I didn't buy Nord Electro 5, here's why 

i didn't buy any of them, here's why im just broke

Personally i need physical ones, something i can pull rapidly and i can feel with my fingers, i don't use presets so when i have to switch sound i just reach for the drawbars and pull them without even watching them, i don't care to see the value of the drawbar cause i can ear the sound, i adjust them by sensation.

The ability to split & layer and to use both delay and reverb at the same time made me choose the 5!

The 5D shows the Drawbar setting in the OLED display which is just fine if you want to see the sound you're playing and you will see it change in real time when you move them. The display also gives a lot more information. You don't get that on an actual Hammond anyway when you call up the preset stops, so what's the difference? The Drawbars are detented so they don't feel like Potentiometers. They click into position so you can feel them. You don't have to look. I'm not the so-called die hard Hammond player but I bought the 5D specifically for the drawbars. Sure. Nord make dedicated Organs with two sets of Drawbars, one for each manual but I think the Electro has one set just to give you a taste of physical drawbar control. I personally don't care for monkeying around with increment and decrement buttons for dialing in a sound while playing.

If you are a experienced organ player that knows how to pad and will be using this board for live sessions, Real Drawbars are better for you. If you are a recreational organ player that primarily plays jazz style for Studio use, LED drawbars will be the better fit.

for me the addition of split - layer rev - delay and most importantly the set list function. if you assign the sounds you want to the empty programme slots - you can tweak the sounds of those programmes for each song - then assign them to your set list and it will remember all your changes including any transpose changes. yes - no more hunting for that transpose change the singer made. so i have all my set songs named with all changes and layers and everything at the twist of one knob. perfect . and that's why i chose the 5d.

Good points. Motorized faders seem like the ultimate solution and surprised I haven’t seen it yet. I guess the Yamaha YC61 comes closest with the LEDs adjacent to the physical draw bars. Nice Leslie on ver. 1.2 and $1000 cheaper. Not red, oh well.

Good point. I quite prefer the LED drawbars, too!

Wait until you play a 5d for a longer period of time. I have owned the 4d for two years and I'm very happy with my 5D. If there is a downside to the 5d, the only that i can think of is the lack of filters for the clavinet. I think the mismatch between played sound and position of the drawbars is very easy to work around. The only moment it is actually a problem is at the beginning of the songs or just the moment after or changing registrations of the lower manual. Which is hardly ever. Sure it takes some adjusting, but that is massively outweighted by all the other features, such as a massively bigger memory for your piano's.

As someone from the synth world: Loved the Nord lead 3 for the exact same reason: unlimited-turn virtual knobs that let you know the preset settings. instantly. Unfortunately methodology out of production with lead 4/nord wave - due to unfavorable production costs it is said. There was only one manufacturer willing to produce the "LED rings" and it increased the prices and got very unreliable.

Alot of it has to do with tonation and what you are lookin for. I owned a B3 with a 147 leslie and did alot club and road gigs with it for many many yrs. (A BAC BREAKER) Can't beat the sound out of a B3 and when you get use to that; you are always lookin for that certain sound. When the Nord came out the Electro 2; I got one right away because of the portablity, 20 lbs; the Rhodes sounds, the clav sound, the B3 sound and the Acoustic Panio and I am pretty happy with it. To make it more versaitle, I added a Motif XS module and It's a killer rig. My whole rig weighs about 35 lbs. verses 400 lbs. for the organ and 125 lbs. for the leslie. The Nord is a good keyboard, but I still like that Hamond sound also. But as far as ergonomics I will pick the Nord! Make the wise choice, and don't fuck up your back cause you only got one!

I agree with you about playing organ on hammer weighted keys. I was apprehensive when I bought my Stage 2 88 a couple of years ago. Idk if it's the same as the Electro HP, but in the Stage 2 turns out you can raise the trigger point of the keys for the organ so that they behave very much like semi weighted keys. You can do the tremolo notes and all very easily. Just for your info. I wouldn't be surprised if their was a 'pickup' setting for the physical drawbars. Seems like Nord would have though of that. Maybe not.

