Nord User Forum

[themixtape]

Wanted to start a new topic about this--

I'm no amazing piano player by any means. I've spent a lot of time, playing/trying out different pianos for different applications and sounds, etc. Headphones and studio monitors, mostly.

I'd like to constructively criticize several pianos in the Piano Library. First, let's start with the Italian:

ITALIAN:
Something in the octave or two above middle C sounds very "fake". Even loaded as XL. It's got weird overtones that to me, get a little on my nerves. Too plain-sounding, too. It's nice for some things but overall, I just am not feeling it.

VELVET:
Still love the warmth, but people have pointed out it "dies out too quickly"... yes. It does. It's like the sound gets sucked away, immediately after striking a key. Though it has these realistic key-click/hiss depending on the notes you're playing (about an octave below middle C).... it just dies out a little quickly. Positive: it sounds like a mix of an old upright, but when struck hard, it has that bell-like tone of a grand.

SILVER:
It is almost "too in tune". I know that sounds ridiculous... but if you play, say... Tori Amos' "Winter", on it, and then on the Imperial... you will notice a huge difference. When playing perfect 5th and perfect 4th intervals, there's just this "absolutely perfect tuning" thing that bugs me a bit about it.

LADY D:
It's tough to get softer notes... pianissimo, etc. It's always bright-sounding and clear. Great tone, but dynamics are NOT its strong suit.

IMPERIAL:
The good-- strong attack.. very realistic. You can hear the key "click" almost... really prominent. The bad? Maybe too overtone-ish... too bright. You can get some warmth out of it, for sure... recommended: knocking off some high EQ or if you have a Stage 3, use the "Soft" quick EQ setting. Really nice, then. This sounds EXACTLY like Tori Amos's first album, which makes sense as I believe she recorded it on a Bosendorfer, in 1991.

STUDIO GRAND 2:
This is still a pretty damn great sample. Low file size, great dynamics. It may not sound as good as Keyscape's C7, but few things do. I go to this piano often. It just fits a lot of stuff.

------------------------

GRAND UPRIGHT:
Sounds mildly out of tune, and fatigues my ears quickly, even at a reasonably quiet headphone volume.

RAIN:
Always loved this, but lately it sounds lifeless... depending on what I play. I do however like the clicky/hiss noise that comes through sometimes, depending on how softly you play. Still a great tone, overall.. just... a bit on the plain side (and really, this is in my top 3 favorite uprights, so I'm being hyper-critical).

BABY:
Almost too many overtones/sympathetic resonance, even loaded as Medium! It's great, but... sometimes a bit muddy.

AMBER:
Too perfect? Too plain? Too... grand-ish? I don't know. Jury's still out on this one. I love it, and have it loaded as XL, but... sometimes it rubs me the wrong way. Sounds like a mix of Queen Upright, Grand Upright, and maybe one of the Yamaha Grands.

ROMANTIC:
Sometimes it sounds lifeless and out of tune. Kind of like the Rain... though I do love this old/vintage sound... it definitely works better with reverb.

QUEEN:
Is this even necessary anymore, having the Amber?



What are your thoughts? What do you hate and why? What can you live without loading into your board? / Do you load any of these as Medium just to have it available on your board (if you have the space)? Thanks!

[cphollis]

What are you playing through? Are you playing solo live, in a band, or just at home?

Context matters -- how I feel about different piano voices has a lot to do with how I'm using them.

[themixtape]

Excellent questions, Chuck! (I thought you were the same Chuck as "PianoManChuck" on Youtube, but I think you are a different one!)

Sennheiser HD202 headphones, or Audio Technica $25 headphones (that are light and surprisingly good-sounding). Don't remember the model, though.

JBL LSR305 studio monitors, and occasionally Logitech Z2300 computer speakers. Mostly.

Mostly solo at home, or in a mellow duo sitch (female vocals/male vocal harmony)... room practice/jamming, sometimes open mics.

[kirsty]

Great review here!!

I feel the same things when i play these samples so your comments are spot on

[Spider]

What's happening these days? Lots of topics on piano sounds popping up, even resurrecting very old threads...can't we just merge them in a single topic for reference?

Anyway, I happen to be reshuffling my pianos and finally having time to load and compare all of them, so I'll give my personal opinion.
I evaluate my sounds at home through high quality headphones (Denon AH-D2000).
I have classical piano training but I'm not a professional pianist, I have zero experience on real high-end grand pianos.
And comparing some of my opinions with the general consensus, I start to doubt of my ear and musical tastes...

