Clavia Nord Electro 61

I am using software 1.0.1, in which I haven't found any bugs yet. Maybe they're there, but they don't bother me. The Electro has the great approach of having every vital function represented by a front panel button or switch. It's very logical and easy to use. The "drawbars" are actually great, much better than they would seem to an organ player, used to the real thing... The manual is very clear and readable, but You really don't need it for basic patch editing. I only read it to learn more about MIDI implementation and such things.

The polyphony isn't the greatest; twentyfour notes (I think!) are possible at once, but Clavia claim that the new operative system will improve this vastly, and since they've never let me down before, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The keyboard action is surprisingly good; it works great for B3 sounds right away, and after some practising I've found it to be very responsive for the other sounds too. The built-in effects are great reproductions of classic effects, and especially the "tube" overdrive makes me want to jump up and down, screaming with joy - and this I can say after hauling my mark II Rhodes with a Music Man 4x12 for the last seven years. My only wish is that the effects were not hard patched, but instead interchangeable, since the order of the effects greatly affects the sound. The MIDI capabilities are somewhat limited, but this is not a MIDI master controller; this is an instrument to be played. If You're a real MIDI-hookup-geek (like me!), You might want to check the upcoming rack version. There are no wheels, no arpeggiator and no other such things, but, like I said, this is not that type of board. The only major setback is the monotimbrality; it would be great to be able to combine, say, organ and clav.

The B3-emulation is the best I've heard. I recently did a recording with a two-guitar rock band that wanted some "fattening" (i.e. B3) on their tracks. On two of the tracks we used a rental C3 in great shape with a Leslie 145, and on the rest the Electro, and if I didn't know which tracks were wich, I couldn't tell you. Naturally, in a situation with the organ more up-front, you cant beat the real deal, but in a situation like this, well... The Rhodes sound is great, although I feel it sounds more like a mark II than the announced mark I. The prescence buttons work magic with the piano sounds, and when used with the distortion, you're in heaven. It takes about two seconds from "Still crazy after all these years" to "The happy people" to "Bitches Brew" and back. The Wurly is great, too, and it keeps me playing Donny Hathaway licks for far too long. The CP80 evokes the spirit of Hermeto Pascoal and Cesar Romero, and can easily be led into Peter Cetera-land. The Clav is very funky, with a character leaning more towards a harpsichord character than is usual on today's synths, but it sounds great. The wah sounds fantastic on the Clavinet, but it sounds more like a low-pass than a band-pass filter to me. I find the keyboard very responsive to my playing, and playing the Electro is a breeze.

It's a Clavia! I only have good experience from gigging with a Nord Lead 2 since 1997. It's never let me down, or even choked once, and I've put it through a lot...

When I got the unit, a key was cracked. They fixed it the next day. Always helpful, always there.

I realise this is almost getting silly, but I really think the Electro is THE piece of musical equipment to have if you need vintage electromechanical sounds (and who doesn't?). For me, the Electro has proven to be the holy grail of making music without breaking your back. I've used it in everything from free-form electronica to gospel, rock, blues, jazz, soul, MPB, and the list goes on. The rest of my setup consists of a Triton rack and a Nord Lead 2. The Triton is a great synth, too, and I gigged with it and the Nord for about a year and a half before checking the Electro out (along with all the other B3-wannabes). What differs the Electro from all other modelled and sample-playback versions of vintage keys, is that it doesn't feel like playing a sample or a model, but rather a real instrument. The areas where it differs from the original boards, mostly the clav, are the areas where it stands out as an instrument of it's own, and not merely an imposter. It makes music easier. And it's light-weight.

Absolute breeze to use but... I've been giging with mine and it is not easy to change settings or even get the right piano etc. in the dark!

I bought this for the organ sounds. i'm getting old and deseased and hump my old hammond about anymore. I find the organ sound a bit 'woody' especially through the band stereo PA. This can be compensated on the desk but if you use the on-board bass/treble or EQ it leaves the sound a bit 'thin'. The rhodes and wurley sound are great but I am still trying to get the hang of this touch sensitivity. I also use a trinity and i can adjust the sensitivity to my playing style (very light - see 'old hammond player')

My band is blues/jazz/anything goes. Organ sound are good after you tweek the presets. Shame about the colour!