Some organists, like John Modeski, like to fiddle the drawbars while they're playing. Plus, there's just something about actual physical tactile contact between man and machine. Lol, okay, maybe that's a bit melodramatic but some people might prefer that.

I agree with your reasoning, Woody. The Electro 4 LED drawbar configuration is a useful feature for its intended purpose, to graphically show the draw bar configuration for each preset. If I want a keyboard with Hammond-style physical draw bar controls, I'll buy a Hammond or a Hammond clone. If I want to use sliders for drawbars, I can use a MIDI controller like my Roland A800 Pro with Mainstage 3's Vintage Organ B3.

When I bought the electro 5d 73 (upgraded from ne3) I didn't know that I wanted to tweak the sound "in the action" so much that I do now. It's more playable and give me that feeling to instantly try out something different. So i hear you, but not agreeing. 😊 The "drawbar live" and "drawbar sync" is two useful buttons...

2 sets of motorized sliders that s the answer

I TOTALLY agree with you about the drawbars. They look cool and less to break, some people prefer the drawbars and those just don't seem sturdy.

When I first heard that the nord electro 5 also features the physical drawbars I wanted to have this keyboard only because of this fact and on the electro 5 you can split and layer which is great in my opinion. This was something I was waiting for since the electro 3 but theres more. The electro 5 features 2 new effects and the delay is seperated from reverb that´s great too. After all those facts it was clear to me which keybord I want to buy the electro 5d .

I own a Nord Electro 2-73 that I bought in 2007 it’s never had an issue and I agree with you. I also prefer the led drawbars.

I never had problems with the physical drawbars being at the wrong position when using presets. To be honest, I can change the drawbars so fast that I no longer need the presets ... ;) I'd say this is to personal taste ...

Hey Woody. I have an Electro 3 and and Electro 5D.... and a Nord C1. They are all great instruments in their own right. I like the LED drawbars for the same reason as you. Its a great system if you use presets but it is less natural when playing the drawbars as most Hammond players do. The 5D drawbars are brilliant if you want to play the drawbars. I have to say, in my opinion the 5D is a better instrument all round, with its larger memory, splits/layer etc. The OLED display shows the drawbar positions but it is a little strange getting used to this at first....... but I have really been enjoying playing this instrument... now motorised drawbars, that would really be something....

If you're blind, the physical controls are the best.

Even if I had lighted faders the most annoying issue about the presets is that all sound is cut until crossfading in NE6. Sound cut alone would be more of a pain than the drawbar issue. NE 5 also has organ bass and a better split so it works well for a a close to True organ experience with my MIDI pedalboard.

It's so funny how the Nord-Crowd are so excited about the newer models having splits/layers and other things that much less expensive and great sounding keyboards have been doing forever :-)

Being an owner of a variety of Nord keyboards, I never ever worried about the preset change thing so far. So, your point about using the LEDs instead of the drawbars is quite comprehensible. I am actually looking forward for the Stage 3 which has incredible new features, as the seamless transitions when changing sounds or programs, but Clavia will just offer the 73 version with the physical drawbars. Stage 3 HP76 and Stage 3 88 won't have it. I was amongst those, who always were missing the possibility to have a more precise influence on the B3 sound using drawbars, but now I am not really sure anymore, whether this or that might be the best solution. Anyway, thanks for your argument. ;-)

There was an octave in reverse colours on the B , C, and A100. These were presets. There were 9 of them: Bb and B switched between drawbar sets. When playing on drawbars, if any of the other 10 were switched during play, what you saw on the drawbars was not what you heard. I don't recall being confused by this. I have the NE3 and love it. The drawbar system makes no difference to me I just get on and play the f*****g thing whenever I get the time. I rarely talk about such trivia but I guess you got me here.

The physical drawbars are what i thought i wanted. After using my Electro 6D 73 for 3 weeks I admit that those LED drawbars would've been wonderful to have instead.

