Electro 5D Piano vrs Nord 3 Piano

[Jaylott]

I have looked and I have been unable to find out if the sound of the piano samples played through the E5D are the same sound that you get from the Piano 3? They are the same samples but are they processed differently?
I have the E5D 73 but miss 88 keys so I was thinking about upgrading. But if the sound is the same not sure I'll trade the extra weight for the 88 keys. Thanks for your input.

[eibinger]

Hi, I had the same problem and I went to a music-store to test.
First must say, that I am not a good piano-player. My first steps (40 years ago) in making-music were on the organ.
But I feel a clear difference between the Instruments you try to compare.
Same samples, other sound-performance. The Sound of the piano3 seems to be "stronger". After this, I proofed my hypothesis at home: I played my nord5d/73 via midi from my Kurzweil sp4/7 and the sounds are stronger, too.
But: You can´t compare Nord5d/HP (!) with Nord Piano3, because there are different keys.
The keys of the piano3 are much better. The keys of the Nord5d/HP clack a little bit - no problem on stage, but at home.
Regards Thomas

[Jaylott]

The piano samples in both instruments are exactly the same. All the exact piano sounds you can get in the P3 you can get in your Electro. The only difference is the action - your Electro has a semi weighted keyboard while the piano has full weighted keys. This may change the way the sound "feels" under your finger tips which may lead to it sounding slightly more expressive, but that's the same with any keyboard going from semi-weighted to weighted.

If I was you, I'd stick with the Electro - it can do farm more in terms of organ and sample playback. If you want weighted keys consider upgrading to the HP Electro model.

[harmonizer]

The Nord 3 Piano has a triple sensor action. As far as I know, there is no Electro or Stage model which has this.

[maurus]

The last two posts say it all. The samples are the same. The action is very different.
Of course there is also the option to play your Electro 5D from a second 88key board. When I put my VPC1 under my E5D it feels like a very different instrument indeed.

[juansava]

Hello Guys.

I am also in the process of getting my first Nord piano, I am a new to Nord.

After my research It came down to 2 options. The Electro 5 HP 73 or the Piano 3.

I was wondering if the sounds are the same? nd if there was anyone that could weight in with any information that would help me make an educated decision?

I dont need deep editors, or a lot of buttoms, I actually dont want a lot of bootoms. they make me sick......

I do need great sounds or piano, electric pianos , organs and maybe pads or strings.

Thanks

JD

[anotherscott]

I was wondering if the sounds are the same?

They are. (And that was already answered in this thread, along with other info you'd probably find helpful.)

I do need great sounds or piano, electric pianos , organs and maybe pads or strings.

The only one of those that will be different between the two keyboards is organ, where Electro has a full organ section, and Nord Piano has almost nothing.

ETA: and the NP has the triple pedal, which includes half-pedaling.

[Pidcin]

The last two posts say it all. The samples are the same. The action is very different.
Of course there is also the option to play your Electro 5D from a second 88key board. When I put my VPC1 under my E5D it feels like a very different instrument indeed.

Would you say that the Nord in conjunction with the VPC1 is amazing together ? Do you prefer it over a Nord with hammer action ?

[cphollis]

If you are an acoustic piano player, keyboard action becomes pretty high on your list. A mushy, unresponsive action will drive you nuts pretty quickly.

Most AP players would take a great action and mediocre sound vs. mediocre action and great sound. There are people who play APs on unweighted Nord Electro 5s and such. I don't know how they do it. I can't. Maybe they're not pushing it, or re-learned their entire technique. Not my thing, sorry.

I have to be able to play real APs, because -- well -- I have a small fleet. Not going to destroy my technique to learn to make a cheap-@ss board sound good. Long story that involves high-end grand pianos.

I have never played a VPC1, but others tell me it does fine. I find the 88-key Nord actions good-to-great. The 76 key weighted actions are good, but not great. Again, from the perspective of someone who has played real acoustic pianos his entire life. Hard to unlearn 50+ years of playing real pianos.

The idea of using a nice weighted controller to drive your upper, unweighted board is a direction I'm going. More cost-effective, more flexible, simpler routing and controls.

My Nord Piano 2 essentially ran out of memory for samples. I did what I could with small samples and whatnot, but it finally hit a breaking point as Nord releases all these new cool sample pianos on a regular basis.

My new Nord Stage 3 Compact has a generous 2GB of piano sample memory, plus a boatload of other cool tricks. So I simply midi'd the bottom to the top. It's working out pretty darn well. I can get all the nuance out of the piano samples because the weighting and action are sufficient.

Have not tried this with an Electro 5, but it should work pretty much the same. Panel A would be upper, panel B would be lower. Mo' bettah.

[maurus]

The last two posts say it all. The samples are the same. The action is very different.
Of course there is also the option to play your Electro 5D from a second 88key board. When I put my VPC1 under my E5D it feels like a very different instrument indeed.

Would you say that the Nord in conjunction with the VPC1 is amazing together ? Do you prefer it over a Nord with hammer action ?

Since you ask me: Yes I do, but this may be due to my personal preferences for somewhat "more substantial" piano actions. Others may (and do) have different preferences. I go back and forth between an acoustic piano (a Shigeru Kawai) and the VPC1 on a daily basis and find the keys of the VPC (with the right touch curve selected - that possibility is a great feature in the VPC in my view) to get quite close to those of my grand (in terms of touch).

A secondary reason for preferring the E5D to the NP3, for my purposes, is its transportability - but that is a rather different kind of reason. I should also add that I only tested the NP3 in store - I can't say whether or not I would have better adapted to its keys if it were sitting in the next room - maybe so.