Good so far.

had to wait a long time for delivery. I'm checking clavia web site for the long promised new piano sounds that keep slipping away. They are also promising a software upgrade with adjustable key click for the organ. I need this..

Great, but acoutic piano lets it down. If it aint good enough why put it there at all.

I'm using software version 1.0x, according to the manual that came with the Nord. The presets sound very nice and editing the patches is a breeze. On the Nord Electro it's all out there in front of you. Tweak a knob, push a button and you're on your way to getting a great sound. The manual is very straight forward -- the complete opposite of what one might expect from a Roland manual (My manual for the Roland JV90 was completely unreadable). It's easy to tell that the folks at Clavia really care not only about what they are making, but also about who is going to be using their product.

The keyboard action is beautiful. Built in effects include a wah wah which is pedal controlable, ring modulation, phaser, flanger and chorus. Also has overdrive, rotary speaker and treble and bass EQ. Not only are all of these easy to use, they sound great. It has velocity sensitive keys, midi in and out.

The organ section with its almost unlimited possibilities for sound structuring is awesome. The Piano section very nice. Give the Rhodes a ten, the Clavinet a ten, the Wurlitzer a ten, the electric grand a nine, the acoustic grand an eight, and the knowledge that Clavia continues to work on downloadable new patches for this section a ten plus. This board works well for all types of music. It makes you want to sit down and play more and more.

Clavia has a great reputation. It keeps getting better because of the care given to producing a solid reliable product. I most definitely would gig with this without a backup and I definitely will be doing so.

As I've indicated before, this is a company with a great reputation. Their website bears this out, as does their products that are out there being used in clubs and studios all over the world I expect nothing but the best from Clavia.
On the other hand, I had a Hell of a time dealing with Musician's Friend in getting delivery on this board. Their people were poorly informed, rude, untruthful and incompetent. What should have been a three-day delivery from time of order took 12 days and numerous phonecalls. I won't be dealing with them again.
Clavia, though is another story. I am so impressed with the Nord Electro, that I am considering buying another of their products.

I love this board. I looked at a lot of others, but they were either too big to lug around from gig to gig, or too cheesy despite their high price tags. The other keyboard in our studio is a PSR 9000 by Yamaha which is fine for studio, but pretty heavy to carry. One thing I like about this board is what it doesn't have. It doesn't have a lot of half-hearted attempts at making say a trumpet or a marimba. Basically this board says to me, "quit screwing around and make some real music." For me that's blues, jazz and rock. If this board was lost, I'd get another one, but I wouldn't order it from Musician's Friend.

incredible presets. the leslie sim is the best available and the rhodes is also amazing. patch editing is a breeze.

everything is perfect. some people complain that it needs reverb but i just use reverb on my amp and it works fine. its very very easy to use and clavia is coming up with new downloadable sounds later this year.

the best of everything. i really didn't need the electric grand but oh well, the rest is stellar.
organ- 10
rhodes- 10
wurlitzer- 9
clavinet-8
e. grand- 8
acoustic grand- 9

all i gotta say is trent reznor uses clavia products.

never dealt with it

best keyboard i own. the thing presents the best emulations of a b-3 and a rhodes i've ever heard (the rest are quite notable also). its small and very portable, tough as a rock as far as i can tell and is backed by an incredible company. definitely would take it over the hammond xk-2 or rolandvk-7 any day. the thing is just a piece of musical art.

Presets sounds are absolutely fantastic for the rhodes, wurlitzer and clav. It also feels like sitting at the cp-80 again! The acoustic piano is unplayable, hope there will be a better one in the future. Hammond with the leslie is fantastic, one of the best I played. Comparing it to my Rhodes Mark 1, it sounds weaker and hasn't got that bite in the sound but it's the closest "synthvariant" I ever played. Hammond click is a little bit to loud.

The keyboard light weight so from now on I wouldn't even consider bringing my rhodes anymore, just this red beauty and we're all set and go. And perhaps a guitar amp to get more bite.

Editing is a breeze, I started tweak immediately with distortion, tremolo, chorus and wah-wah. If the volume pedal is connected in hammond mode it's the swell pedal which is very accurate, and in piano mode controlling the wah!!!! great job - I'm gotta shake that booty. Presence and a small bass and treble knob is a good extra. the only thing I miss is a little reverb or delay, but that could be handled thorugh the guitar amp.