GRANDS:

SILVER: my go-to grand piano sound. Bright but not shrill, rich nice sounding harmonics, great dynamic range, full and clean both in the high and low registers. Cuts well through the mix. I can't find any fault in this one. Maybe the stero image, which is so wide that can be difficult to reproduce properly through PA (must be a nightmare using it mono).

BRIGHT: Bright, the brightest, almost too much. On its own it's shrill and harsh. But it will cut through the heaviest mix. A solid workhorse that always delivers.

VELVET: my second favourite. It's the softest grand but it's not muffled, and I love its great dynamic range. Soft basic tone, but can ring and scream when played ff-fff. Very solid high register. Wide stereo image. To me, it sounds like a better version of the Studio Grand 2, which is probably still the grand sample with the widest dynamic range.

IMPERIAL: definitely unique, different from all other samples. Dark tone, booming bass, yet clear and ringing, not muffled at all. The high register is a bit weak. I love to play it through headphones, but I have difficulty using it live, especially with a band.

ROYAL 3D: I honestly don't understand what the fuss is all about. It's a nice sample, sure, but I don't hear anything special in this one. Not too bright, very polite, a bit weak both in the low and high registers. I hear a lot of key noise in the highest octave. Given the recording technique I expected a very wide stereo image, but it's not the case (and probably the reason this sample performs better in mono). To me, it's a poor man's Velvet or Studio Grand 2 (which are the only other Grands I would call "soft").

ITALIAN: For me, it's totally "meh". Bright but not rich, too clean and sterile. Some weird harmonics in the highest register. For a bright piano, the Bright and especially Silver are miles above. For anything else, all other samples have more character.

OLDIES GOLDIES: the Grand Lady D, Studio Grand 2 and Concert Grand Ambient are still great. They suffer a bit from lack of bite and sustain in the high register, but are otherwise excellent samples, each one with its own personality.
I never cared much about the Concert Grand Close and Studio Grand 1.



UPRIGHTS:
(note about the uprights: I use them mostly as "charachter" pianos, if I want a "perfect" sound I use the grands. That may explain some of my weird evaluations)

GRAND UPRIGHT: almost too good for an upright. Rich, powerful, great tone, nice harmonics, even a good bass register...it's so good that I basically never use it, because if I need that kind of sound I will go to a Grand sample.

BLACK: one of my absolute favourites. Bright, full, clean but with lots of personality.

MELLOW: lovely, the softest tone in the whole piano library. Probably TOO soft for general use, but great for specific applications.

QUEEN: very good, kinda similar to the grand upright, only darker and with slightly less harmonics.

AMBER: for me, this is the Royal 3D/Italian of the uprights, in the sense that I find it a nice good sample, but not so special to justify the general enthusiasm. It's not bad at all, but I find almost every other samples to be more interesting and characteristic.

The above are the uprights I consider suitable for "general" use. Then there are more specialized sounds, like the Honky Tonk and the Saloon, almost exclusively confined to their very specific musical genres.

And then there are what I call the "home" pianos: samples that remind me of old, quirky, slightly out of tune living room pianos. Maybe not very useful for general use, but lovely to play for personal enjoyment. Among these, for me the Romantic and Rain Piano are probably the most well-rounded and usable ones. I also like the Bambino a lot, even if it's definitely peculiar (hollow basses, weird harmonics).
I honestly hated the Baby, it's so metallic and hollow that almost reminds me of the Honky Tonk. For that kind of sound, I much prefer the Blue Suede.

[cphollis]

Excellent questions, Chuck (btw, love your videos!)!

Sennheiser HD202 headphones, or Audio Technica $25 headphones (that are light and surprisingly good-sounding). Don't remember the model, though.

JBL LSR305 studio monitors, and occasionally Logitech Z2300 computer speakers. Mostly.

Mostly solo at home, or in a mellow duo sitch (female vocals/male vocal harmony)... room practice/jamming, sometimes open mics.

Now I get it. OK, you should care about nuance and character. Which is not the same as standing out against two jamming guitarists and a thumpin' drummer through FOH, right?

I will say this ... the pianos I prefer when playing personally aren't the same pianos I go to when playing live with a full electric band. The live band sounds are too harsh for solo/acoustic stuff, and vice versa.

