One of the most useful keyboards ever... 
by Dave from USA, August 2007

If I could go back in time about 30 years and only take one item with me, it would be this keyboard (OK, maybe some winning lottery numbers too). My lust for the classic sounds of my youth has finally been assuaged by a keyboard that weighs less than the lid and legs of a fender rhodes! I've been using my compact for 9 months at this point, and like the electro, Clavia has made this instrument about as intuitive as a keyboard can get. Menu diving is kept to a bare minimum, there are dedicated controls for the most important functions... you could figure this thing out pretty easily if you lost the manual; creating splits and layers, even on the fly, is very straight forward. As for the sounds, they're just wonderful; Clavia occasionally updates their OS, making improvements to the keyboard response, adding features or changing the characteristics of a sound. The last update greatly improved the key click and percussion of the hammond sound, which was already killer. The semi weighted keyboard is a nice balance of touch between the organs and pianos ( although I would like to try controlling the pianos from a weighted keyboard; I tried this with my PC88, but that combo didn't seem to work as well as it did with my electro).There's not much to nit pick with this keyboard; if you're playing an outdoor gig, you won't be able to see the led's, which could be a real problem, especially when using the "draw buttons"; if you send one or more of your sounds to the auxillary outputs, that sound can't have reverb, which is an otherwise global effect; the other effects can only be used with one instrument at a time, i.e. you can't assign chorus to both the piano and the synth; and there are some limitations to the controller assignments, but I have seen posts on the nord stage yahoo group where some ingenious workarounds have been discovered.My reason for getting the compact instead of one of the fully weighted versions was that in a 2 keyboard setup, the organ / synth keyboard would be on top of the weighted piano controller; the compact would fill the organ keyboard roll while giving me full access to the controls (ever run into the problem of having your upper keyboard block your view of the menu screen and buttons of the lower one?)... and when using it alone, I'm out the door with a 22 lb. axe. I love it!

  My favorite keyboard ever 
by Brendan from Brooklyn, NY, July 2007
Music Background:  songwriter, pro musician (150 shows/year), arranger, producer

I've read reviews on other sites that describe problems with the sound of the pianos in the upper midrange--all I can say is that this thing is killer for synths, killer (like the electro) for organs and electric pianos and clavs, and *I* personally love both the acoustic grands and uprights. The Yamaha grand samples are stellar, bright enough to cut through the band, but expressive and lovely enough for ballads and (dare I say it) classical music.

The people at Clavia have made an amazing lightweight instrument here--I bought it because I wanted to be able to take it on the subway to a gig--and I never expected that I would be LOVING playing piano and electric piano parts on an unweighted organ keyboard. But I am. They did an amazing job of scaling and programming this thing so that this super-light keyboard feels great when you're playing sounds that you'd otherwise want to be playing from a weighted keyboard. It just rocks.

The only reason for the 4.5 stars instead of 5 is that I initially was using this thing without an organ swell pedal, and something (?) set the organ sounds volume very low in comparison to the piano and synth sounds, and no amount of knob-tweaking would change it. Plugging in a volume pedal and flooring it "fixed" the problem, so I guess it was a feature, not a bug. But nobody at Clavia or Armadillo was able to help me.

Bottom line: I have never gotten anywhere near this much joy out of playing a keyboard instrument. It was worth every penny.

Write Your Own Review!
We all love gear, and we all love talking about gear with our friends and bandmates. Why not share your thoughts with the hundreds of thousands of customers who regularly visit Sweetwater.com? Write your own customer review on this product! To begin, just Click Here!