Clavia schmooze and speculation

Fozzie · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:37 am Post subject: Clavia schmooze and speculation

Guess we've all noticed this http://www.clavia.com/about/job.htm. Cool, right? Must be a good sign that Clavia is hiring two new people, one for programming/development and one for marketing/communications. My Swedish is not good, but in writing the main message is often guessable for Dutch people. It appears to me that Clavia mentiones about 50 million Swedish Krones in sales-turnover (or cash flow; don't know the correct english word for this); about 5 million Euro. Not bad.
Guess Clavia wouldn't be hiring if they were in dire straits. In addition, maybe their communication will actually improve with a new employee. Well, there's always hope Laughing

.

dasz · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:35 pm Post subject:

give them a break, it's the hardest instrustry to survive in ... I should know.
/Dasz

Fozzie · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject:

I wasn't intending to be malicious, just joking around over their communication skills, but no harm meant. I was mainly trying to express that I felt glad to see the job offers on their site; sends a positive 'vibe'. And I never knew what order of magnitude the sales would be of a small synth company, so I liked the info on that too. But I'll try to be good now angel

dasz · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:18 pm Post subject:

no worries, sorry if I seemed overly cynical. let me explain the communication thing: if Clavia was to reply to every email, we would never get any updates/new versions but answers. I like the new versions better Smile

/Dasz

Tim Kleinert · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 3:08 am Post subject:

It's a good sign. Good to hear they are doing well.

Only thing I know for sure: It's almost impossible to get your hands on a NordStage here in my country, because they are snatched up as soon as they pass the border. Shocked

I appreciate this strategy of Clavia: Launching well-designed and well-selling instruments for the "joe keyboardists" in order to have the resources to create an equally well-designed niche product (the G2) for us geeks. Not every manufacturer would bother do that.

I happen to be a geek and a joe keyboardist, so Clavia gives me double pleasure. Smile

Now, if only the G2 delay lines would be i... *slaps himself* Wink

northstar · Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Vienna/Austria/EU

Hi!

Sorry to go a little bit off topic (G2 off topic. Not Clavia!)

I definitely admire Clavia for the Nord (G2) Modular concept wholeheartedly. Very Happy

Splendid. A dream!

But I have just gone through a week of huge dissappointment with the Nord Stage I got last Monday. I actually returned the Stage to the seller for one single cause but that one was a major issue!

I was so happy having the Nord Stage at home at first. All the specific knobs and buttons, the easyness of use, the possiblities, the simulated drawbars, the Rhodes release samples... tremendous!

But then the setback! I recognized sort of a grumbling distortion (In my native German language it's called "Klirr") on the sounds, on the phones-out as well as on the main-outs. I tried each and every function to get rid of it - no success! How it behaved when tweaking with all the effects certainly made the amplifier section the main suspect for causing that distortion.

To be specific: It has nothing to do with an intended distortion to simulate the vintage amp behaviour! I was well aware of that intended simulation for the Rhodes or Hammond sound. The not welcome distortion which I recognized was there with all vintage amp sims and effects turned off. The one and only setting to substantially minimize it, was on the organ sounds when I turned on (!) the Leslie sim.

I took the Stage to a friend of mine who happens to be a sound engineer. The distortion was clearly visible and evident on his sound analyzing equipment. I checked an other Stage then at the seller's place. Same result! It seems like Clavia uses a pre-amp equipment (or is it the DAC?) in the Stage that is far from high-quality.

And that makes me very, very sad, 'cause the Stage could have been a superb and most outstanding instrument. "Could have"! Crying or Very sad

What counts in the last instance is the quality of the sound. At least what's up to me.

dasz · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:30 am Post subject:

Did it have the latest operating system? I played one at NAMM (on headphones), and did not hear any distortion.

Also, I just checked the stage website.

http://clavia.com/products/nordstage/software.htm

Maybe there's a glitch in there.
/Dasz

Tim Kleinert · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:38 am Post subject:

Interesting observation.