Italian grand, Silver grand, Royal grand, etc. rock live. A smudge of chorus helps. I even layer a bit of subvoices in to keep them interesting.

Not so much when playing personally. Way too harsh. Into the pure sound. But not a big thing for me, because ... I have a super-nice acoustic piano for those moments. Ain't no way the Nords are even going to get close to my Bosie 200.

More about this instrument here: http://chucksblog.typepad.com/late_bloomer/2015/09/the-search-ends-with-my-new-bosendorfer.html

For example, small samples are more than enough for what I do live with the band, except for a few spotlight parts where I bring full AP L/XL game. Lots of string resonance all around. Huge.

Feel the sound! And through tasty amplification, yes!! People come up during our lame bar gigs, and go "wow, what are you doing?". Hey, works for me!

The newer digital pianos are proving to be super useful in the live context. The hybrid digital is turning out to be a monster.

Thankfully, the Nords can do all of this at the same time. No need to choose favorites

[kirsty]

Ok Ill join in here with a few of my own thoughts now ive had time to write

Lady D - Difficult to make my mind up on this. Doesnt sound as much like a real Steinway as the older Concert Grands Close /Ambient I think but had a lot more body as a sample. It has probably the most sustain but also has a strange ringing to it and can become very muddy. Despite this for some reason I still go back to it live as it has such a full sound behind the singer i accompany.

Grand Imperial, - Its unique, Love its power. The bass is so strong and thundering but the upper end is very weak and doesnt sing in comparison even when you tweak the EQ. I find it difficult to use live a lot. It seems to work well with lots of low end chordal playing especially when played softly too. I accompany my female singer to 'Desparado' with this for example and its my goto on that song every time.

Bright - Its just that, very bright and in your face. I dont particularly like the sound of it, but the few times i have played with a full band, it really does the job to cut the mix which is why I leave an 'L' of this in my Stage. Like many others have said here, in a band with guitar players fighting to be heard, the samples and string resonance all unnoticed and getting heard through all else is a challenge enough.

Silver - Such a stunningly bright, crystal clear sample. Its so twinkly in the upper, and quite authoritative in the bass also, the only sample i have XL loaded. Im warming to this live very much. It feels a lot thinner than the other samples to play and doesnt suit everything but is still very pleasant. I noticed on anything other than the XL there is a couple of strange sounding keys around the D2 area, may be the Db if i recall. My partner cant tell much difference piano to piano sample usually, (hes not a musician ) but when i load the Silver and play at home for some reason it stands out to him and he always says, Hey I like that piano sound.

Italian - Never warmed to this. I keep loading it and then throwing it out again. Its a very even sample across its range and doesnt do a lot wrong, but for me it just never did a lot right either. I find it very uninteresting to play. Doesnt seem to cut mixes well either and has a very, twangy kind of sound to it which doesnt inspire me to leave it loaded.

Velvet - Never really got into this and didnt spend a lot of time with it. It feels like a very old and tired piano to play. As i put on another post it reminds me of an old piano in our College that was so lifeless it seemed like it just wanted to jump off the stage. The sound seems to die out too quickly for me. It does sound very authentic and realistic a sample though in comparison to the ultra clean processed sounds of some other boards. I can see why others may like it.

Royal 3D - I always liked playing the S6 in the CP4, it was different, warm and a bit muddy. This is a much better sample than the CP4 version from Yamaha. Sounds good in headphones but its a bit dull used live, I prefer to use others. A lot here rave on the Royal, i like it but i dont think its all that. Does seem to be one of the best samples to use in Mono, there isnt a vast difference between the stereo sound like on other samples.

Concert Close/Ambient - I will comment together here. Clearly older sounding samples that lack some of the body of newer offerings. That said, I think they sound more like a Steinway D than the Lady D does. I dont proclaim to be any kind of mass piano expert, but I can pick out a Steinway sound when it is used clearly. I remember loading Ambient and the lower registers sound stunning, but for some reason around middle C the upper register plays very strangely, too chirpy and not very pleasant to play. Concert Close sounds lovely in the upper register, but I always preferred the lower register from the Ambient - remembering its the same piano its representing. I made a split piano with Ambient upto C3 and Close from C3 upwards. I get a lot of pleasure out of playing this and to me sounds as close to the Steinway sound I want from the Nord Library. Occasionally i flick to the Lady D sample, which I dont think sounds as nice, but clearly has a lot fuller sound. Pray that Nord will release a killer XL Steinway oneday

Studio Grands 1/2 - Love them both actually and they dont do a lot wrong. For older samples they are very full and very authentic sounding. When i first came to Nord, the Studio 2 was what I couldnt stop playing. It was the closest digital piano sound to playing a real one I had touched. Tried Studio 1 which has a lot sharper bite to its tone and initially didnt like it. But for some reason it has grown on me and now I prefer Studio 1. Studio 2 to me now sounds like a muffled version of the Studio 1 lol.


