GEAR REVIEW
NORD’ S NEW ELECTRO 7 HP STAGE PIANO // WORTH THE WAIT | Bruce Adolph
Since January’ s NAMM Show we have been talking about the new Electro 7 boards. We are now well into Summer – what do you mean by it’ s worth the wait? Well, two things to cover first before answering that question.
One, when it comes to worship songwriters, touring worship bands, worship music recording studios and the regular local church platform there has never been a keyboard brand as dominant in one music genre as NORD. For years now it has been the humorous remark,“ The NORD is where the Lord is”. In my small church of less than 100, we have the NORD Stage 4 88 and one of our worship leaders has the same board in his home studio. So, anything that NORD decides to put in the market is important to know about.
Second, since the night before NAMM, NORD listened to their endorsees and keyboard influencers. Originally the Electro 7 displayed
there on the convention floor did not have a pitch bend and mod wheel. But the NORD players spoke up and said,“ Why not?”. To NORD’ s credit they listened and retooled the 73-note version with both items. The 61-note version’ s housing doesn’ t have room for those, so take note if that is an important factor to your playing style. The first waves of the new 73 key units have been bought quickly and now more are finally starting to hit U. S. shores all the way from Sweden. Thus, my statement rings true after sitting down with this new board …“ It is worth the wait!”
Those of you who know me have heard me say how I have lived through several“ waves” of brand popularity with keyboards / synths at large. In my retail years I sold Roland Juno 60’ s, then the Yamaha DX-7 was all the rage, then KORG’ s M-1 synths but I have never seen so many of these popular red keyboards converge into one music style as I have seen with NORD.
BRINGING IN A RINGER … This time around I wanted to really describe the merits of the NORD’ s quality“ beef and potato” sound patches to enhance your worship music’ s sound. I can demo a keyboard, talk about its specs and features and then awkwardly play enough musical parts to show the merits of a board, but I am not a“ player”. This Electro 7 HP deserves a real keys player for our review purposes, especially since NORD has added the Kawai keybed to this“ HP” model.
I needed to bring in a ringer … someone who could really make this stage piano speak. I brought in Joshua Harris, one of the worship leaders at my church who happens to be quite the piano player. He is well known for his instrumental piano music online via streaming and YouTube( JoshuaDavidHarris. com). Not only was I interested in showing him the variety of usable sound patches inherent in the NORD but also because of his experience playing
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