Re:MIDI 2.0 Prototyping announced
by TheRealPomax on Saturday January 19, 2019 @12:19PM
(#18947981)
Yeah but then we also fall in the "and we throw the old one away" category. Sure, if we find the perfect one, we'll be sticking with it for a while, but if the new thing is actually better: stage pianos are tools, they're not precious instruments lovingly hand crafted by instrument makers. I will happily throw a Roland RD800 out the window if you give me an RD2000 instead. Same for a Nord Stage3 vs an old Nord Stage. Maybe if they were vintage, as pointed out somewhere else, but they're just not. There isn't a single modern stage piano that isn't just an excellent sampler with ideally a rock solid hardware UI. Zero reason to care about replacing those if the new model has better samples, or better hardware UI, or both.
The original Nord Stage is still an excellent instrument and commands high prices on the used market. There's no reason to throw the old one away and few reasons to buy the new one, because the old one does pretty much everything you need it to do.
We're talking about very mature technology. The difference between Nord's 100MB piano sample sets and a 20GB mega-multisample is extremely subtle. The synth and effects engine on the Nord Stage sounds fantastic. You could add a ton of sample memory and processing power, but the sonic benefits would be absolutely marginal.
There's a reason why so many keyboard players adore their Nord keyboard, despite it having relatively old-fashioned technology. Nord instruments are incredibly ergonomic and sound absolutely killer, largely because of their obsessive attention to detail and their deep relationships with working musicians. A trivial example is the music stand - it's rock solid, it fits in the gig bag, it slots in place in two seconds and it's wide enough to hold four pages. It's a really important feature for a lot of Nord users, but it just wouldn't occur to most engineers.
Pressed steel, Neutrik jacks and keybeds aren't subject to Moore's Law. High-end stage keyboards will always be expensive, because they're built to high standards in relatively small quantities. The lack of innovation just isn't particularly relevant, because old technology does the job perfectly well.