Clavia Nord Electro 2 73

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Specifications

There are a number of very unique electric keyboard instruments that have
always been a vital component in music over the years. Instruments that have a distinct sound and a soul of their own. Remember that great organ sound in Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade of Pale', or the wonderful electric piano in Supertramp's 'The Logical Song', or the Clavinet sound in Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'? The list could go on forever. These types of keyboards have inspired generations of musicians and continue to gain new admirers every day. They certainly also inspired us here at Clavia and therefore we decided to create the ultimate "electromechanical" stage keyboard.

The organ section of the Nord Electro 2 is based on a digital implementation of the mechanical tone wheels of the B-3 organ. It offers innovative solutions to mimic the typical B-3 sound, for example:

• A complex digital model of the original chorus and vibrato scanner
• Simulation of the individual random contact bounces for each partial
• Simulation of the unique frequency characteristics of the built-in
  pre-amplifier which forms the "body" of the B-3 sound

In the other section of the Electro 2 you will find a selection of electromechanical pianos. All piano instruments are built up by a vast number of multi-samples to catch every nuance from soft to hard hits. The Nord Electro 2 comes with several legendary electric piano sounds stored in a large Flash memory. By using Flash memory you will be able to download and/or replace piano sounds with new ones via the built-in USB interface.

With the Electro 2 you simply get the perfect combination of heavy sounds and light weight. Clavia proudly invites you to check out the new legend among musical instruments - the Nord Electro 2 Virtual Electromechanical stage keyboard.

AUDIO DEMO

These demo sequences show the sound of the Nord Electro 2.

The first four demos were played by B-3 virtuoso Eddie Landsberg. Here, he plays a Nord Electro 2 SeventyThree and uses Keyboard Split. He normally doesn't feel very comfortable playing B-3 clones, he says, but the Nord Electro 2 definitely changed that! It's right on the spot! No external effects were used on these demos. You're very welcome to visit Eddie Landsberg's web site !

Eddie1 (2.26 min, 2,274 kb)

Eddie2 (2.23 min, 2,228 kb)

Eddie3 (3.04 min, 2,874 kb)

Eddie4 (3.43 min, 3,480 kb)

These demo songs were composed by Joerg Sunderkötter. © copyright control - KEYBOARDS Magazine , Germany:

Electric Piano1 (39 sec, 914 kb)
Electric Stage Piano 73 Mark 1, built in May 1978 and adjusted to ‘deep’ timbre. The so-called volume adjustment was set to ‘low’.

Electric Piano2 (2.05 min, 2,935 kb)
Electric Suitcase 73 Mark I, built in January 1975. We fine-tuned the mechanics and adjusted the tines according to the ‘ideal’ timbre adjustment. The volume adjustment was set to ‘close’.

Wurlitzer1 (1.15 min, 1,749 kb)
The Wurlitzer 200A sound.

Clavinet1 (1.24 min, 1,980 kb)
The Mega Clavinet sound that features all pick-up and filter variations of the original Clavinet D6.

AcGrand2 (48 sec, 1,129 kb)
The Malmsjö acoustic grand piano (in stereo).

Organ (2.04 min, 2,896 kb)
An example of the drawbar organ sound of the Nord Electro 2.

Electric Piano Pan (34 sec, 805 kb)
The Electric Piano1 sound with the auto-pan effect.

ClavinetWah (27 sec, 635 kb)
The Mega Clavinet sound with the Auto-Wah modulation effect.

Electric Piano RingDist (54 sec, 1,266 kb)
The Electric Piano2 sound with the Ring Modulation effect and Overdrive distortion.

The following are demos of some of the additional sounds that can be downloaded to the Nord Electro 2 from the Nord Electro 2 Free Sounds page:

Electric Piano 4 (1.17 min, 1,206 kb)
Electric Stage Piano 73 Mark V, built in June 1984 and adjusted to ‘ideal’ timbre. The volume adjustment is set to ‘close’.

AcGrand3 (1.05 min, 1,028 kb)
Malmsjö acoustic grand in stereo. The microphones are placed close to the piano for good "presence" effect.

AcGrand4 (57 sec, 896 kb)
Svenska Pianofabriken (Swedish Piano Factory) acoustic upright piano in stereo. Very carefully tuned to give the feeling of a genuine "pub/livingroom" piano.

ElGrand1 (23 sec, 363 kb)
An example of the CP 80 Electric Grand sound.

