Why Every Church Wants that Red Keyboard | Nord Stage for Worship

Have you ever wondered why all the great

worship

music videos seem to feature the same red

keyboard

? We have music from Bethl Elevation Worship Hillsong Maverick City Phil Wickham Matt Redmond and the list goes on. This

keyboard

appears

every

where with popular artists and

worship

bands. It seems that this influence causes it to appear in many of our

church

settings and, yes, love them or hate them, we are talking all about the Norse today. How widespread Nordic keyboards have become in the

church

is kind of a cliché at this point, but there is a theological background to this, as you know, in the book of the First Pianist, chapter 2, it is written where the Lord is and , of course, in 2 Keus 9:13, if the keyboards read the spirit of worship LED and, of course, the famous Theologian CS.

Lewis is often credited with this quote if you want your band to use the redwood keyboard well, okay, I did, I invented the last one, actually I invented all the ones that aren't in Canon, but what's the problem with the Nordic and why? Churches seem so obsessed with them, let's talk about it. The Nordels are produced by digital music group Clavia, a Swedish company founded 40 years ago by men Carlson and Hans Nordelus. Clavia initially focused on drum machines and yes, back in 1984, before those drum machines were bright red. They first ventured into the synthesizer market in the mid-90s when they released the Nord Lead, which was one of the first virtual analog synthesizers.

From there, in 2001 they released the Nord Electro which modeled the popular mechanical keyboards and then in 2005 they released the first version of the Nord Stage which would become their flagship model and that's probably what you've been seeing in all those music videos. of Worship - The Nordic State Stage brought together the ideas of Nordic leader and Nordic electro together with a complete piano library and adjustable organ bars for an all-in-one package designed for live performances, hence the

stage

on behalf Of the worship equipment, the Nordic

stage

really seems to be the model that became most popular over time and nowadays it's hard to have a conversation about keyboards in church without bringing in the Nordics.

We get into the discussion, so let's head over to Sweetwater's website and take a look at the current line of Nord products. Here we have the Nord stage 488 keyboard which is $5,695 USD right now, the Nord stage 4 is practically new, we still have the Nord stage 3 available and it's $41.99, we have different configurations and we have the Nord piano which is a Centric model simplified piano for $34.99. These days you can buy a new stage 4, you can also buy a new stage three and Market Market is finally starting to see decent prices depending on your definition of decent for used stage two and stage two ex models.

Now let's click over to Nord's website and see some of what's inside these keyboards so we're right. At the top here, Nord Stage 4, a new generation of our iconic Flagship series. Now, each iteration of this stage has brought significant improvements and updates to the architecture. Initially, the stage model was much simpler. The changes between sounds and patches were not fluid, they were abrupt. changes and over time Nord has updated not only the sound library but also many quality of life improvements. Now all the different Nord models have many similar functionalities. The main differences really seem to be between who they are aimed at, so you still have the Nord Electro focusing on the organ and electromechanical positions, you have the Nord piano which is very much a piano emulation machine and then of course , you have the Nord stage, which does

every

thing, all in one, all of those models overlap a lot. terms of its sound library and in my opinion this is where Nords really differentiates itself from some of the other workstation options out there on the market and I think this is a big reason why Nord has been so successful by reaching out to churches with their products, so Click on the sound libraries and you can see that Nord is talking about the piano library and the sample library.

All the organs are modeled within Nords, but the piano and synth sounds are often sample based, so let's go down here and click on Nord. stage 4 and we can see what's in Nord's piano library. There are a lot of really great piano sounds available within Nords. Let's start with grand pianos, so here we can see a list of all the grand pianos that you have available. when you buy a Nord stage 4 right at the top, we have the white Grand. The beautiful Nord sampling is very well done, the instruments feel quite articulate and the high quality of the keys is the icing on the cake and you have great diversity throughout the Nord.

