does the sound! I'm not a total convert to electronic instruments, but I've been so impressed working with this organ that I just bought one of the other Nord keyboards for myself.I just got rid of my C1 (which I loved to death) and got the new NORD C2... at first I was worried that the differences would be so minuscule that I was taking a loss, but actually, it's not true... they took an INCREDIBLE product and tweaked it to make it even better... especially in terms of the action.
All in all, the sound is incredibly close to a real B3, and the feel is close enough that if you were to play with your eyes shut, you'd really feel like you were at a console, especially if you had the NORD Leslie Half Moon Switch and Pedal Keys 27 hooked up.
Key changes include the lay out, which is much more intuitive for B3 users, for example, the Leslie vibrato controls are on the left hand side and percussion settings on the right.
Some people complain about the lack of physical drawbars... I change drawbar settings a heck of a lot when I play and find the buttons incredibly responsive if you're willing to develop your technique... If anything, they're better than drawbars, because you don't have to worry about knocking them in... also, you can program three pre-sets in real time when you play (as opposed to only two on a real B3) Most REAL players on a B-3 would rely on changing the pre-sets then building the drawbar settings from there... so if you're a real player in that tradition, you'll REALLY have no trouble.
As for the sound, I thought that the C1 was pretty close... the C2 is even better... The reverb is nice and springy. I have a slight issue with how the Leslie speeds up and slows down, but I might just need to fix the settings a bit more (advice: read the manual its simply written and once you learn how to adjust the basic configurations you can make it that much closer to your dream B3.)
Of course, the organ has other organs, but I only use the B3... My only wish was that instead of the other organs it had the clav and Rhodes, so I could play clav on the upper manual and B-3 down below when accompanying sometimes... still, you couldn't do that on a real B3, and as I said, this thing sounds and feels like a B3.
Finally, the biggest point of the C2 is that its only 16 kg. and will fit into a special gig bag that you can order with it... it has wheels, and I took my C1 on trains all over Tokyo and up and down steps. Get it with the music stand and the Leslie switch and you're good to go. The pedals, however, probably won't go on a train... you'll have to leave them home unless you have an extra hand.
All in all... the C1 has taken a marvel and has made it better... and by the way, I *am* a purist, but prefer this thing to the real thing... its portable, reliable and feels and sounds like the real deal !This organ is a life saver for my purposes. I own the full Hammond xk3, double manuel, foot pedal system and I love it but it is a bit heavy and bulky to take to my gigs. Each piece weighs no less than 65 lbs and includes each manual and the pedal board. Even the bench is heavy but all components are well made and almost authentic to the Hammond B3.
Now I needed something even more portable and that's the Nord C2 Combo organ. It is a godsend. Each component is 30 or less pounds. A delight to tote around and it all fits in the trunk of my compact car.
It sounds like a Hammond B3 and has all the features of the B3 but....physically it is far from the B3. The biggest difference is there are no physical drawbars. Instead there are digital type drawbars which will never take the place of the Hammond-type experience.
I am fine with this to get the weight down which makes it a pleasure to take it out and entertain with a true Hammond Sound. Since I don't make changes in sounds while I'm playing which is the Hammond technigue, I can live without the drawbars. The leslie switch is on my expression pedal and that works fine for me to lift the blood levels of my listeners.
Nice instrument, lightweight and less expensive than the real Hammond, and really fun to play. Not for a true Hammond organist though.after spending a little more than a year going from clonewheel to clonewheel, I have finally found my organ.I've tried the old, analogue VISCOUNT OP3, the voce v5+. the voce Micro b, the Voce v3 plus midi drawbars, the Oberhiem ob3 squared,I've used all of them with Voce Spin II rotary simulators, plus the Motion sound Pro 3x,not to mention 2 different Speakeasy tube pre amps. I bought all of these, plus i tried the Korgs, the Rolands,.....none of them measured up to what i remembered over a year ago when i played the Nord electro 3. Well,,,,the Nord C2 is even better. I wasn't too interested in any of the Hammond xk's , or the SK's....I probably would like them too, but I couldn't get the overall desireability of the Nord c2 out of my head. It was just TOO seductive to pass up. I'm burned out on organ modules, synth keybeds, multiple stands, stomp boxes, pre amps, signal chains with up to ELEVEN power cords alone.....I had this set up with my bass pedalboard, roland ev5 expression pedal, & roland dp2 rotary toggle swithc in less than 3 minutes. And the SOUND.....this had the grind, the growl, the howl, the purr, the KRUNCH ! I haven't even hooked it up to my Motion sound yet....I LOVE the onboard sim by itself....the drawbuttons are not difficult to deal with, you have the live buffers you can use for the more involved drawbar configurations, like 888888888 or 800008888) & the overdrive is STUNNING ! THE BEST I HAVE HEARD.
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