This is where the Yamaha YC61 really shines, both the physical drawbars and the leds to match the patches. Maybe Nord will do a combination in the future.

I have the Electro 5d and I absolutely love it.

But since the electo5 shows you the positions for drawbars (both at the same time when running split) it seems like the problem is stillsolved. If anything the showing both drawbar setting option on 5d is better than one the 4d is capable of

Got the original Nord Lead (expanded). Later the original Nord Electro, which was capable of fully utilizing the Electro 2 software. After adding the GeForce M-Tron to my DAC, never had any urge to update. Really digging back into that Clavicord of late.

Yes, I find this function confusing. Here is my attempt to summarise, based on experiments on my NE5D 73. Preset 1 and Preset 2 will each sound with the most recent drawbar changes you made after you last selected each Preset or switched to the Organ program, whichever came later. Preset 2 has the added feature that switching DRWB LIVE on or off allows you to toggle Preset 2 between the current drawbar settings or the most recent drawbar changes you made with Preset 2 selected (bearing in mind the settings could be identical). I don't have an Electro 4, but I think the E4 manual provides a clue as to the thinking behind LIVE vs SYNC: (where E4 'Preset' setting seems to be equivalent to E5 DRWB SYNC) "When Preset is active (the LED is lit), the drawbar settings in the preset will be used, and the drawbars on the panel will not affect the sound. This allows you to use one setting, and prepare the drawbars on the panel with a new setting to which you can change during the performance". So perhaps the intended equivalent action on Electro 5 is to make changes to drawbars and then apply them on the fly by applying DRWB LIVE with Shift-Preset 2. However, I can't see how you can prepare drawbar changes without also affecting the current sound (if you are already playing an Organ sound) - maybe with the KB SPLIT function - eg with Preset 2 selected, you play Part Lower to hear just the Preset 1 sounds, all the while preparing drawbar changes which you will hear when playing Part Upper - but you could do that without using DRWB LIVE. As with a lot of the keyboard functions, I am probably missing something obvious, which the more experienced Nordists can put right. :) JXrays Posts: 22 Joined: 02 Nov 2015, 14:09 Has thanked: 6 times Been thanked: 6 times Your Nord Gear #1: Nord Electro 5

I have a Nord Stage 2 EX and a Hammond Xk-3c as well as an old Hammond L-100 (actual tone wheels). I don't have any problems with either setup but for my taste Nord made the right decision with physical sliders.

I think exactly the same way to you about this issue! Same reason I have no problem with the controls on the Moog LP vs the Sub 37

Hey Woody, was in total agreement with you about the LEDs after owning the original Electro for 10+ years and eventually upgrading to the 5D. And didn't opt for a 4 for the same reason you knicked the Nord Piano (only 64GB of sample memory). Have to say, the drawbars combined with the OLED display showing their positions is not bad. The benefit of "playing the drawbars" in Live Mode was worth the trade-off, IMO. But totally get where your head is on this.

With physical drawbars i don't need programs for the organ, i reset manually each time. but that's a matter of personal preference. Interesting idea though. Been using Roland for 20 years and moving from stage / live performance keyboards that don't have any issues with effects chain, switching tones, etc. I wish my Roland would sound like a Nord (but still behave like a Roland ... )

I don't consider myself a Hammond purist, especially since I have very little experience playing organ. That said, I used to own a Hammond XK-2, and I loved it very much. It had these incredibly fast and comfortable waterfall keys, and the manual drawbars allowed me to use my hand to blindly "feel" and adjust the shape of the timbre while playing. I found this to be very intuitive and fun. I understand your disappointment with the way Nord presets interact with physical drawbars, but my thinking is that I wouldn't want presets to affect the drawbar positioning at all. I don't have the Hammond XK-2 anymore, but I think that's how it worked or that it could be set up to work that way. I don't own a Nord, and I wonder if the drawbar settings could be ignored in presets. My wish would be for changing the presets to only affect the circuitry, amp, or speaker modeling, eq, or effects, but not the drawbar positions. That way you always have a visual match to the physical control over the sound. And changing the drawbars is super fast and easy if you want to quickly transition. It's just a different way of looking at the experience. Kind of like how some synths take a "one knob per function" approach.

