Clavia Nord C1

The Clavia Nord C3 is an organ simulator. It's basically one of the best, if not the best, out there right now, giving you perfect replications of the Hammond B3, Farfisa, and Vox continental organs, as well as pipe and church organs. Since these are among the most popular and celebrated (and therefore fiercely loved) organ sounds out there, a simulator needs to be really accurate, and it's really impressive just how accurate this thing is.
It has two keyboards which contain 61 keys each. There are accessories for a foot pedal to add the additional foot pumps, and there are a ton of different parameters to adjust, for instance, adding a leslie rotary speaker effect, reverb, delay, and different oscillation settings. There's also an EQ.

UTILIZATION

With all of these features it can be a real struggle to manage this thing well, however, setting different presets isn't too hard and can help make this thing a lot easier. Basically you just have to take the time to get used to switching between sounds, if you plan on doing a lot of switching during songs. If not it's pretty easy.
Getting this thing setup is simple if you want to use it live but it's definitely less conventional than plugging a keyboard into an amp, assuming you want to use it at its full potential. For all the features it offers, however, this is a small complaint.

SOUNDS

I honestly still can't believe how accurate these sounds are. Organs, which are notoriously difficult to record, seemed even more impossible to replicate digitally, but Nord seems to have this thing nailed. While the church and pipe organs do a great job replicating the original sounds (especially in the studio!), the real highlight for me is for the Hammond and Vox, as well as Farfisa, emulations. This is where the instrument becomes invaluable for gigging. There's so many variations that you can get virtually any kind of Hammond or Continental sound you want.

OVERALL OPINION

Overall this is probably the best simulator out there. I can't believe how realistic it is. These are expensive but absolutely worth it to any organ player who doesn't have the means to tow an organ from gig to gig. I absolutely highly recommend this to almost any keys player who wants to get into playing organ, as it's really the next best thing.

The Clavia Nord C3 is a dual keyboard digital organ that emulates the sound of all sorts of types of organs including the Hammond B3, the Vox Continential and the Farfisa Compact Deluxe organ.  These are three different distinct organ sounds and the Clavia Nord C3 does a great job of emulating them all.  Each of the keyboards has full sized keys and each spans about four and half octaves.  It also has all sorts of effects and amp simulation including reverb and rotary speaker.  It also has an output to send this organ to an actual Leslie cabinet if you have access to one.  The keyboard is fully polyphonic and also has delay and EQ.



UTILIZATION

It won't take too long to figure out everything involved with this keyboard as even though there is a lot going on, it is laid out in a convenient way that is easy to understand.  The feel of the keyboards also is very realistic and is overall an easy instrument to play.  The manual for the Clavia Nord C3 is thorough and would be helpful to have around when learning this especially if you don't have any experience with organs.


SOUNDS

The Clavia Nord C3 does a great job of emulating organ sounds all across the board.  I use it mostly for the Hammond organ sounds that it is so great at emulating, but also love the Farfisa and Continental tones that are available on this versatile organ.  The sounds are overall extremely realistic and unless you have the real thing, I haven't heard any emulators of any of these classic organs that comes as close to the real thing as this does.  It has a ton of control available over your tone and the reverb, delay, and amp simulating effects are all top notch.  I can't think of anything bad to say about the sound of the C3 as it is just a stellar instrument.



OVERALL OPINION

I first used the Clavia Nord C3 about a year ago and I was instantly impressed with the palette of organ sounds made available within this single instrument.  This is a perfect organ for those who want to get all sorts of organ sounds during a live show or even for recording if you don't have access to the original instruments that this emulates.  The price of the Clavia Nord C3 is certainly expensive but is aimed at those who are looking for great tone regardless of price.  If you are looking for one of the best digital organ emulators around, the Clavia Nord C3 is just as good as any.