Piano and synth sample libraries. I'm a big fan of the Italian grand piano, really lush, super beautiful and we can go back to the piano library, we can see upright pianos, this one feels upright, it's on the newer side and it's really beautiful, so there's a bunch . There's a lot of diversity in the Nord sample library and I'm not even scratching the surface of what's available inside your Nord keyboard. There are amazing pianos, fantastic electric pianos, digital pianos, tons of synchronization and the organ emulation sound sounds great too, the depth and quality of the sample library is a big reason why many churches find the Nordic stage so useful and honestly, I think one of the best things is Nordic architecture.

When you look at the face of a Nordic scenario, it makes it quite easy even for a volunteer. take these types of tamber choices to quickly listen to different GRS and choose one that seems right to them or hear the difference between an upright piano and a grand piano or a felt piano and a felt upright piano, these nuances in other stations work can be a little bit hard to discern or a little hard to find, but it also doesn't work well with that big feature-rich front panel to present that information pretty easily, so we talked a little bit about the piano section and I mentioned that The organ section is also quite accessible, depending on the model you have digital or physical drawbars, which can be really cool and make the organ more tactile for people.

The synth section at Nords has seen a lot of growth and improvement over time, historically some people have criticized it. the synth section is the one most said to feel secondary to everything else or a little more limited in some ways. One thing we hear from churches that use Norse is that the synth section is often the last hurdle they have to overcome. to really onboard your volunteers and make them feel comfortable. I think it's the most intimidating part of Nordic scenic architecture, so who does the Nordic really make sense for if your church buys a Nordic?

Well, we know many churches in the Sunday sounds that want Nordic. We also know many churches in Sunday Sounds that use Norse and the churches we find have the most success or get the most bang for their buck because it is an investment in purchasing an expensive keyboard like a Norse and they tend to be looking for a Some of the same things that a lot of these churches that love their norse are looking for a closed sandbox approach, meaning they can really dial in some specific presets and then train their volunteers within those parameters to set up their main piano . sounds from their center pad, they'll talk about how their volunteers are or aren't going to use the organ section and then they'll set it up and forget how big that sandbox is, whether it's one head or 10-heads or a bank of , you know, a handful of sounds that they allow their volunteers to mix and match.

Churches that want this kind of approach, it's almost like a keyboard as a temporary template, really find a lot of value in Nordic architecture and that makes sense. To me, because the Nord stages are clearly Meant For Life performance, they expose a lot of that information on the body of the keyboard in a way that other workstations don't, which is why many workstations have a sort of single source of truth, like a big screen. Right in the middle and you're almost always focused there whenever you want to make changes in the North scenario, you have a more modular approach where if the first decision is what kind of things I'm looking to do, I want to adjust the timing. so you know, you want to look here, piano, here, organs, over here, and that kind of tiered approach works very well for some churches that want a kind of dedicated piano in one position.

It also works great if you just want the amazing piano sounds you want. I think being able to very easily select different groups of piano sounds and being able to dial them in in Nords has really beautiful simple compression and reverb controls for the piano specifically with the turn of a knob, which can really help the piano settle into the tone. mix. a North may also make sense for your church if you are looking to install some very high quality, durable hybrid equipment where you can go North for your meat and potatoes sounds, perhaps the sound of the piano and your organs can come from the North and then also you'll run software on the side for your pads, your synth sounds, your ambience and all that kind of stuff.

I think that may make a lot of sense because the keyboard on the Nord is very tall. quality, so it will work great as a mini controller, but you also have this very lush alternative or mix sound coming from the North itself. We find that larger churches tend to gravitate toward the North and it makes sense that those budget items would be a little easier. If your church is larger, they will last a long time and seem to hold their resale value better than many other hardware options on the market. Let's talk about some reasons not to purchase a Nord for your church.