When the electro 9 comes out 50 years later, they're going to introduce magnetic draw bars like the ones on some high-end mixing boards today.

I have both the Nord electro 3 as well as a Hammond XK-5. When you use the presets on the Hammond, the drawbars don't change when you use the preset keys on the left side. Hammond players know this and merely memorize the drawbar sounds they created and saved for each preset. Most Hammond players either don't even use the presets, or use them very seldom. I also like the LED lights on the Nord 3, it's different from the Hammond and it's nice to see the different drawbar positions lit up when you change presets. . I like both systems that's why I have both. Others may prefer one or the other. I think Nord was trying to entice the Hammond players by changing from LEDs to sliders. Other features of the Electro series are way more important than the drawbars vs. LEDs. That would be my reason to buy a Electro 5 if I wanted other more advanced keyboard features. The main thing I like about the Nord 3 is that it weighs less than 20 pounds! - very easy to carry to a gig and have decent organ as well as piano sounds. I also highly recommend a QSC K8, K10 or K12 PA Amp rather than a regular keyboard amp. Way more power, low cost, light weight, and the piano and organ sounds way better when played through it.

You can see the drawbars position in the Display on the 5D , just a way how you make youre setting .

I never thought about it that much before, but I enjoy playing most music on weighted piano style keys. I noticed when I play a regular synthesizer I hit the keys way too hard and my fingers have the ability to play so much faster. :) Excellent video. I've never played on any nord. I guess I'll have to check them out. :) Take care.

I believe the 6D retains the drawbar settings per patch and displays their virtual position on the screen. And a simple button press sets the sound to be as the physically bars appear.

I feel same way on the LED drawbars, it's a must have. It's definitely a love it or hate it thing. With the LED drawbars, I can see what settings all the keyboard players are playing on television if I want to try and replicate what they're playing.

You have many valid points. Physical drawbars vs led is at the end of the day a matter of playing style. I like using physical drawbars is to change the sound while I´m playing without looking, just by feeling. Of course that meant on my Nord Electro 4D (which I sold, mostly because the organ sound and leslie sounded to harsh to my ears) it didn't make sense neither to use presets nor split during a live gig. But it did the trick using it as a one manual organ with a Korg SV-1. I sold it, replaced it with a Mojo61(amazing sound), sold the Mojo and now got a VR-09... Go figure... It´s about having the right tool, none does everything 100% so there will always be trade-offs...

Nord should have just made separate drawbars that could be plugged into the back of the keyboard as an optional accessory!

Flying "faders" drawbars would be perfect. Still physical feeling drawbars, but they'll motorboat their way to where the positions are in the preset automatically. If behringer can build a dirt cheap flying fader mixboard then the motorized sliders cant be TOO expensive to add.

Hammond organ presets (inverted color keys) work the same way as the Nord 5...you can select a preset and move drawbars on the fly.

... and of course as you know you can get the led drawbars - or physical ones on the Stage 3

Everyone has some opinion on a preference or another. My preference was for the 5D. My reason for this was longevity of the product. Buttons that you activate frequently fail eventually. Fader potentiometers fail if you don't protect them. But the risk of eventual failure is way more likely in the actual use over time of continuous pressure that a performer wanting to use the expressive control of draw bar style controls. It's plagued most keyboard players over time. Every board I've ever owned is affected this way. From Yamaha's legendary DX-7 to Korg's Wavestation. Ever have a remote control stop working? It's the same mechanics. A rubberized button input that collapses against a printed circuit card mounted potentiometer. It is all but unavoidable that routine contact displaces, or damages the actual potentiometer. I'm sure it's all personal preference though.

the faders can be solved with automated faders, like in the mixers, they just move by themselves when needed, so they match the visual reference. Maybe they add this feature in the next versions :O

got yoy. good point woody (and i'm playing a 2 manual xk3c with pedals, my piano is a nord2 88hp)

Interesting video. Thanks for sharing. But in my opinion, It's not about E4 vs E5, but LED vs Drawbars. All the characteristics you mention here are present in E5 as well in E4. I own an E5 HP and in my opinion, E5 has a lot of advantages over E4, but this advantages has noting to do with LEDs or Drawbars. In fact, E5 and E4 are identical on this. I think that this video should have another name, maybe LED vs Drawbars, or something like that.