It emulates Rhodes,wurlitzer, clav, CP 80 hammond, it does what i says and does it good, one instrument at a time. The only thing I do miss is using both hammond and rhodes at the same time.

It will be possible to download sounds in the future an I'm waiting for more rhodes sounds like the mark1.

I will use this keyboard for gigging with my jazzband where there is no piano, I will also use it for rock, soul and funk gigs. It's so easy to carry along so I would depend on it only! A little delay and reverb would have been great. That click again in the hammond, I would have preffered to have it a bit lower in volume..

It will be my only gigging keyboard form now on!!!!

not

I would get a new one if it was stolen, perhaps the 73 key one. There is no competition. It's alone in it's class when it comes to portability/ sound. And it contains the only sounds i use for playing with bands. The only thing that is anoying is that I have also to bring my Yamaha P50m for the piano sound.

This product is so easy to use that anyone who understands the basic concept of the drawbar, the rotary speaker, and simple effects like chorus and autopan will be up and running in zero seconds flat. Simplicity is the name of the game here. Manual required only to understand the simple midi implementation.

I love the features of this device. The drawbar control is fabulous. The effects are highly usable and sound remarkably like the classic effects they emulate. (The woman below who asks which one is the mutron must be deaf in one ear). The rotary speaker is the best emulation you will ever hear, period, in any form. The mechanical feel (and even the look!) of the keyboard makes this a truly SUPERB musical instrument.

There are some very features that are missing though, as pointed out by other reviewers, most notably a wave-shape control for the panner (badly needs square shape!). A way to control the key click level for the organ would be nice (a VGA "attack" control would do...). I am also surprised that there is not at least a basic reverb or delay effect either; this would have been *really* nice to have and would truly have made this a free-standing masterpiece. Maybe something like this can still be added by software updates???

Likewise, the reviewer who asked for a sample playback mode which extends the range of the original instruments is not too far off-base. It would be nice to have as an option, especially in the lower registers. I've grown accustomed to all those cheesy wannabe rhodes sounds in this regard, and find myself reaching for a low low Eb too much...

The sounds are awesome and the expressive qualities are many. The sampled pianos cross beautifully between velocity levels. The history of Clavia as a generous provider of updates (Nord, dDrum, etc.) indicates that this synth will only improve with age! There has NEVER been a better unit to do what the electro does. Even though I was somewhat involved in its development as an outsider I was truly taken aback by the amazing quality that Clavia have managed to squeeze into this FANTASTIC SOUNDING package.

C'mon folks. This ain't yo mammy's casio. Clavia gear is built to LAST LAST LAST. Road worthy and endurance tested. Any electro will outlive the machines it emulates by decades.

Never needed it for the Electro, but while I was waiting for it and watching it grow, I exchanged emails with some very very personable and professional members of the Clavia team. You are in good hands with these people, to be sure. Honest, hard working, trustworthy, and obviously brilliant.

Within weeks of having this unit, I am hooked. I can sit and listen to the Rhodes for hours. It is truly lovely. The Wurlitzer makes every other imitator hang their head. The clav is so funky I can't sit still. The CP-80 is a one-of-a-kind wonder (even Elton John will want one). The Hammond. Aahhh the hammond. Say goodbye to sampled leslie with all its bizarre and bad sounding ideosyncracies. When I close my eyes I am standing next to the real thing. I can feel the air on my face as the Leslie starts to spin.

In just the same way that lovers of the vintage analog synths have latched on to the virtual analogs like the Nord, THE AFFICIONADO OF THE PIANOS AND ORGANS OF THE CLASSIC ERA (60s, 70s, even 80s) MUST BUY THE ELECTRO! ! ! ! ! ! ! Worth every penny and more for what the retail price asks. (and beats the pants off any softsynth emulation too if you're really a player!)

(I am "reviewing" this instrument as someone who has chosen NOT to buy one. Based upon what I am seeing here, I may be expressing a dissenting opinion! I played the instrument on two occassions, for approximately 2 hours total, at a music store.) The layout, and the
liberal provision of knobs as opposed to menus, make the Electro seem very "user-friendly" to me. The small size and weight are fantastic!

