Not to be overshadowed by its accessories -- a groundbreaking aluminum stand and a bass pedal keyboard -- the highlight of Clavia Nord's Musikmesse 2009 booth is undoubtedly the C2 Combo Organ. Drawing off of the popular and logically sequenced C1, the C2 offers a wider range of tones than its predecessor with the same portable convenience.

New features on the Nord C2 include:

• A completely sampled Baroque Pipe Organ with 21 stops
• Firmer keyboard action
• New output routing allows organ models to be separately routed via main left and right group outputs or through an alternate grouping of Leslie 11-pin and High Level outputs
• Monitor input sent to headphone output
• "Classic Position" percussion controls
• "Classic Position" vibrato and chorus
• Click level adjustment
• Drawbar Preview lets you silently dial in a change while playing your current patch

As prefaced by the C1, the C2 offers a large part of its sounds through digital modeling. Models include the tonewheel, Vox Continental and Farfisa Compact Deluxe, and sound can be further shaped with effects like tube style overdrive, rotating speaker simulation, delay, reverb and three-band EQ.

However, the C2 adds sampling technology to the mix, capturing baroque pipe organ samples with the utmost care. Couplers behave just like their analogs would to combine stops and manuals. Expanded control via an optional foot pedal adds to the realism. You'll feel more and more like you're playing one of the originals until you don't pull your back trying to move it.