I've got a 5d 73. In my opinion, 1gb for pianos + bigger display + 2 independent layer volumes are more than enough to attest that electro 5 is much more complete than electro 4.

Ok brother, why didn’t you buy the electro 6 D ? What do you think about the stage 3 and what is the difference between the stage 3 and the electro ? I’m buying a Nord in the next few days and I want to make sure I buy the right “one “

Um, on a B3 you get the same thing. 2 adjusts per manual, and 9 presets. Pick a preset, drawbars don't move and have no bearing on the sound. That said, yeah, the UM/LM thing is a deal breaker. They should have made it so you could have a 2nd set as an add on - or just an add on in general. I think I recall an outfit called Turtle Beach made a MIDI drawbar controller years ago as a response to that "vocal minority" you spoke of.

I guess it totally depends on who you are.... I love the physical bars for during-play/jam fun while being able to slide them at the exact speed and finesse that I need

Is it a good idea to use ribbons instead of buttons or drawbars? In this case, perhaps we can get some of the touch of a drawbar, and not have to worry about presets.

I can understand getting a 4 instead of a 5D. The led drawbars do have some advantages but I chose a 5D 61 with the physical drawbars. As always, enjoy your perspective. BTW you should check out the new Dexibell Combo J7, that has motorized drawbars. It is a wonderful keyboard. Dexibell's piano sounds are even slightly better than Nord's.

Regardless of why they did the change , people are confused. NORD needs to create a FIX. If I were NORD and I was going to put drawbars on a KEYBOARD I would make them MOTORIZED to move when you select the preset so they match or they should have 2 sets of drawbars at least. I am wanting to try the NORD C2 but actually wanting the new Hammond XK 5 Pro.

Totally agree with you buddy. No physical Drawbars. It is absurd

Yamaha made some OTT monster 'home' organs in the 1980s. FX-10 and FX-20 had fully motorised sliders.

Physical drawbars = moving parts; they break.

Dude, that’s really a very god point about it! I thought the Electro 5 Drawbars (actually faders) were motorized, like those in digital mixing consoles. That would be really good to have, but now, thinking deeper about it, I wonder those mechanisms is probably too big and heavy for an instrument whose main advantage over the competition is the construction quality, the excellent sounds and the low weight, actually, for its qualities and specifications, the lightest in its market. Would it be possible for Nord to motorize those Drawbars in the future?

Each to their own methinks. I'm no Hammond purist, I do have a real C3 though, it has presets (the inverted lower octave keys are each a preset, they are programmed up by wire links in the back). I tend to know where the drawbars need to be for a certain sound, I just slowly move them as desired. Not hard to learn. You make a good point about not knowing what the presets have been set to, mind you neither do real C3 players! But if there is a mimic on the display that's fine. Personally all those bargraph leds and button pressing to move them would drive me nuts, so each to their own. I'm thinking if to buy the 5D, I nervous as I have the real thing and would be so upset when I do the 1:1 comparison and find they are way different, I assume the 5D has the key foldback. Leslies play a big part too. One thing I'm wondering is, if I could sample my own C3 and load the samples into the 5D, do I sample/load each tonewheel and the 5D does the rest (drawbar mixing). anyway, thanks for the vid.

couple of quick questions regarding nord keyboards.first one is,if you buy one with these"proper drawbars" can you set these to the sound you like then write the sound into memory? I take it that you can do this with the L.E.D drawbars too?.My next question is,why do not ALL the nords come with a music holder rest at the rear and only selected few.I'm a reader and i'd really want a compact stage 3 or stage 2 with non weighted keys as weighted is no good for me,cheers.lee

