Clavia Nord C1 Organ

Power up...
chose preset...
play...

How difficult could it be ???

why I do not put a 10 is that I am not familliaire with the Farfisa and Vox controls... on the other side I bought this beauty only for the accuracy to a true tonewheeler...

manual a bit thin... but you can do without,,, trial and (t)error

The impression overall... is magic...

all I have ever wanted what was on my Hammond.. i find even better on this unit... It does'nt look as impressive on stage... but the sound does...

Don't know... I've had it for two weeks... but Nord is equal to reliability...

Have you been in contact with Clavia for any reason ?

then you know why I give highest remark

I would be lost without it... definately buy a new one if stolen..
This goes as well for my other Nord keyboards...
I will definately have to upgrade my elktro 2 to a electro 3 now for better AC piano

Hi there, this is an update to my first review of that instrument.

So here we go...

After playing this thing a couple of months i realised how great this red thing is. I play in a deep purple coverband since 3 weeks and so i can use the hammond clone much more than the farfisa thing.
I use this beast in stereo and every mono output is running in a marshall TSL amp with a 4x12 speaker connected. So i got 8 speakers and i am 2 times louder than our guitar player! Cool!

The way to get this fat Jon Lord sound is to disable the leslie simulator and run strait in the amp! Use the Pedal to control the sound from clean to heavy distordet. Listen to the intro of "Lazy". You can get the same fat tone with the Nord and the Marshalls.
The cool thing is that those Marshalls have 3 different channels. So i use the clean channel to get those "child in time" sound and the crunch channel for rock! For leads use the lead channel. So i switch from crunch to lead in "highway star". Whit the nord you can nail this sound perfectly.

If you want a megarocksound that blows your guitarist to shame switch to the farfisa channel an to lead on the Marshall and play some fifths and fours powercords with all stops down....
Hell awesome.....
Thank you Clavia for the best organ all time!

Well, first i have to say: sorry for my english! I am from germany so if your german is better if you sit in the UK or elsewhere and english is your homelanguage, let me know. ;-)

I bought the organ just cause of the farfisa sound. Cause i love farfisa sound. At the beginning i dondt care bout the B3 sound... but more on that later.
The C1 is very well built and easy to use cause all functions are placed on the front pannel. It have 126 presets whitch are basicly a set of all registrations and effect settings. Very usefull in live situations. The problem is the reverbs takes a time to "load" when change a program. There is a second of no reverbration and then the reverb is loaded and begin to sound. I hope this will be fixed whit an update soon.
The instrument is lightweight compare to other organs, but i think this unit is not comparable whit anything out there.
The manual is well written but short. Is just covers the basic operations. I wish it has more information bout the organ models like it was in the Nord electro manual.

The features are incredible! 3 Organs faithfull reproduced whit reverb, eq, drive, and a very vintage sounding delay. the polyphony is unlimited. There is a bass pedal function. You can connect any midi bass pedal to play the bass stops.
I miss the following features: Drive should can be controled whit a pedal, an insert function where you can insert some efects beetwen the organ itself and the rest of the efects. I want to use some moogerfooger pedals whit this unit. So when you use for example the phantastic MURF the sound even whit the delay and reverb is filtered. I wish there is a way to connect the MURF beetwen the sound engine and the output to filter the sound and then go though reverb.

So here is the point!!!
This unit is so close to the real thang that scares me!
I bought it for the farfisa sound cause i am realy addictive to the sound of the 60`s and dig the farfisa space psychedelic tone. So i own a Farfisa Compact in Red. My farfisa organ make some problems and i am no organ engenier to repair it and know nobody can fix all this problems. My Farfisa smells like shit so i can use it only in the practice room and not at home. I have clean it but the stinky smell can not be fixed anymore. So my farfisa is in a very bad condition. The C1 comes right!
When i first check out the C1 in the store i was shocked by the authentic sound the Farfisa model can produce. I sell some equipment fast and bougth the organ.
Then i compared the organs. The multitone booster is missing on the C1 but the overall sound is top notch!. All keys give different tones cuase of the frequency divider desing. The farfisa model is alive and incredible realistic sounding.
Next the VOX model. Also very authentic and faithfull reproduced.
You can hear no differenz to the original conti....

The B3 is not my job to review it here cause i dondt own the real thing and dondt like hammond tones that much cause i think it is overheard.

I wish the drive level dondt pump up the volume that much. Overdrive the sound but not tripple the volume. That would be nice. So if you turn on the overdrive you must turn down the volume simultaniuosly cause it is over the top.
So i dondt use the drive anymore and use better external pedal like the Marschall BluesDriver for overdrive cause i think it sound better.
The delay is very authentic vintage sounding. It mutes the high frequencis of the delayed singnal like these old analog delays did.
The reverb in the setting "stage soft" is pure 60`s DOPE!

i hope it is built to last and works longer than my farfisa and my VOX Jaguar...

not deald whith...

i hope for some updates in the future...

Buy it it you want the 60`s sound experience like i want! You can buy a vintage Farfisa, but in mint contions cost bout 1000,00 Euros. A VOX in mint 1500,00 ???, and a B3.... hmmm the XK-1 is realy good. 1300,00 Euro.
So the C1 is a real bargain!
Please remember: YOU CANNOT EMULATE THE CHEESY FARFISA SOUND WHIT SAMPLES!
It is imposible cause of the divider contruction and each key interacs whit each other and stops interacts whit the keys ands so on.

If you can operate a real hammond b-3, than this is pretty much the same. All of the other editable 'digital' parameters are very, straight forward and easy to access.

again, like a real b-3, only with transpose, tweaking of eq, tweaking of leslie speeds, etc.

This is where it gets really freaky....I've played them all, korg cx-3, bx-3, nord electro, hammond xk, etc. I kept thinking with those older models, that they had nailed it. Then, every so often, I would do a session on a real b-3/leslie and I realized how far the gap still was....until now. This thing scares me with how dead-on it sounds when compared to the real thing. I honestley cannot decipher the difference between it and a real b-3. I don't know if that means my ears are bad, but this thing growls, purrs, clicks and clacks, smacks, and breathes like the real thing. I say it's scary, because it shows how powerful computers have become. There is nothing sonically about this organ that holds me back from doing what is supposed be done on a b-3.

Very simple, adjust the drawbars, select vibrato/chorus, percussion etc and play away. However the drawbars is a new experience compared to the traditional Hammond type. Use the 1.06, no bugs to my experience. Manuals feel very tight and well, comparable to my B3.

Features like a B3 plus reverb, midi, 11 pins Leslie connector.

Through a Leslie 122 I have problems to distinguish from the B3. Have not tested the midi-controller capabilities. Specs seem OK, should be possible to control another midiinstrument in a basic manner, locity-sensitive keyboard. Also have very nice Vox and Farfisa emulations for those who think that kind of organs sound OK.

Have no idea yet, however seems very solid build.

Manuals easily understood, hope I not will call them....

Compared to my Korg BX-3 the sound is more realistic even if the Korg also is very well suited. At my last gig I used the B3 and a Leslie 122/142 combo, next gig the B3 will stay at home even if the red C1 does not give the same remarkable view as the Hammond. The difference in weight by a factor of 10 makes the decission very easy. If stolen I think the roadis will buy me a new one.