The "portable 'vintage' keyboard" concept is brilliant! Exactly what "we" need! BUT: I did not like the keyboard action/feel when I was playing piano or electric piano - I would say it feels too "shallow". I was disappointed that the design prohibits simultaneous organ and piano layering - I need that. According to the manual, the Organ Mode won't transmit velocity data - so one can't really MIDI it to a piano module in that Mode. The Electro 61 runs out of bass notes on piano left-hand work, even in "Octave Shift". The effects are pretty good, but I had hoped the Leslie simulator would represent a leap over previous attempts by others - for me, it did not. (Give me more "amplitude modulation" please!). I don't think I like the "tone wheel stealth" feature of the organ - I never noticed my B3 doing that! (Unless it's quite subtle). A dedicated organ output would be good, for Leslie connection (even if 1/4") - not provided (yet). The sweeping "Presence" (EQ) knob is great!

I like the organ sounds, except for the "tone stealth" thing, and the merely-OK Leslie simulation (but I tend to use real Leslies anyway, unless/until some genius gives us a breakthrough in simulation). The organ exhibited no phasing problems when it tried it through a rotating (Pro3) device - good! I liked the Piano and the Clav, and the effects. For Rhodes, I prefer something more like a Roland MKS20 - brighter, "harder", response cleaned up a bit and more uniform, not as funky/clunky-sounding - but hey, I may be a heretic!

Again, I do not own this instrument, because of my less-than-ecstatic response to trying it, so I can offer no opinion here.

My contact at Armadillo was very patient in letting me ask questions and bring up "concerns" about possibly buying an Electro, but I don't know how much of my feedback was passed on; and there were no real answers to the "hard questions", so I am unsure whether our e-mail correspondence was of much consequence. Nice guy, though. (Thanks, JC !)

Once more, I chose not to buy the Electro, but I hope you will publish my "dissenting opinion" anyway, for the sake of fairness. I think the Electro is pretty cool, but for me it lacks a lot of things I need in a "portablized", downsized rig. I believe this type of product is badly needed, but could be better executed!

I believe that the Ease of use category has met its match. There has never been a product which is so clearly laid out and downright functional. It took me all of zero seconds to understand every function of the box... ok ok... it took like three seconds to get past "memory protect" but EVERYTHING is right with this kit if you have the foggiest idea what the basic reason for its existence is.

If I give less than a ten in any category, this would have to be it. In balance with a primary focus on LESS IS MORE, its awesome sound comes with a rather limited feature set. Here are some of the limitations:

? none of the instruments can respond to pitch bend
? save/compare mode doesn't seem to let you toggle between the edited sound and the sound in memory (memory only)
? there is only very limited control of the mod fx (rate/depth) - one of the the phasers badly needs a MANUAL or FREQUENCY control, and phase control (0?-180?) would be nice (needed for the chorus too)
? Likewise, there are controls not happening on the autowah that would make it much more personable. As is, it's pretty sterile-- misses the point, even
? Is that autowah polyphonic? I think it does not respond well to the mono sum of the output.
? Agreed, the original Hammond had no on/off setting for key click, but this would be one area where the servant could have become the master. Add it in a later OS release, Clavia!
? Likewise, the original leslie had limited controls, but take a clue from admittedly weak later day emulations and provide some functions that midi might make possible: there's no adjustment possible to top and bottom speeds, no in between rates when linked to a midi cc (fast OR slow), and no way to toy with the mic position on the cabinet. Pity, cause it sounds so damn good you'll just want to sit around and play one chord for the rest of your life.
? There's no shape control for the autopan or tremelo effects. I want SQUARE or TRIANGLE.
? I would gladly pay extra for even a meager reverb. For this price, I'd have hoped for one already. Nothing, Dry-ola
? OK. I know. I'm asking for a lot... but even cheesy sample stretching would have been better than reaching for an out of range note and getting nothing but silence: in its portrayal of the original electromechanical instruments, the electro ONLY allows you to play notes from the original ranges of those instruments. The Pianos knock off without the bogus botom we all got addicted to while making due with half-rate Roland, Korg, Alesis, and Kurzweil EPs.
? Funny that although the factory sounds are purported to be replaceable, their names are permanently written onto the face panel
? I kind of wish for some internal modulation routing options-- the controller assignments are all fixed, but boy, would it be nice to be able to control this leslie's speed with aftertouch or what?
? I agree with the previous reviewers who state that the EPs are cool through the Leslie, and that the organ is weird without it, but a MIX function to let some of the dry sound through would have been better
? The ring mod frequency should be controllable like the wah from an expression pedal.