I'm not a Hammond player - other than faking it briefly from time to time. However, my Hammond sort of purist buddy, a really good player, likes "playing" the drawbars. As he's playing, he's frequently changing a couple drawbars at the same time, bringing out the higher harmonics for a passage and whatnot. I'm thinking that's where the B purists might be coming from. Let's be real, the Nord is emulating the B, right? You can hit a black key present and play with no visual feedback on the settings. However, you can manipulate the drawbars before switching back to their control. Anyway, I'm not one, but I admire good B players; what an instrument it is!

I bet you also transpose the keyboard if the change the key..

On Nord's physical drawbars, like a lot of modern workstation/synths, or just midi controllers controlling your DAW on your computer, I believe you can set the faders to "catch" the registered values and would only modify the value when the physical sliders reach the registered values, instead of "jump". True this might still be a disadvantage but definitely something that you can get used to.

Just seeing this now. How do you feel about the touch screen drawbar setup that Korg put on the Vox Continental? To me, they seem better, as it's much quicker to get the drawbar settings you like. You still get the instant recall of the drawbar settings, but you can very quickly get all the drawbar settings you want, as opposed to the Nord LED drawbars, which must be handled individually.

Not disagreeing with you Woody, it is "each to their own" at the end of the day... but me, I prefer physical drawbars :-) Now, I'm not a "Hammond purist" at all, but a proper set of drawbars, you can put your fingers or even hand/palm on during playing and move them how/when you want.... My biggest issue with the Nord is separate buttons for up and down drawbar. A "halfway house" solution on the Nords would have been to use touch sensitive LED faders, similar to the Yamaha Reface DX....? But frankly, for the money Clavia charge for Nords, I would have thought they could fit motorised sliders/drawbars to appease those like you, who don't like the settings being out-of-sync with presets. :-) For what its worth, I bought a Roland VR-09, which is a great "all-in-one, go anywhere, do anything" keyboard for pianos, orchestral, synth sounds and organ - with *physical drawbars* - that was the great selling point for me. Yes, it has those issues of out-of-sync drawbars compared to presets and upper/lower register splits - but it does show all the preset drawbar settings on the oled screen. (I also love the way the pitch bender becomes the Leslie switch in organ mode, similar to a "proper" Leslie switch). The least desirable feature of the VR-09 is the lightweight 61 key synth-like keybed..... So you probably wouldn't like it, but it honestly doesnt bother me, all my keyboards/synths are different anyway and I've got used to it... But I know a lot of piano and organ players dont like it. However, the VR-09 is a *fraction* of the price of a Nord..... ;-)

To tell you the truth I was more focused on how loud the keys sounded? The key-bed is quite noisy for a keyboard costing this much...

I don't know why but it's so funny to think about a yahoo group full of angry Nord Electro users with moderator Woody trying to keep the peace. There really is a community for everyone!

