Clavia Nord Stage 4 Compact

• 73 keys, semi-weighted
• Triple sensor waterfall keyboard with aftertouch
• Workhorse for stage & studio
  
• Easy handling
  
• Clearly structured layout
  
• Pitch stick made of wood
  
• Stone modulation wheel
  
• Organ, piano & synth sound generation + effects
  
• 512 programs
  
• 8 live programs in direct access
  
• 3 split zones incl crossfades
  
• 2 individual Layer Scene Setups
  
• 4 assignable outputs
  
• Monitor input
  
• Connectors for multiple pedals
  

Organ!

The Organ section features Clavia's excellent simulations of B3 Tonewheel, B3 Bass, classic Vox and Farisa organs as well as two pipe organ models. The central controls in this section are the nine drawbars with LED bars. To prevent the sound from accidentally shifting on stage, you can switch between Live and Preset mode, the latter deactivating the faders. Elementary sound nuances such as vibrato/chorus and percussion have their own controls and are directly accessible without a shift function. The popular rotary effect is sufficiently adjustable with slow/fast/stop and distortion and gives especially jazz organs the necessary funkyness. Two layers/parts can be played at the same time.

Piano!

The Piano section of the Nord Stage 4 features a new and expanded collection of grand pianos, uprights and Electric pianos from Clavia's exclusive Piano Library, combined with new features like Dynamic Compression and Unison. The piano section's memory holds 2GB of piano sounds, which are interchangeable on demand with Nord Sound Manager on the computer. The Polyphony is set high enough at 120 voices so that no fading notes are cut off even when playing faster. Two Layer respectively parts can be used here at the same time. Details such as adjustable velocity, switchable string resonance or soft release as well as five different timbre variants give the player everything he needs to achieve the desired piano sound in the shortest possible way.

Synthesizer!

The synthesizer section of the Nord Stage 4 goes more in depth than the reduced to the essential control panel would suggest. Primarily, this section offers three Layer respectively Parts that can be used simultaneously, share a stately 46 voices and access the 1GB Nord Sample Library. In terms of sound generation forms, everything that musicians most often need is available: Virtual Analog (classic waveforms including shaper, hardsync and noise), samples, FM and wavetables. The digital filter sounds simply superb and provides six filter modes to choose from with switchable drive: Moog lowpass, 12/24db lowpass, bandpass, highpass and combined LP/BP shape the sound as desired. Of course, the classic modulation sources are not missing either. Three ADR envelopes for pitch, VCF and VCA as well as an LFO that can be routed to pitch, Osc Ctrl or filter provide for varied sounds. The voice distribution can be set individually with polyphonic, mono, legato or unison, depending on patch. On top of that, vibrato can be triggered from one of five modulation sources. The synthesizer section is rounded off by a complex arpeggiator, which, in addition to the usual playback patterns with different patterns, also has a special poly mode and a gate mode, which is perfect for 90s trance/hardtrance melodies, among other things.

Effects!

Clavia's most comprehensive effects processor to date is implemented in the Nord Stage 4. The name Layer Effects almost gives it away: the effect structure can be activated separately for each sound generating section. There are two effect blocks which are primarily modulation effects like eg. Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Rotary, Ring Modulator, Spin or Wah. Amp Simulator / EQ more than lives up to its task, adding to the options Lowpass and Highpass Filter instead of the midband. This effect block is essential for characteristic organ sounds! The delay is widely adjustable, can be synchronized to clock and even handles very short delays that were used in vintage effects units for chorus or ensemble effects, among others. The Reverb scores with six reverb effects, ranging from small room to cathedral and even including a spring reverb for the iconic Schepper reverbs. The sound character is switchable between Bright and Dark. The effects section concludes with the 2-parameter compressor; percussive sounds and the sum (global) in particular benefit from this simple way to add punch. With the exception of the compressor, each effect respectively effect block is equipped with a variation, which ultimately means twice the number of available effects.