AcGrand1 (30 sec, 462 kb)
An example of the Steinway Model D acoustic grand piano sound.

AcGrand1B (22 sec, 342 kb)
Another example of the Steinway Model D acoustic grand piano sound.

Print Product Chart

Tech Sheet

The organ in the Electro 2 is based on a digital simulation of the mechanical tone wheels of the B-3 organ. It offers innovative solutions to mimic the typical B-3 sound, for example:

• A complex digital model of the original chorus and vibrato scanner.
• Modeling of the individual random contact bounces for each partial.
• Modeling of the unique frequency characteristics of the built-in pre-amplifier which forms the "body" of the B-3 sound.
• Simulation of the energy stealth on the tone wheels that results in the typical "compressed" sound.
• Authentic tuning of the tone wheels according to the original B3 design.

The piano section comprises five carefully multi-sampled electric piano instruments: Electric Piano Mk I Stage Piano, Electric Piano Mk I Suitcase Piano, Wurlitzer 200A, Clavinet D6 and the custom modified Clavia Electric Grand Model G. As a bonus we also included an acoustic Malmsjoe Grand Piano - in stereo! The Electro features a unique multi-sample playback, catching every nuance throughout the whole dynamic range. The Electro also sports a USB interface for quick and easy download of new piano sounds.

The chassis of Nord Electro 2 is made out of roadworthy steel plate and comes with genuine wooden sides. Nord Electro 2 comes in three versions: Nord Electro 2 SixtyOne (61-key version), Nord Electro 2 SeventyThree (73-key version) and Nord Electro Rack 2 (19" rack version).

Organ section

Polyphony

Full polyphony

9 electric drawbars with memory functionality

The drawbars of Nord Electro 2 are represented by up/down buttons and LED bar graphs instead of ordinary mechanical drawbars. This gives you a big advantage: when you change presets, the correct drawbar settings are shown immediately by the LEDs. In other words, no need for the regular ’trial and error’ method. It's very easy to get the hang of changing the drawbar settings in a natural way with the buttons.

Drawbar settings presets

8 drawbar presets + a random preset function in ROM plus 9 user configurable drawbar settings.

Effects

Swell (the characteristic B-3 volume pedal function) - Percussion (2nd, 3rd, normal/soft, fast/slow). Chorus/Vibrato (C1, C2, C3/V1, V2, V3).

Keyboard Split

Makes it possible to play an organ sound with two different drawbar settings (Lower and Upper manuals) on the internal keyboard.

Dual manuals - MIDI Split

Nord Electro 2 is designed to support an extra MIDI keyboard in addition to its own. This makes it possible to play the Nord Electro 2 as a 2-manual (Lower and Upper manuals) organ with different drawbar settings for each manual.

Electric piano section

Instruments

5 multi-sampled electric piano instruments in Flash memory: Electric Mk I Stage Piano, Electric Piano Mk I Suitcase Piano, Wurlitzer 200A, Clavinet D6 and the custom modified Clavia Electric Grand Model G. As an extra bonus we also included an acoustic Malmsjoe grand piano - in stereo!

Effects

Presence Filter (or Filter and Pickup selectors for the Clavinet D6 sound).

Global features

Memory

48 user memory locations (6 Banks holding 8 Programs each) in which you can store complete setups, including instrument settings (organ or piano) and effects settings.

Effects

Overdrive, Rotary Speaker simulation (slow, fast, stop), Equalizer, Chorus (2 types), Flanger (2 types), Phaser (2 types), Tremolo, Wah-Wah (2 types), Auto Wah, Auto panning and Ring modulation.

Keyboard

61-key (5 octaves) or 73-key (6 octaves) velocity sensitive semi-weighted ”waterfall” (square front) keyboard.

Connections

2 Audio outputs, 1 Headphone output, 1 Control pedal input, 1 Sustain pedal input, 1 Rotary Speaker speed switch pedal input, MIDI In, MIDI Out. USB interface for fast and easy download of new piano sounds.

Physical Dimensions

Nord Electro 2 SeventyThree: W: 111.5 cm, D: 29.5 cm, H: 9.5 cm (incl. feet and knobs). Weight: 9.4 kg.

Nord Electro 2 SixtyOne: W: 90 cm, D: 29.5 cm, H: 9.5 cm (incl. feet and knobs). Weight: 7.8 kg.

Nord Electro Rack 2: W: 19", H: 4 rack units (incl. space for cables), D: 10.5 cm (incl. feet and knobs).