I sold my 4D and bought a 3 LED for the same reason a couple of years ago

Interesting discussion on the drawbars... LED vs. physical or the classic analog vs. digital debate. I'm a total novice organ player, I've been at it only about 6 years on a part time basis. I've never played a real B3. I have an XK3C with dual manuals and a Leslie 2101, and I also have a Roland VR09 which has physical drawbars. The thing is, with physical drawbars on any instrument - Nord, Roland, XK3C, or even a real B3, when you hit a preset, the drawbars will not match the sound you have pulled up. I would think any experienced Hammond player is used to this. The thing is when I watch Hammond players in action, I rarely if ever see them use a preset. I use presets on my Roland almost entirely for other synth voices where the drawbars are irrelevant. Although on some, they do affect the sound but maybe only half of them have any effect. This is undocumented and weird. But even as a middle aged beginner I found myself gravitating toward the legacy B3 setup - dual sets of physical drawbars to control upper and lower manual. Ok, I don't have the whole nine yards extra sets of a true B3 or A100 or the "New B3" which is basically a way to get way, way, way more money for an XK3C setup. I could not stand the pushbutton Leslie controls. The Leslie has three states - off, slow, and fast. The three buttons can produce 8 different combinations 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. Quick, which of these represent off, slow, and fast? So one of my first additional purchases was a moon switch. Again, no prior B3 experience but a three position switch seems utterly logical to control a 3-state device. I bought the Roland to act as a portable everything. I was stuck using an 88 key Korg Chrome for our band because it was what they had, and I wasn't about to lug my XK rig. I looked at the XK1, but for half that money the Roland VR09 gives me real drawbars, a kinda-sorta moon switch (I still have to push a button for "off"), and extra voices not present in the XK3C like piano, EP and other synths although the EPs are not very good unless you really slam the keys. I'm contemplating plugging a guitar chorus pedal into the mix to see what that does, I'm told it vastly improves the EP sounds if I want something more like a classic Rhodes or Wurli. The Roland also has a halfway decent OB-XA (it's called "JMP BRASS") and I have it on a preset because it seems like I'm always working on Van Halen 1984 stuff, badly. But we did record "I'll Wait", my first ever keyboard lead with a bunch of punch-ins but I played the bridge in one take... lol. I truly suck as a player, but I guess even as a beginner it's not all that strange to have developed preference for the physical controls. I imagine the Nord 4 or 5 does a better Hammond than my Roland. But hey, 15 lbs, 800 bucks and it fits in a guitar gig bag. In January... we're getting the band back together. I will probably end up playing bass or keyboard but I might be allowed to strum a guitar line or two. I am basically a horn player... trombone and saxophone. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm about a 5 on the sax, 3 on the trombone, 2 on keyboard, 1 on bass guitar, and about a minus 6 on guitar.

So both LED versions and drawbar versions do exist to choose from.. Everyone should be happy!

Hi Woody, I also disagree with your opinion. But don't panic! The 2 types of drawbars depend on personal favor. That's why Clavia make them seperately for 2 types of keyboardist. I thought that the idea of physical drawbars make for player who want to play for various instruments keys such as Organ for Electro 5D 61, 73 that both have a waterfall keys. And then Clavia has continuous product The brand new Nord Stage 3 73 compact with physical drawbars, And in the part of pianist who focus on portable keyboard, Clavia make some Electro 5HP with hammer portable action and they don't play on organ to much so LED virtual are enough, I'm a big fan of your channel, So thank you for shared video and your experiences.

So if I understood you correctly you have one (!) argument against the physical drawbars, which is the lack of the already mentioned little motors to adjust the position of the drawbars to the actual preset. "What you see is what you get" might be right here, but I see more advantages than disadvantages. Why don't you talk about both sided then? Physical drawbars are very intuitive to use especially in a live context. They are much more easy to adjust on the run as you can move them all the same time using your hand instead of using all your fingers for pushing little buttons. When you use 800000008 and want to change it to full drawbars during a song, you can even hear a slightly difference between the use of LED-knob-system and the physical drawbars (because the smoothness of grabbing these and pulling them slowly is not doable with the knobs!). In the end I agree, that it's definitely a matter of personal taste - but (without being a so called hammond-purist) if you want to play all the Nord Instruments in a proper way because you love the variety of it you should be glad about the physical drawbars instead of putting so much effort in looking for arguments against them. (as I mentioned earlier, there's only one I see....)

Good point. Physical drawbars make more sense when you have 4 or 5 sets of them. ;)

please could you not just have said it in the beginning of the video "i like LED drawbars as they change with the presets and here i will show you how it works" instead of talking around it for 3-4 minutes before saying it. I really like your channel in general but i dislike this type of "keep the viewer watching" flow tv tactic. Great channel otherwise and i have just subscribed and the video still gets a like .. so im not trying to be a grumpy pants just trying to give a bit of constructive criticism.

Completely agree with you...

I like the led drawbars. The Electro 5 HP has them.

Why electro over stage? Doesn't look like any pitch bender on electro.