The sounds are stellar. Even to a flaw. If the real CP80 sounded lame in the lower registers so does this one. Is is me or do I hear multisample crossover points? You won't find a better digital Leslie on earth today. The Rhodes barks and the Wurlie punctuates and the whole experience just makes you want to stay touching the thing forever. The acoustic piano is far from rich, and the velocity crossovers too limited, but it really cuts through and I prefer it even to the Roland "best digital piano we ever made" SRX-02 board. I'm hoping for another Rhodes, even grimier--'73 stage through a Twin--coming soon. And I really enjoy the CP80 through the chorus. The clav is the weakest of a strong bunch: doesn't bite back, and you can't get any key-off clicks, harmonic effects, or feedback. A muted clav would be nice to have too!!!

Rhodes: 10
Wurli: 9
Clav: 7
CP80: 8
Acoustic Piano: 7
Organ: 10

If you read my FEATURES review, you'll know I have some gripes with the effects. There's not enough control, and the emulations are perhaps too true to 70s technology. I would have expected an MXR or a Mutron phaser character-- Hey clavia: go listen to "Gaucho" and revisit one of your Phasers. "I'm Not In Love" is another good model-- left and right out of sync bi-phasing man! It's the height of Rhodes FX. 2 Flangers? Why why why??????

If its Clavia, it has got ta be good.

Clavia is near the top in this category.

Because almost everything I'm asking for can be addressed with software, this kit still deserves a high high rating. There is literally no better modern tool imaginable for the purpose than the Clavia electro. But I suggest, clavia, that the combination of the SHIFT button and your existing knob layout can be a saving grace. Get to work on that Phaser, Give us a better way to tone down the key click, open up some possibilities with new multisamples, tap into some of what might happen with those reserved midi control numbers you've put aside, and my lord you'll have done the impossible.

Before encountering the Electro for myself, I read the reviews below (including the one for the 73), and thought to myself, how could it be THAT good? These guys might be on the Clavia payroll! Now, having auditioned it and bought it (those two events occurring within about 10 minutes of each other), I have to say that, while I think some of the praise in those reviews is a little over the top, I'm ready to believe they came by their enthusiasm honestly.

Yes, its easy to use. The learning-to-fun ratio is extremely favorable. The layout is designed for real time tweaking, as it should be. That is completely within the spirit of electro-mechanical emulation. Once you get used to it, its a real pleasure to start making changes on the fly.

I love that there is no wall wart.

I'll try not to repeat what other reviewers have said concerning features. An important thing to note is that it is not multi-timbral. You can't play organ and epiano simultaneously (though switching between them is as easy as hitting a button). This might be seen as a drawback. It might also be seen as a reason to buy two Electro's.

The primary reason for my owning this is for the piano sounds, so that's what I've paid most attention to so far. There are five sounds (with more to come via downloads), all of which can be run through the effects section. Plenty of memory (for my purposes) to store sounds in particular configurations. There are two effects sections, one for chorus/phaser/flanger, another for tremelo/pan/wah/ring mod. A "presence" adjustment. A 2-band EQ. And a leslie simulator (another review says you can put epiano through this. I haven't tried that yet). Distortion.

The organ can be split into two manuals. Drawbars are adjusted through the funky two-button system, which is fairly easy to use but you can be sure the intuitive "grab and pull" motions you've learned from playing a real Hammond will not transfer over!

The action is nice. The keys are large and unencumbered by front ledges, so you can palm them "like butter." The action is semi-weighted, but very light. This works well enough for organ, but for epiano sounds it is problematic for me, because I can't really use the technique I would on my rhodes. Since, as I said, I use this keyboard primarily for piano (aout 95% rhodes), this presents something of a dilema. The solution, for me, is to trigger piano sounds from my weighted-action keyboard. I then turn the local control off on the Electro and use it to send midi note values to other modules. This works out very nicely. In fact, I'm finding I can get more dynamic range by playing the weighted action keyboard than from the Electro keyboard (more crunch when playing hard). That's a bit surprising, but its not a bad thing. All that said, its not an extreme hardship to play rhodes sounds on the Electro keyboard. Its just not optimal. But the touch sensivity of the Electro is nicely calibrated to these sounds, so I find I can get enough expression from it. Its nice to be able to travel light with just the Electro if I feel like it.

