Best Grand Piano Samples

[ThePianist]

All Nord Grand Pianos in a single video. Watch this to make an informative decision about latest Nord Piano Sample, if you run out of storage on your Nord Keyboard.


Which one is your favourite and how do you decide which one to keep in XL, L, Medium sample sizes?

ThePianist

I went ahead and moved all my uprights to small size except for Amber to create space for Soft Grand and Studio Grand 2 in Large format.
What about you?

[NiCoX]

The Royal Grand 3D is the sound that made me buy my first Nord some years ago, after doing a blind test on YT, which was comparing all major brands stage piano sounds... and as of today, it is still my go to piano sound...

[ThePianist]

The Royal Grand 3D is the sound that made me buy my first Nord some years ago, after doing a blind test on YT, which was comparing all major brands stage piano sounds... and as of today, it is still my go to piano sound...

Hi Nicox,

Thanks for sharing your preference. Royal 3D is one my favourites too.

[pmags]

I'm new to the Nord line, having owned a Stage 4 for just about a month. Royal Grand 3D has become my go too as well!

[docbop]

My main piano sample is the Studio Grand 2 it is great for live and takes effects very well. My second choice is the White Grand. Not to fond of the Royal Grand 3D and only use it with headphones and practicing. All of them I roll some of the bottom off and turn on the Bright button on the Reverb.

[Xerosnake90]

I've cut down to what I think will be my rotation of pianos. I compared them all to each other and picked the sounds I enjoyed the most.

Grand Pianos: Grand White XL, Silver Grand XL, Felt Grand XL, Bright Grand XL, Imperial Grand L

Upright Pianos: Amber XL, Grand Upright XL, Bambino XL, Baby Upright XL, Felt Upright L

Aside from the felt pianos everything is in the brighter side of samples which I enjoy. Some have better minds than other and really the imperial is for the incredible bass notes, I don't like the high end much on that one
The uprights are all really unique to each other so it was tough to choose. I'll need more time with them for sure

[ThePianist]

Thank you all for jumping and sharing what their sample config looks like. I keep White Grand & Royal Grand 3D in XL, then keep Soft Grand, Studio Grand (1 & 2), Silver Grand, Imperial in L, Velvet in M and I've added Lady D in L just for comparison between the White Grand since they are both sampled after Steinway.
It's really insightful to see what others preferences are in terms of Grand piano samples.

[Xerosnake90]

I've been playing around with layering different pianos. I wanted the thick bass of the Imperial but the warm mids to highs of the White Grand so I layered them together. I split around C2/3 and put the Imperial to the left only mixed with the White Grand. The right side is only the White Grand. It's fun layering these pianos and getting some really unique sounds

[Tasten-Bert]

My favourite Grand still is the Bosie, the Grand Imperial. I play with settings as follows and as visible at the fotos:
EQ:
Bass +6.7 dB
Freq 3.4 kHz and +2.6 dB
Treble +8.1 dB

Delay 2.8

Reverb 2.4

Very often I switch the octave by -1, I love it for ballads and songs that don‘t demand treble-forcing rock piano sounds.

One thing that took me by surprise: I compared the Bosie 5.3 vs. 6.1 - the newer one doesn‘t enable LONG RELEASE. Any experience or ideas why?

Cheers from Germany

[maurus]

One thing that took me by surprise: I compared the Bosie 5.3 vs. 6.1 - the newer one doesn‘t enable LONG RELEASE. Any experience or ideas why?

Yes, that's the case, as with some others in the newest version. For the Bosie I reverted back to 5.3. To my knowledge and in my experience nothing is gained for the Bösendorfer Imperial by moving to 6.1 (for this sound I wouldn't use the new piano filters anyway).

For other piano samples such as the Studio Grand 2 the differences are very noticeable, and in a good way, though

PS. Your EQ example for the Bosie documents something else that I can confirm, by the way. This sample takes even drastic EQ changes surprisingly well without breaking into pieces sonically