Nord User Forum

Hi I would like to hear some opinions on what amplification system would be best for Nord piano 2 for playing live,usually from 50 to 200 people and mostly pop and rock music.I am using a HK lucas 1000 (15"bass bin and two 8" saellite speakers) but I am disappointed with the piano sounds.Any advise would be appreciated.

The hardest sound to get right on any keyboard is acoustic piano. The Nord pianos are especially difficult to amplify properly.

I spent about eight months going around different stores, testing different amps and P/A systems. Here are my findings. I am a sound engineer, but your likes and dislikes may be completely different to mine, so I suggest you use this as a starting point. The prices I have put in are for a single speaker at average UK prices - if you shop around a bit!

EV ZLX 12P - very good speaker, but some people (including myself) find AP's sound harsh through them. Other's think they are fine. The most inexpensive on my list. £270.

EV ELX 112P - these are the more expensive in the EV range. AP's sound a lot smoother IMHO. £400.

Yamaha DXR 10 - The best overall P/A system I found. These are the ones I ended up buying. There is also a DXR 12 and a DXR 8 model, but the 10 is the pick of the bunch. Comes with a 7 year warranty. The sounds are out of this world. Run them through a mixer for the best effect. £500.

QSC K10 - excellent sound, almost as good as the DXR 10, but dearer. £540.

Line 6 LT2 - I found this to be an amazing speaker, as good as the DXR 10. It has configurations for guitars and microphones too. If I had needed these, I would have gone with this one, but as I only needed mine for keys, I went with Yamaha, and saved myself £400 on a pair. £700.


Speakers sound totally different when they are on the floor compared with when they are up on poles, so test them as you are going to use them.

Too many people pay a couple of thousand for a keyboard, and run it through a p/a that costs a couple of hundred, and expect it to sound good. It ain't gonna happen. All the p/a systems that I have referenced here come in at between £800 and £1700, for a complete system.

Good places to buy from the UK are Thomann (mail order), Andertons (Guidford) and Gear4 Music (York). Gear4Music will price match. Andertons frequently have deals on.

I was so impressed with the Line 6 LT2 that I bought a single one for my Crumar Mojo organ from Gear4Music. They price matched me with an online firm (most places only price match with brick-and-mortar stores). In addition to this, they gave me 48 hour delivery, and 28 days approval.

I got my Yammies from Andertons. They had bundles on sale, and I walked away with a pair of speakers with cases, poles, cables and a mixer for about £1050. You just have to shop around, and haggle.

Good luck!

Lamplighter, I have just re-read my post (above), and realised that some people just don't have this amount of money to throw around.

In my defence, I strongly believe that these are the amounts you have to pay if you want a good sounding system, especially with acoustic pianos. If you were just playing organs, ep's, clavs or synths, you could get away with something a lot cheaper.

I think if you were short of cash, you would be better to buy a single good speaker, and go mono, and save up for the second one, rather than buy a pair of a cheaper model.

BTW, I agree about the HK Lucas! I have the 300 model, and AP's sounded terrible through it! However, it's OK for other sounds, and it's wonderful for acoustic guitars!


SSM

+1 with Six-string-man, good advices

I wrote a post on this a while back, still pretty accurate. Of course, only my opinions
http://chucksblog.typepad.com/late_bloo ... right.html

Nice blog Chuck !!!! Enjoyed it

Just read your blog Chuck, thought it was extremely well written. We agree on quite a lot! I didn't want to get into the very high end stuff on my post, as anyone who knows about RCF's would not be asking for advice on replacing a HK Lucas system!

I honestly thought that the DXR slightly out performed the QSC, but it was very close. Obviously, your mileage varied

Anyway, great blog, and hopefully, the OP will have got what he needed.


SSM

It's fun writing that stuff. I've got about a half-dozen more posts in my head -- all I need is the time! Thanks for the kind words!

Thanks Chuck. Great blog. I agree will everything you said except the QSCs. I owned a pair of K8's and K10's and have sold them all because they sounded too electric for acoustic piano (i.e., this was most apparent on jazz gigs) and they became unclear and boxy sounding at louder volumes (i.e., acoustic piano on rock gigs didn't sound good to me). Having said that I received many compliments on the QSCs from folks in the audience so this is very subjective stuff. I now own a pair of RCF TT08A's. They do a great job of brining out the beauty of the Nord piano samples, however they are expensive. Looking back, I probably spent more buying and selling all of the previous powered speakers and keyboard amps then I did on the TT08A's.

lamplighter wrote:Hi I would like to hear some opinions on what amplification system would be best for Nord piano 2 for playing live,usually from 50 to 200 people and mostly pop and rock music.I am using a HK lucas 1000 (15"bass bin and two 8" saellite speakers) but I am disappointed with the piano sounds.Any advise would be appreciated.

I posted a video of a gig I did using a pair of QSC K10's with my Stage 2 playing the Fazloli piano sample. I'm thinking this may be helpful in your quest for improved speakers/amplification.

http://www.norduserforum.com/your-music ... t7596.html