All in all, its a great set of features, very well suited for the purposes of this board.

This here is the good part. I've long been searching for the holy grail of a useable electronic rhodes emulation, and so I've heard everything. There are some other "useable" emulations out there, some of them perhaps capable of fooling the casual listener, but this is the by far the best I've heard. Soundwise, the key to the expressiveness of a rhodes is in the subtle gradations of tone as you vary the attack. Up till now, as far as I'm aware, keyboard-makers have emulated this by layering 2 or sometimes 3 samples. I can't tell how many samples are layered into the Electro's sound, and the fact that I can't tell speaks very well as to how effectively they've recreated this aspect of it. Its labeled as a "Mark II" rhodes sound, and that seems about right. There's a subtle bell-like quality when playing softly, but a nice hard crunch at full velocity (and other variations in between), just like you'd expect from a Mark II. Personally, I'd rather have a Mark I suitcase sound (like the one I own). I'm hopeful that future downloads will include something like that.

The wurlitzer is also excellent, the best I've heard, for similar reasons. Clavinet is also excellent, though I won't go so far as to say its clearly better than any other I've heard. But its up there with the best. It seems to me that wurli and clavinet would be more of a challenge to reproduce all the attack transients (moreso than the rhodes). Maybe that's why I don't feel those emulations are quite as spot-on as the rhodes is. That's not to say they aren't very impressive. In my opinion, the rhodes is the piece de resistance of this keyboard.

I don't know why there has to be a CP80 sound. If memory space is finite and valuable, why waste it on that? I'm glad there's a piano sound though, even if its not super good, because oftentimes I'll need piano to cover some small part or other in a song, and its nice not to require a separate sound source for that.

I like the onboard effects quite a bit. There all good, every last one, and the implementation is superb. Analog purists will of course want to set up a chain of stompboxes or whatnot, and I will do that as well when its convenient. But I feel quite happy and comfortable using the onboard digital effects.

The "presence" function can make a dramatic difference in emphasizing certain frequency range. Its a great feature. One thing I immediately wished the Electro could do (but it can't) is to control this via footpedal.

I like the distortion as well. Sure, its digital and so its not really like playing through a tube, but its very musical and I like the quality of it.

The Electro can sound soft and sweet, but by experimenting with combinations of effects and distortion levels, you can easily unmask the beast in the machine. As the sound goes from honey to vinegar, the Electro starts to sound like a close cousin of the Nord lead. I love the hard-edged tones I can get out of this thing. I anticipate that will cut through band mixes like a chainsaw.

I'm not going to write much about the organ. Its very good. I like everything about it. As another review said, it a little strange without the rotary effect enabled, but great with it. I like the rotary effect alot. And the distortion with the organ is wonderful. And the fact that you can run the organ through any of the effects is great for achieving organ-like sounds you would never hear from an organ. I own a new Korg CX-3, and I'll probably keep using that as my main organ axe. I like the sound, the action, and the drawbars on the CX-3 too much to give it up. But you can get killer non-traditional sounds out of the Electro organ section that you can't get from the CX-3, so I don't know. I'll have to figure out a way to bring those sounds into mix somehow.

This is my first piece of Clavia gear. It seems well-constructed. I trust the Swedes to make good, long-lasting stuff. And no wall wart!

No idea.

I've been reading the hype around this keyboard for awhile now and I felt sure it wouldn't live up to it, at least not enough for me to lay down the almost-two grand and reconfigure my rig around it. I was wrong. Happily wrong. No, it doesn't really replace the keyboards it emulates. For one thing, even if you perfectly replicate the sound of a rhodes, that's not the same as replicating the physical experience of playing one (the action in particular). But it comes oh so close. I think as a B-3 emulator, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Korg CX-3, but I'm not sure it represent a big advancement in that department. As a rhodes and wurli emulator, it is so much better than anything else out there! This might finally be the keyboard that convinces alot of vintage keyboard players to spend their money, save their back, and leave their "dearly beloveds" in the studio.

