GREAT Tone!

It is a lot of money, but if you have the money for something like this or the patience to save, GO FOR IT! The sound is unmistakable. I haven't had much time with it yet, but I haven't heard a sound that I didn't like. With the Midi input, there is nothing that it can't do. Sweetwater has been great to work with for this purchase.

The NORD Stage 2 is worth it

All I need are the piano sounds, perfect piano, and a good action. Well the pianos are not perfect, but pretty close! Because of the effects section, you can do more than a real piano can do.
Then there's the big fat rest of this machine: organs, electric pianos, samples, fm, wave synths, arpeggiator, compressor, and loads more, all accessible for performance and endless tweaking experimentation and calculated sound design. With unlimited potentials of clean rich sound in an accessible portable package the Stage 2 is worthy of praise.

Hand Madein from Sweden

If you do live shows in a performance mode were the dynamics of the night could throw anything at you there is no board, in my opinion, which will give the best bang for the buck than Big Red. I have had multiple keyboards on stage and the Stage 2 HA 88 has replaced them all, one unit at around 40 lbs. If you worked with controller keyboards the interface will be easy to grasp. I was concerned about the Key bed and the action of the new board and was pleasantly surprised by the feel and response of this Red machine. It has after touch! I use an EV-7 pedal for pedal controller and my little Hammond switch pedal for toggling the Leslie Sim. I have sold off all my systems to break even on the cost and finding all the pedals I have are compatible was a pleasant surprise. The sound quality is IMHO stunning. A performance I look forward to every time I charge her up. My hand made in Sweden is without a doubt THE best board for these old hands of mine. The Stage2 HA 88, a musical instrument that sets a new bench mark to the term "an extension of one’s self ". The romance continues...

Really impressed

The Stage 2 is simply the most versatile live keyboard that I have ever played. The upgrades in the piano section from the original stage were crucial and extremely well done. The organ is nothing less than stellar and the synth section has some interesting samples/waveforms. Don't expect omnisphere from this unit however. The ability to treat the piano, organ, and synth section as independent units is nothing short of brilliant. The effects section sounds great and is highly useable on the fly. The weighted keyboard may be the easiest of that class to play organ on and yet feels solid for piano. Wow, I really don't have a lot of negative things to say about it other than menu system. Compared to its contemporaries, the Nord's limited display seems relegated to the 90's at best. This is a minor inconvenience when considering the power of this unit. I didn't think that I would be able to say this, but worth the price tag.

Nord Stage Button Programming Suggestion

I read the review about the buttons being hard to navigate and small display and here's what I did to solve that on the gig.

There are 4 main buttons each with a rotation knob of multiple programs. What you do is this:

Program PIANOs on Button 1-00 (Honky Tonk on 1-01) etc
Program Rhodes on Button 2-00 (and Whurly on 2-01) etc
Program Clavinet on Button 3-00 (and Stevie W on 3-01) etc
Program Organs on Button 4-00 ("Greg" then Steve Miller on 4-01) etc

The 1st program on each button should be your favorite gig sounds
The 2nd program on each (by rotating the knob) is 2nd alternate.

That way - on the gig - hit a button, change the sound, rotate the knob once or twice and you get alternate sound in the same category maybe adding synth pads or effects, etc

It takes some moving of programs but it makes gigging so much easier.
Love my Nord Stage - You'll have to tear it from my gigging hands!!!!
PS: Sweetwater rules the Universe !!!

Nord Stage 2 88 is very good

This instrument is perfect for live performance. With 3 independent sound modules, you can easily make changes on the fly without any interruptions in sound. Morphing with the modulation wheel is very good and easy to setup.

Organs are stellar, acoustic pianos are very good, EPs are excellent, and I am only getting started with the synth. I was able to setup an organ, piano and synth overlay after a couple of readings of the overlay sections in the manual. I will likely want to search the libraries for better pads and strings.

Overlays and splits are very easy to setup and use. The power of this instrument is the flexibility with which the 3 sound modules can be integrated. The NS2 allows layers and splits with the organs that the Kurzweil PC3x can not do.

The keybed is much better than expected. The action is a joy to play and very expressive. The action is an improvement over the PC3x.

While the sound set is not as extensive as the Motif, many parameters can be easily and quickly changed at performance time on the NS2.

There are a few patches in the Motif XS rack that are very good so it is worth the trouble of setting up the MIDI settings to make it happen.

This comes very close to a one keyboard does all solution.

I like the encoder style digital draw bars since they reflect the current value at a glance. They also move smoothly from the current position to the next position without an acoustic glitch. When you are learning, you hear the patch as well as see the control positions.

The location of the draw bars is excellent as you can change them while holding a note in the same hand.

Excellent job Nord!!!

Great Performance Board

Had this Nord for a week to figure out it's applications, before I took it out on gigs. It has a very logical layout and all the active controls make it a great board for live shows. It has outstanding piano samples. The programming is simple and all the free samples are great! Coming off a semi weighted workstation, this keyboard has very workable action. I thoroughly enjoy experimenting with this unit and it will be with me for a very long time!

Everything I hoped it would be

Instead of jumping right to the negatives (and there were very few), let me first praise this keyboard. Acoustic pianos, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, Synth, effects....all outstanding. All in one box? Priceless! Just a few negatives. The top end of the organ doesn't scream the way I hoped it would. Weak signal on many of the preloaded samples. Not being much of a techie, there may be adjustments I'm not aware of. That being said, I love playing and performing with my Nord.

sounds great--but

This instrument has the best sounds of any I have owned. Pianos are perfect. Organs are perfect. Synth sounds are really good--and certainly as good as any competitors sounds. My quibble is the learning curve to get this lovely red piano to produce those wonderful sounds. The action is nice. But--this is not an intuitive instrument to operate. No handy dandy row of pre-set buttons with easily accessible sounds. The display panel is ridiculously small. There is no easy way to navigate it. After several hours at home I finally got comfortable enough to take it to a couple gigs (where the sounds received rave reviews). I'm still learning--and wondering why it has to be so hard.