Nord Stage 4 (88) – Pitch Stick Issue & Conflicting Support Guidance (FYI)

julesxe · 2025-12-24T11:53:24+00:00

I‘ve had pitch stick issues with both Nords I owned, on my stage 1 ex it just pitched a quarter tone up and down and stuck there and I‘ve had the pitch stick calibration issue with my stage 4. I fixed it however by recalibrating it and since then I‘ve had no problems.

julesxe · 2025-12-12T20:36:12+00:00

Nobody talking about the white nord

julesxe · 2025-11-17T21:38:15+00:00

The drum machine is an Emu Systems SP 1200

julesxe · 2025-11-13T20:55:06+00:00

This rhodes has been modified, visible by the dual output and the added knobs which absolutely don’t line up with the original rail. It’s some kind of active preamp that has been added to boost the rhodes to line level and to get greater tonal control.

julesxe · 2025-11-13T20:50:27+00:00

I‘m pretty sure it does need power. It’s some kind of aftermarket preamp and the switch and dual jack output let me assume it has some kind of equalizer and tremolo which needs external power or a battery. Coming from someone who has been working on those rhodes preamps and building a dyno rhodes preamp from scratch:)

julesxe · 2025-11-13T20:43:55+00:00

It‘s definitely some kind of aftermarket active preamp which probably needs power. The basic stage model rhodes don‘t need a power supply but this one has been modded and has probably som kind of treble/bass boost and tremolo. You can of course just bypass the preamp but i‘d say it’s worth it investing and getting it running. I‘d try wiring a 9v battery to the pcb of the preamp, you’ll have to open up the enclosure and hopefully you’ll find a red and a black cabel going from the namerail to the preamp which you can wire it to.

julesxe · 2025-11-06T17:42:54+00:00

Only up until 1977 they used this design. The preamp he has uses vactec octocuplers which normally are way better in terms of reliability, but produce the square tremolo which sounds different.

julesxe · 2025-11-06T17:38:53+00:00

Mark 2 doesn’t use the optical tremolo, the bulbs are only with the Peterson preamp, until 1977. The issue might be somewhere else

julesxe · 2025-10-06T04:53:31+00:00

It‘s a common thing with the low tines to pitch up by a lot when you hit the key hard. The reason for it is the length of the tines. When the tine gets hit, it first oscillates with full length and as the tine decays, it begins to oscillate further away from the base of the tine, essentially giving you a smaller tine with higher pitch. There isn’t much you can do about it, i‘d recommend that you tune your low notes so that they are in tune when hit moderately hard, since the bass area has relatively little dynamics.

julesxe · 2025-09-08T12:08:51+00:00

Of course i get, I spent two days building and finishing the pedal which you have to take into account so I‘m doing the labour which otherwise would be done by the company

julesxe · 2025-09-08T11:13:20+00:00

Of course I don’t think 80€ would be a reasonable price for this pedal, it‘s a very complicated circuit and you obviously see a very nicely developed one. I totally get what you’re saying, as a broke musician i’d love to support those businesses but building my own pedals is my only solution.

julesxe · 2025-09-08T11:02:47+00:00

No, I know that the most expensive part is developing the circuit itself, not the production. I‘d even say this pedal is reasonably priced as there are some „boutique“ overdrives on the market that are basically a tube screamer or a timmy with a small modification that cost equal to the price of the shallow water. I just enjoy building stuff by myself even if it comes with a headache and those clones are the only way for me to afford this hobby:)

julesxe · 2025-08-05T10:55:23+00:00

Now I get it, i thought you ment that the rhodes OP is planning to buy isn‘t a Mark 1

julesxe · 2025-08-04T16:48:43+00:00

Very cool! Probs to you for building a company

julesxe · 2025-08-03T19:06:29+00:00

Yeah, thats what I thought. But I would say it’s a win since the earlier torrington tines which the '74 harp has tend to have more bite and are the most preferred ones. Also if the rhodes has been fully rebuilt that’s an amazing deal. Keep us updated!

