New at NAMM?? Kurzweil Forte vs Nord Stage 2 EX vs Roland RD2000

[dpmusicfan1]

Greetings,
I am the typical weekend warrior musician. I play bass, keyboards, accordion, and horns and recently turned 50! I have a small ProTools based studio at my home and enjoy recording as well as playing out live. I sold my Roland RD 700 GX about 4 years ago because I was not gigging and now the phone keeps ringing! I have several gigs lined up in 2017 including sitting in with 2 classic rock bands, working with a wedding variety band, and a couple of solo piano gigs. I am ready to purchase a new keyboard that will be used for anything and everything I do from basement recording to hauling out to gigs playing a variety of styles of music. I am ready to purchase a NORD Stage 2 EX or a Kurzweil Forte. A long shot would be a Korg Kronos.
NORD - Pluses, I like the action, simplicity to edit sounds on the fly, expandable sounds. Minus, end of life cycle? Sounds might not be as accurate for studio? Polyphony for strings?
Kurzweil - Pluses, I like the action and it has nice overall sounds. Lots of Polyphony. Minus - 9 lbs heavier than Nord
Korg Kronon 73 - Pluses its a workstation and expandable. Minus - its a workstation and heavier than the Nord.

 

[delaware dave]

How about a Forte 7 (76 key version)? Same action as the 88 key, 7 pounds less and about the same weight as the Nord. Plus the Kurz will blow away the Nord in sound quality and functionality.

 

[KeysDude]

If I was gigging and needed one board to do everything, I'd have to go with something fairly light but have versatility to use at gigs and in a studio situation and with semi weighted keys, I'd probably go with either a Roland JP80 or Yamaha Montage 7. Piano weighted keys playing B3 Organ, Clavs & Rhodes stuff for my playing needs a faster key response. Good luck with your new gig schedule

 

[dpmusicfan1]

How about a Forte 7 (76 key version)? Same action as the 88 key, 7 pounds less and about the same weight as the Nord. Plus the Kurz will blow away the Nord in sound quality and functionality.

Thanks for the response. I have not been able to really A/B the two keyboard. I will try to find a store that has both and do a more realistic comparison. I would have guessed that the sounds were close between the two.

 

[dpmusicfan1]

If I was gigging and needed one board to do everything, I'd have to go with something fairly light but have versatility to use at gigs and in a studio situation and with semi weighted keys, I'd probably go with either a Roland JP80 or Yamaha Montage 7. Piano weighted keys playing B3 Organ, Clavs & Rhodes stuff for my playing needs a faster key response. Good luck with your new gig schedule

Thanks for your feedback. I am more of a piano player than a true keyboard guy. Therefore, I do not do real fast or complicated synth or organ parts. I own a Yamaha Avant Grand N3 which has a very realistic but heavier piano action as my home instrument. The Nord and Kurzweil's actions seem like a nice compromise being heavy enough for piano but light enough for the other sounds. The bottom line, its really just what I want to play on because they will all do a good job and no one in the audience will care!

 

[KeysDude]

In that case, worth checking out the new Roland RD2000. It sounds wonderful, already some youtube demo vids to watch. I think its cheaper than the Nord, maybe same price as the Kurz Forte 88. Its also got a built in USB interface so you can plug in a PC/MAC and control a DAW and Virtual Synths. Wouldn't mind that RD myself

 

[delaware dave]

Kurzweil has multi-layed samples on almost all of their samples and the organ is physically modelled. Nord's sample library's samples are single layered. They are not tweakable where Kurz's architecture allows for deep editing of the samples themselves as well as the ADSR envelopes. On the contra this makes the Kurz more complicated to program than the Nord.