I tried the NordStage too, a few days ago. I played it over good studio monitors. It sounded splendid. No grumbly distortion, no artefact

What I found a bit dissappointing were the piano multisamples. They exhibited some unevennesses in the piano and mezzopiano dynamic ranges and some keyzone samples had clearly audible noise in them. It is just evident that Clavia just hasn't yet got the experience in doing really good piano multisamples like Roland & Co., who have been doing this kind of stuff for two decades. But hey, the samples are updateable by USB, so who knows -this might be ironed out soon.

I just couldn't justify the current price tag, though. (The "how many gigs do I have to play in order to recoup this expense?" question...) Maybe once the price drops... I think it's a great product.

DrJustice · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:55 am Post subject: NM 1 resurrection

I wish Clavia would reconsider and update the NM 1 software so that it runs smoothly on the latest Windows and OS X. I mean, it can't be many hours work, and it would make them look real good and gain even more customer satisfaction - it's a win-win situation Idea

.

Oh, and for the totally OT bit: Tim that avatar makes me real uneasy... Laughing

DJ
--

Fozzie · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:26 am Post subject: Re: NM 1 resurrection

mosc · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:16 pm Post subject:

This topic sparked my curiosity so I went up to the Clavia Nord Stage page. I listened to the demos of the pianos. They sound pretty good. I don't think I'd replace my Steinway B with one of these, but it is quite a bit lighter. Laughing

I'm surprised that the mp3 examples are improvisations. I'd think they could load some of the outstanding MIDI files available. For example: http://www.classicalarchives.com/

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:25 pm Post subject: Re: NM 1 resurrection

Fozzie · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:28 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:32 pm Post subject:

Fozzie · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:40 pm Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 12:54 am Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:26 am Post subject:

At one time we had a lot of money. I'm glad we threw it all away on musical instruments rather than wasting is on investments. Wink

jksuperstar · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:06 am Post subject:

(sign...) If they'd only hire an international telecommuting Electrical/ASIC/FPGA designer, then I'd be a much happier man. I don't understand why music companies haven't taken advantage of the power in FPGAs (programmable hardware). They'd be far more powerful, upgradable, & worthwhile than most current solutions.

Makes me want to start a very large open hardware project. Any interest?

mosc · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:26 am Post subject:

Don't you need to invest a good bit of money just to get started on an FPGA project? Do you have to do your design in something like VHDL, or can you use logic symbols?

Maybe you should start a FPGA topic in the DIY forum. (Just a suggestion).

seraph · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject:

DrJustice

mosc

mosc · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:24 am Post subject:

Started FPGA topic here: http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-10218.html

northstar · Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Vienna/Austria/EU

Hi,

@Fozzie @electro80 @seraph @mosc:
Haha, you certainly gave me a good and long laugh!! Laughing

The >And Howard has a wonderful wife! She is really something!<,>That figures; with such a gearlist, I'd marry him, too.< and the >Florida Pygmy Goat Association topic in the Destroy It Yourself forum.< were my favourites!

But once more a step back to the Nord Stage off-topic:
I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable and tensioned up now. Everybody tells me that the Nord Stage sounds pristine and my experience...

Did I get something wrong? I fearfully guessed something with my earing ability is not in plain order (That's not joking and not ironically meant!). But on second thought: I cross-checked the EP sound on a Kawai MP-8 and the sound on a Hammond XK-3. Pristine!

To summon it up: I checked with several different headphone and the main outs via PA speakers: no difference, clearly audible. And it was there on different Nord Stages!

I just stepped over two demo files (Not from Clavias HP but direct recorded Nord Stage sound): IT'S THERE!

You would really do me a big favour if you could download it and listen to it.
http://www.realsamples.de/sounddemos/73_Stage_Piano_Collection_Demo_1.mp3
and
http://www.realsamples.de/sounddemos/73_Stage_Piano_Collection_Demo_2.mp3

Perhaps it's something which is supposed to be "normal" but I dislike it. I certainly would like to have an acoustics scientist or engineer at my disposal who could provide the exact terms for that "audible phenomen".
(Perhaps I should contact Scully and Mulder?? Wink

)

I even can't decribe it with the exakt term in my native German language. It's in the high frequency band and something in between a distortion and a noise. And it definitely wasn't there on the XK-3 and MP-8 and as well not on my G2 engine.

thanx,
northstar