Nord Electro 2 61-key

everything is really obvious and intuitive. edit patches by hand or set yr own presets

FX wise, i only use the tremolo and autowah. i run all other effects analog... as for the polyphony, i've never had a note drop out. i've seen people complaining that there is no reverb, none of the electric pianos i've ever played had a reverb feature. i'd recommend an electro harmonix holy grail.

the new clavinet sample available on the website is alot better than the original factory sample. i've played the wurly sound and messed with the settings while compairing it to my actual wurlitzer student model and was able to get it pretty close. the hammond is convincing for live gigs but the fake drawbar set up doesn't really compare to real drawbars. i used to play a farfisa combo organ and the drawbars were a pretty big part of my style so its hard to get used to the button thing... acoustic piano sound is a waste of memory!

the action is spongey, but a good enough mix between hammond and wurlitzer. i'd suggest the rack mount version if you need an exact feel from yr keyboard

never had a problem.

a great keyboard. you don't have to stress about lugging antique electro-mechanical instruments out of the studio/museum. for recording its not the perfect sound but never a worry live. i wish we could get rid of the acoustic piano sound and replace it with a mellotron!!!! a farfisa patch would be good too for that sun ra cosmic drone.

The whole unit is pretty self explanatory. Just turn the dials and listen. The drawbar simulation with buttons isn't as good as the real thing, obviously, but it is much better than I would have expected.

The only thing that's not immediately obvious is how to unlock memory and store patches, but to be honest it's easy enough setting things by hand that there's no real need.

The unit contains emulations of the Hammond organ + Leslie cabinet (which can be turned on and off), acoustic piano, Yamaha electric grand, Wurlitzer, Rhodes and Clavinet.

You can get software updates and new samples on a semi-regular basis. Keyboard action is great for Hammond, not so great for the pianos. However, the latter don't sound too bad at all when controlling the unit from a weighted keyboard (the Fatar Studiologic does wonders for using the Electro as a Rhodes substitute).

The real minus point is that the unit's monotimbral, so you can't do piano and organ at the same time - for that you need the more expensive Nord Stage.

Hammond sound is great. Leslie and tube amp simulation is first rate, particularly when used in stereo. Rhodes and Wurlizter sounds are also excellent. Piano sound is not so great. Setting the Clavinet filters can be a bit awkward.

Utterly reliable. Never normally used a backup - on a few international tours I've taken a laptop loaded with freeware VSTs but never used them.

The unit failed once in mid 2007 when I plugged something into MIDI in when switched on and all the sound went. Powering off / on fixed it, so it might just have been a software bug. In which case it'll probably get fixed long term.

Very light and portable unit, can be carried easily with one hand when in a flightcase.

Never had to deal with the company support as it's hardly ever failed. The Electro's still a supported product on Clavia's website despite newer and better units appearing from them since.

I've had mine since August 2002 and done about 80 gigs a year with it, usually alongside a portable digitial piano of some sort. I used to use a Hammond M102 + Marshall amp head + Sharma Leslie cabinet and the Electro was a good enough replacement for gigs and recording.

I usually play with a guitarist and a horn section which means the extra nuances you get from a real Leslie are lost on the audience when turned up to gig level.

The only thing I might replace it with is the Nord Stage which is multitimbral - so you can just use a dumb MIDI controller as your second keyboard and not have to mix two sound sources together.

This thing is real easy to use. All of the controls are marked well on the panel and easy to adjust on the fly. The presets were pretty good and only needed a little tweaking here and there. The cool thing is if you are playing along and want to change something you can save it real quick or it will revert back to the way it was before the edit if you don't save. I didn't use the manual that much, only to figure out the sustain pedal really.

This is a real down to earth keyboard with some nice features. The key action is pretty good for the most part. I like the fact that it is not a one trick pony. I use it mainly for the B3 emulation, but could use it all night if my other keyboard were to take a dump. I haven't messsed around with the Midi stuff, mainly because I don't have much use for it. The keys are perfect for wipes. There is no reverb, which kinda sucks.

This is where you have to give this little beast some credit. The sensitivity of the keys is great. I am using this mainly for classic rock and newer country so I mainly use the B3 patches that I have set up. I didn't care for the acoustic piano sounds, I use my old Alesis QS8 or Yamaha S90 for that. The clav and whurli are cool and really close to sounding authentic. The organ sounds are the best of the B3 cloans that I have tried. The overdrive is not the greatest but as long as you add is sparingly it works okay. The leslie simulation is right on I think, and you can control it via the foot pedal. The only effect that I really wish it had was some on board reverb, but that is easily fixed with a pedal. I did some recording with it and it sounded great direct to the board with nothing else.

I have been using it for almost a year every weekend, and carrying it around in one of the soft sided gig bags. It has held up perfect so far and I have no concerns about having a backup for it.

I have not had to deal with them so I couldn't tell you.

If something were to happen to it, I would replace it with another one right away. Although I may think about getting the 73 instead of the 61 just to have the extra keys in case I needed to use it by itself all night. I tried out all of the main B3 emulators and this is the one I thought was the closest in sound and warmth.

The controls are easy to understand. Saving and recalling presets is easy. Making drawbar changes very easy. Effects changes -- easy. The manual is good--you can download it from www.clavia.se. Only one complaint--downloading the latest software requires a MIDI interface. New sounds can be downloaded via USB.

I love the semi-weighted keyboard.

The build-in effects are very useful--especially the autowah for the clavinet; the chorus, pan, tremolo are just what you'd want for the Whurly and Rhodes.

The Hammond B-3 controls are great: 2nd/3rd harmonics, chorus/vibrato, key click. And the Leslie simulation has slow/fast and break.

I like the overdrive control when used sparingly.

Be warned..no reverb with this keyboard!

The clavinet is the best
The Hammond B3 is better than the Korg CX3 (by my ears)
The Leslie sim is the best I've heard
The acoustic piano is fine for me. If you don't like this piano sample then you probably don't like any piano samples.
The whurlitzer electric piano is good as are the Rhodes pianos--though they are a bit on the dark side and can benefit from a little EQ.

don't know. Only used this keyboard for 2 gigs so far

Don't know

If it were lost or stolen I would have to replace it.

Me: Performed for 30 years: proms, fairs, parties, festivals, studio musician, university asst. jazz band director.

Other keyboard gear I use regularly: Korg Triton Pro, Triton LE, N364, Moog MuRF 105, JBL EONs
Guitar gear: Variax 700, Gibson LP, Fender Strat & Tele, Atomic Amp, PodXT, Fulltone OCD, Line 6 MMR
mackie for stage mixdown.