Uprights,

Amber - Love this sample. Joy to play and very realistic sounding. Sounds almost like its trying to be a grand though, which means most of the time i end up playing a grand sample instead.

Grand U3 - Lovely sample, very realistic (my dad has a U3) Great tone across all you can play on it. Has some great bite when you dig in on it too. As realistic as it sounds though I still turn back to the grands, its just a novelty having it there for something different on occasion.

Ive loaded all the others at somepoint but most of them dont do a lot for me with what I play so I prefer to use the memory to load bigger samples of the grands instead. Nowadays I only have the 'L' Amber loaded from the Uprights.


For context, Im playing this through a pair of EV ELX 112P speakers along with a EV ELX 118P Sub, or through my Beyerdynamic DT770 Headphones.
I use the setup at home as I have a big enough room to use it in for practice, but use the same gear at some gigs, small to medium venues mainly accompanying a female singer as a Duo. Occasionally join in with a 5 piece band and also at the odd Jamming sessions.

We are lucky to have such great instruments available with these cracking samples. Yes we can be critical of course, but overall we are nitpicking.. they are still brilliant

[PScooter63]

Context:
I am not a full-time musician (darn those day jobs). No studio work, just live performance, so headphones are a non-factor. Most of what I play nowadays supports a four-horn lounge act (swing/jazz/crooners/classic rock/classic R&B), '40s to 80s, and a few contemporary pieces. Mostly comping (no guitarist, all on me), with the occasional solo. I try to vary with EPs and organs, to curb ear fatigue.

FOH is mono, so my instrument's output is configured stereo... feeding only the right channel, to quell any summing/phase issues.

I tend to re-evaluate my pianos only when a new one is released. 384mb of piano RAM will do that to you. Newer samples have not been compelling enough to replace the following must-haves:

Grand Imperial (L) - I stumbled onto this when I needed to accompany an instrumentalist on a marvelously somber Poulenc work. It immediately replaced the factory-installed "big" grand (Lady D?). The overtone variation from ppp to FFF serves me perfectly for 70% of the acoustic titles... when it needs to bite, it bites, but can lay back if you let it. I find the iciness to be a plus, and it's arguably easier to cut bass than augment it.

Silver (M) - my go-to for brighter, thinner needs (latin, post-60s pop/rock). This replaced one of the factory-installed Yammies.

Bambino (M) - This ended my search for the iconic intro to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll", which started with the Petrof (yes, neither is actually faithful to the original recording, but it just fits for me). I have access to an early-60s Baldwin Acrosonic, and Nord nailed it with this one. Depending on my mood, it may also fit into other pre-50s "vintage" titles. Definitely specialized usage.

[Dreamer]

We are lucky to have such great instruments available with these cracking samples. Yes we can be critical of course, but overall we are nitpicking.. they are still brilliant

Good analysis. I think none of them is the one-for-it-all-fire-and-forget all-purpose weapon of choice (my old Yam P-250 piano is). Still waiting for the different miked Royal they announced.. there will be Christmas again..

Personally, I use Bright for Pop, Studio 2 for Ballads and Amber for R&B, all XL. Works. Bosie just not cut for me. Currently experimenting with attached DAW and Garritan CFX Lite to get some different animal on stage if needed for solo. Ivory 2 American D is not for that but unbeaten for recording.

Correct amplification is the key. You can’t state that often enough. Currently running through a Stereo LD Curve 500, still lacking some mids so important for the Nord pianos..

[kirsty]

Ivory 2 American D is not for that but unbeaten for recording.

What do you think to the Ivory 2. I have been seriously considering this to fix my realistic Steinway urges.

I saw Dave Rosenthal comment that the American D (Via Kawai VPC1) is what Billy Joel uses live on stage these days. From a recent concert I can say it sounded great. The demos of Ivory sound stunning