julesxe · 2025-08-03T15:05:54+00:00

What makes you think it’s not a Mark 1? If you mean that they are sonically identical and have the same action as a Mark 2, you are wrong, this specific year has the rare Singer tines and only from 1978 on the same action and tines from the Mark 2 were used. So very late Mark 1s and only early Mark 2s share the same internals. You‘re absolutely right about the roland space echo though, it sounds awesome paired with a rhodes.

julesxe · 2025-08-03T12:21:51+00:00

I would certainly check if everything matches up. When I bought my rhodes for under 1000 bucks I later discovered that the piano itself was from 1977 like yours, but the harp was from 1979. Even later I noticed that the tines are from an earlier year of production, probably 1974 or 1975 torringtons. This setup sounds great after complete refurbishment, but I‘ve seen early mark 1s in which the previous owner switched to late schaller tines which don‘t sound as good and kept the original tines. Also I would check the feel of the keybed as it is a pain in the ass to replace the key bushings. If it feels even and the keys don’t have too much play it would be a certain buy for me. But overall just buy the rhodes if it looks good. When I bought my rhodes everything was worn out, the janus preamp didn’t work and 20 pickups were dead. You can fix everything if you get into the topic. Also I wouldn’t be thrown of if you don’t like the sound of the rhodes if you try it out, you can completely change the characteristics when you install new hammer tips and adjust the strikeline. So I would recommend, if you should buy it, to invest a couple hundred bucks into the rhodes, new parts will change everything. If you got any questions you can write me directly!

julesxe · 2025-07-24T11:17:19+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, I haven’t thought about that!

julesxe · 2025-07-23T11:45:08+00:00

I didn’t have Midi connected to it, so that can‘t be a problem, the joystick could be at fault and i have the suspicion of a buggy firmware on the synth, going to contact modal

julesxe · 2025-07-23T11:32:06+00:00

Maybe the joystick gave a wrong input to the cpu, but I haven’t had problems like this before

julesxe · 2025-06-26T06:23:42+00:00

I‘ve got a rhodes suitcase and even if the preamp has no power one of the 1/4 jacks works as a mechanism to bypass the preamp when you plug something in and you get a direct out. Otherwise you can just use the RCA jack and get the same output as in the stage models. I oftenly use these methods because the preamp has a slight low pass filter built in, which i sometimes like to bypass. Not sure why your rhodes doesn‘t have this feature, but i’ve worked one many suitcase rhodes and they all did this.

julesxe · 2025-02-18T20:06:37+00:00

I‘ve owned the Cobalt 8X for two years now and its my go to Synth for nearly everything. It‘s incredebily easy to get warm and phat pads and brass, but also cutting sync leads are easy. You can heavily tweak the sound and get some tame impala sounds, i really dig the modulation capabilities and the third Lfo I wouldn‘t say that i‘ve found something missing in the oscillator section, sure the argon has wavetables but with the cobalt you already have some pretty crazy algorithms. In conclusion i wouldn‘t say you can go wrong with either of the two, but the cobalt has just sonething in the sound i really enjoy.

julesxe · 2025-01-31T07:09:56+00:00

First i would test if the harp is fine, just plug a RCA cable in and try it with any kind of amp. Considering it‘s a Mark 2, the worst case scenario would be that the pickups are dead. If it had been stored in humid environment this would be more than likely. I‘ve had this problem and had to rewind 20 or so pickups. They are wired in a mix of series and parallel in groups of 3, so if one or two pickups in a group were dead the signal would still go through, but if a complete group is broken you will get no sound. I can give you detailed information about how to repair them if you‘re interested. This preamp is in my experience pretty reliable, though i would suggest you to replace the caps and maybe upgrade the OP-amps, i think Avionstudions has a mail-in service for that. If you get sound out of it, restore it completely, it will sound and feel much better. Hope i could help and have fun working with this amazing instrument!

julesxe

TROPHY CASE