Again, there is the interesting problem that you can't use this keyboard for piano and organ at once. I think that means that either you'll have two electro's or you'll tend to use it for one as opposed to another function. The vast majority of people buying this are going to be, like me, players who use both organ and epiano extensively. So this question is going to present itself to just about everyone who buys an Electro. My solution is to keep on relying heavily on my CX-3, and use the electro mostly for the epiano sounds.

Is this keyboard worth $1750? I think if it were multi-timbral, the answer would be more obviously yes. Given that you can only use one at a time, the question gets a little harder. Given how much I use these vintage epiano sounds, I consider it a good value. A digital keyboard that makes me feel expressive and creative the way this does ought to be worth a couple grand. I would buy it even if there were no B-3 sound.

Which raises an interesting question. Will Clavia get around to marketing this as a module -- table top maybe -- with just the piano sounds? I for one would dig that.

As with anything, you should listen and play before buying. At this point, Electro's are still hard to find, and I expect they'll be flying out of stores for quite awhile. The Electro should make you want to get down and get funky the minute you lay your hands on it. If it doesn't do that, check your pulse, you may be dead.

I'must be one of the first using it [v1.0x].

The sound is amazing. It is warm and extremely dynamic. The instrument responds to every slight velocity change and that makes it incredible fun to play! The Rhodes patch is absolutely uncomparable with anything on the market. Except a real Rhodes. The organ is great. It's leslie effect is so realistic that when you stop the virtual rotor, it actually stops somewhere, instead of some effect being stopped. Same thing for tha acoustic grand, the upper keys are undamped just as the real piano. You forget every other keyboard when you play this one. It requires a different technique than other keyboards, but when you master it, you can really play ultimately expressive.

The Electro is remarkably easy to operate. Knobs for every single function. Just choose your sound and add effects! It's a pity that the knobs are not digital, so when you change settings in a preset, the value of some feature suddely jumps to the value on the knob. There is no display, there are no menus. Great.

The manual is well laid out, and easy to understand. But you don't need it!

The organ section has full [122] note polyphony, and it is not sampled but modelled. The piano section has a different multisampling technology. Polyphony is not too high. This is no problem in jazz and pop, but check if you also play heavy classical music. The fact the you can't play organ and piano at the same time is a little annoying.

The effects sound great. They're all classics [wahs phasers ringmod flanger], and if an effect wasn't used on the original instrument, it's not there. It is great to control the wahwah with your expression pedal, and the sustain pedal works to control Leslie speeds in organ mode. Really clever!

In future it'll be possible to load one more multisampled instrument into the Electro via USB, and the factory sounds will be replaceable.

All controllers send MIDI, it has no pitch bend or modulation, because there wasn't any on Wurlitzers, Rhodeses etc.

Come on, you're not going to use a sequencer with this one. Sit down and play and have incredible fun! So it hasn't got one on-board. Also, don't complain about having no other sounds. If this bothers you this is not your board!

You have to stick with this ones..

Rhodes - incredible. very expressive
Wurlitzer - incredible. very expressive
CP80 - incredible..
Hohner D6 -
Acoustic grand
B3 emulation

I could give you some ethousiastic stories here but that takes up too mauch time. I [and you!] should be playing it. It is unlike anything else on the market. Keyword...expression! The acoustic grand sounds not like a Roland piano or a Korg piano. It sounds like a REAL piano. It is a big advantage when you've got experience in playing jazz.

Seems well built. The casing is beautifully designed and has wooden endplates. It is lipstick red, so it's an eyecatcher. Every knob gives a quality feel. When you play live, always put down the fader before shutting down because if gives a nasty click!

When you change preset while playing, it'll also click. But that's not such a problem

It was a long wait [took almost 2 months to arrive]. Haven't had to deal with them, but e-mail reactions were quick.

It is simply unlike anything on the market. It simply makes you play funky stuff! If you want an alround thing, don't go for it. If you want to program sounds, don't go for it. If you don't like jazz/funk don't go for it.

You know, it is a bit like a guitar. Looks right, feels right and plays right. And the sound is out-of-this world