Why not going for tactile drawbar control like in the Kronos but this time full sized !

motorized drawbars would be a great an futuristic solution.

Erm...programmable synths with knobs and sliders (like my SuperNova) have exactly the same problem as you highlight with the draw-bars. Did Clavia/Nord not implement a "pass through" function on the models with physical draw bars?

It's funny, but I don't care much about this--I really like having physical drawbars, but I also like the LEDs. Best compromise is to get something like the Ocean Beach digital drawbars. I didn't go for the Electro 5 because of the sudden lack of clavinet flexibility--canned clav sounds instead of dynamic clav switch emulation.

There's no comparison. The 5 is better. If you're a real hammond player, and you're used to working drawbars on the fly, LED draws are very clumsy. I never use presets, and theres enough time to change from swirly gospel to Jimmy smith, to all out scream. It takes time to learn. Plus you can save presets on the 5, so thats no issue. LED is nice for those who just need to plunk a preset and play, but if you work drawbars, this is so incredibly hard to use with LEDs.

Re. touch sensitive LEDs... I would never consider it. I don't even like touch pads on my laptop, I disable it and get a cordless USB mouse. Too much can go wrong there especially if there's no secondary way to move the drawbars. Motorized drawbars to jump at presets - that could be cool but it's probably something that would drive the price up and a high probability of breaking at an inopportune time. I think the best answer to the whole preset thing is... don't use presets. But with a jack-of-all-trades like the VR09, there's going to be weirdness. One of them is, it doesn't remember the drawbar settings when powered off. Regardless of the physical drawbar positions, when you power on, you get 888000000. Or if you switch to piano and switch back to organ... yep, 888000000 regardless of physical position. That is one difference from a real Hammond. But hey, 800 bucks and I've got a Hammond, piano, OB, a bunch of really strange junk I'll never use, and maybe a Rhodes if I can figure out how to filter the output.

Best solution would be real drawbars that are basically flying faders, would add a bit of cost but prob worth it

I tried the LED and hated the lack of feel. I never got the drawbars in the right position during songs. I don't have enough control with the LED ones.

YC61? seems to have both

I've had the 4D for a while and love the drawbars, until I take it out live and am changing patches over MIDI and then it becomes a huge pain for the reasons you describe! Maybe Nord could adopt the approach that Kurzweil did with the Forte - real faders but with an LED ladder next to it to show its position in the current present. Best of both worlds?

im still using the electro 2 and never upgraded. The basic ep's and organs are quite the same. Just put some time editing and tweaking and youll get the sound you need. 😀✌️peace.

Arent the faders on the E5 motorised and automatically configure to the preset positions?

despite i preferred the phisical...i have to...agree!!!!

I just use Ivory 2 with a laptop, use the Bosendorfer piano & be done with it all...... :)

is there any moving parts on the led bars? any tactile feedback? or is it like capacitive buttons on an android phone?

Woody, guess what I just saw. Nord stage 3 has a parameter that tells the keyboard's organ to snap to the physical drawbar location when you choose a new program. :). How about that?

they should come out with motorised drawbars or something. Also I like the idea of the led ones but for visually impaired user I could see it becoming a problem.

It's funny - it took drawbars appearing on the E4D to get me to buy a Nord! But funnily enough I did find exactly the same problems as outlined here, especially after coming from an old tonewheel A100 where you've got two sets of bars per manual and thus four sounds at your fingertips (as well as the preset keys). Of course, learning to live without drawbars IS the answer - then you can have your multiple registrations set up like on a real organ, and switch between them with clear visual reference. But no - I decided to solve the problem by trading the E4D in for a C2D, and don't regret that, although I have finally succumbed to lugging an Electro around as well for the EP sounds! I think the statement in the video is right - put the drawbars on the C2D and keep the all-in-one Nords on the old button system. Or at least offer the buttons on the 61 and 73 SWs again. The moral of this story: I eventually played a festival in Norway with hired in gear (a Stage 2) and of course...the dreaded draw-buttons that put me off going Nord for years were absolutely fine in reality.