The biggest one for most churches will come down to budget versus value. In my opinion, I'm not going to beat around the bush, Nordics are very expensive and there are more affordable options to get amazing key worship sounds for your church I would say. Exponentially more affordable options for many churches to get great modern worship key sounds. In my experience, most churches that have Nordics are underutilizing them in one way or another, and I'm not just talking about the trope of having this $44,000 MIDI controller. on stage and not use any of their sounds if that's you I've been there I've done that too I understand I'm not just talking about using a Nord as a midi controller, although I am talking even if you're using the built-in sounds there are specific time inversions What can you do to prepare your volunteers so they can use the Nord to its full potential because the Nords sound amazing, but if not take the time to think about a system and talk to your team.

Here's how you can explore and make the most of this as an instrument. I think most volunteers don't intuitively do that exploration for themselves. I think the Nord stage is a bit of a delicate environment. It doesn't necessarily push exploration right out of the box, there's a lot of things you can push and I think that can be really overwhelming for some volunteers, so if you're short on time or if your volunteers are very tech-averse, I think those are things. to consider Do I have time to invest in maximizing what we get from this investment? If we buy an expensive keyboard like a Nord.

If your main goal is to build a software-based keyboard computer. I highly recommend you consider more affordable options. Before you choose to use a Nord as the world's most expensive MIDI controller, there are other great midi keyboards that don't have this incredible depth of sound library because that's a big part of what you're paying for with the Nord if you'll rely on the software to your sounds, you don't need that amazing library of sounds, you'll get it from your software, so we're big fans of the Studio Logic sl88, the studio model and the Grand model, if you want. a graduated hammer action an ultra refined piano feel, they are much less expensive than buying a Nord stage just to connect it to your computer or iPad to control software, so let's talk about some alternatives to go the Nord route honestly if you're into it Kind of a closed space where you want to set it and forget it, like piano and pad combinations.

I would say that many other modern workstation keyboards can give you great sound results that would probably sound almost identical to the way many churches use the Nord stage. pianos in the mix, so from the big players like Roland Yamaha corg, if you buy a modern workstation, it will have great sampled pianos, it will have great sounding warm pads, the exact ins and outs of how to present that to your team could change . of model inmodel, from company to company, but the end result is what that type of piano sounds like on a single roll, any of those players can scratch that itch and if you look at the used market of those same big names, that becomes even more affordable and Yes If you prefer to go the software route, you can buy a midi controller only without built-in sounds and connect it to the software of your choice, so you can still get the same quality of keys, the same type of weighted piano action feel, but with the flexibility. and typically a cheaper software approach and the software approach is what we recommend for the vast majority of churches and if you've been following us on Sunday Sounds for a while, this probably won't come as a surprise and you already know why a software approach is opened. offers a lot of flexibility and can save you money on your budget and with options like our Sunday Keys app for Mac or iPad it is much friendlier to volunteer levels than any hardware workstation on the market with an app designed specifically for worship teams modern tools with which you can empower volunteers without only high-quality sounds but with a fully modular interface that promotes exploration, drives creativity and ensures reliable performance when you are on stage and if you choose to invest a smaller portion of the budget in an approach software based for now using the keyboard you already have and simply connecting it via midi or USB, you can always choose to add a Nord on top of that later, if it turns out to be something you really feel will be an important part of the keyboard's position. the worship keys in your church, if your church already has a Nord, I encourage you to explore all that it can do.

Churches see incredible value in investing in a North and if your church has one then I want you too to have to be willing to put in the time to explore and maximize its potential and then it will sound amazing if you are on the fence and trying to decide whether to have a North. Is it suitable for you. You have to weigh the pros and cons and it's not just about budget, it's about the way you work, future flexibility and how you and your volunteers will relate to the approach you choose to take, you might consider purchasing an older model of the stage Nord on the used market and opt for a hybrid approach or a workstation from another hardware manufacturer or you could go the full software route with the software of your choice and if you are interested in learning.

More about the software's focused approach, click the link in the description to learn about our Sunday Keys app. We believe it is the best Worship Keys solution out there for modern worship teams. At the end of the day, this red keyboard is just a tool like any other. How you choose to use this or any other instrument in your worship team and the Heart behind what you put into your music is what will impact your congregation the most.