Nord User Forum

[megtheworshiper]

Hi there!

Meg here -- new user. I am a worship leader at a church in Ohio. We recently purchased two Nord Electro 5 HP's for our Sandusky and Norwalk campuses. I'm beginning to feel a little discouraged though -- when compared with our older keyboard (an older Yamaha Motif) we find that the piano sounds of the Electro seem sub-par. In all A-B comparisons our audio engineers and keys players prefer the Yamaha.

Has anyone experienced this? Have you found a solution?

Meg

[benny ray]

You have to tweak the pianos plus string resonance. Download Nord Royal Grand from website. You should tried Nord pianos before you purchased. Mine sounds really good much better than an old Motif. But pianos are very subjective to the ear.

[dkernohan]

How are you amplifying them?

Also check amplification settings - the various tweaks made over the years to flatter the Motif will not suit the Nord.

[Lee Batchelor]

Meg, I had a MOX8 - identical sound engine to the Motif series, just less bells and whistles. My Nord 5D blows the Motif pianos away. You definitely need to consider the sound system settings and Nord piano settings. There are a ton of extra pianos you can download free of charge from the Nord website. Check them out. Don't be fooled by their names. One my have a fancy name but not have the sound you're looking for. I like the Studio Grands 1 and 2. I believe they're sampled from the Yamaha C series grand pianos. Perhaps someone can verify my last statements??

[harmonizer]

dkernohan's amplification question is important. Most of the better Nord acoustic piano sounds (i.e. Silver, Italian, etc) really only sound right in stereo (you would need two powered speakers or amplifiers). I run in mono (just one powered speaker), and the Royal Grand is the only one that I have found that sounds right in mono.

[megtheworshiper]

You should tried Nord pianos before you purchased.

Yeah, we've officially learned that lesson.

[anotherscott]

Like Lee above, I used a MOX8 for quite a while, and now use the Nord which I much prefer. (And I usually used mono in both cases, even though both are optimized for stereo.) However, Lee isn't quite correct in saying that the MOX8 has the identical piano sounds as the Motif... MOX has the identical piano sounds as the Motif XS. If you have an older Motif than that, it would actually have different (and, technically "worse") piano sounds (though quality is always somewhat subjective).

Reiterating some good points above, and adding some elaboration of my own...

...when comparing, make sure you're using the same amplification, and don't assume the best EQ for one is the best EQ for the other. Best to start by comparing them both flat (no EQ on the board or amplifier), for a comparable starting point.

...be sure "long release" is enabled on the Nord (personally, I found that to be a significant improvement to the "naturalness" of the Nord pianos)

...remember that, unlike the Yamaha, there are lots of different sets of piano samples in the Nord, so you're not comparing two piano sounds (Yamaha vs Nord), rather you're comparing Yamaha's one sampled piano to Nord's many completely different sampled pianos, which are as different from each other as any of them are different from the Motif. Try them all (it's also worth checking out the uprights, not just the grands). I, too, would have preferred the MOX piano sound to a number of the Nord piano sounds, so it depends which ones you're comparing. But I definitely found some Nord piano sounds that I liked much better than what was in the MOX. IIRC, I tended to like the Silver, Royal, and Bright grands, though also the Italian and the Grand Imperial, while I didn't care much for the other 6 grands. I also liked the Black and Queen uprights.

...when the players (as opposed to merely listeners) are comparing, don't forget that part of the subjective experience of the player has to do with the feel of the keys and how that relates to the sound. The 5HP has light travel weight, but unfortunately, not the best action. To at least partially eliminate that as the source of players' dissatisfaction, try running a MIDI cable from the Motif's MIDI OUT to the Nord's MIDI IN. Once you do that, you can play both the Motif and Nord sounds from the same Motif action (just turn the volume up on the one you want to hear at any given moment, and turn the volume down on the other), which may help eliminate that as part of the difference from the players' perspective. (If that ends up being a significant variable, it could be addressed with either a different Nord model, or by leaving some other controlling board connected.)

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks for clarifying my mix-up in the Motif vs. MOX series AnotherScott! You're 100 percent correct - my MOX8 was the stripped down version of the Motif XS 8.

[silver surfer]

There is another thread about improving acoustic pianos with some good info. I have struggled with Nord pianos for decades now, but keep buying them due to the organ tones. I use the Bright Grand. The EQ is the key. I set the mid frequency to 1K and then reduce it a little. I also turn the treble down to about 10 o'clock.

[maxpiano]

EQ, good quality of amplification/speakers and their positioning are the keys (remember that Nord Pianos use stereo samples so to be correctly reproduced they need properly positioned stereo speakers)