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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby anotherscott » 21 Jun 2018, 04:07

Psychologically, I like the XL because I know that each note (or almost?) is an actual representation of that note on the original piano, whereas the L (and others) will stretch (pitch shift) a single sample over a few adjacent keys and therefore is not as authentic to the original, nor as "natural" to the behavior of the physical strings. But in practice, if a smaller-than-XL works for you musically, even if it's less accurate, there's no reason not to use it!
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)


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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby anotherscott » 21 Jun 2018, 14:54

cphollis wrote:If you have limited piano memory, the L size is what it's all about. String resonance, but not fully sampled at the extremes.

For live ensemble (rather than solo) playing, I'm not even sure the resonances matter much. In that situation, I think I'd be inclined to choose only S or XL depending on which I prefer the sound of, as a strategy to make most efficient use of limited space while also trying to get all the sounds I want. (The idea being that the S, M, and L sound the same apart from the resonances, whereas the XL can sound quite different... though of course not necessarily always better, which gets back to the main topic at hand.)

But also, I think it may be misleading to say that the L is not fully sampled at the extremes. I mean, it's true, but looking at the bigger picture, AFAIK, it's not fully sampled anywhere (i.e. there are few, if any, adjacently sampled notes, though this may vary wth the particular pano model), and in this respect, is also no different from the S or M.
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby themixtape » 11 Mar 2019, 03:15

Over a year later.... how's everyone doing?

Here I am with a new set:

GRANDS
XL: Royal, Grand Imperial, Velvet
M: everything except CG1, CG2, SG1, and Italian

UPRIGHTS
XL: Bambino, Amber
M: everything except Queen and Saloon

I had the Steinway No. 1 (XL) in the Grands section, which sounds so lovely and antique... but deleted it to make room for the upgraded Enhanced EPs... they're definitely more dynamic... I often have to play them with the velocity setting at 2 to get the "bite" to come out more.

Thinking about swapping Amber from XL to M, and putting the Steinway No. 1 back in... and/or putting the Grand Imperial back to M.

Even though I rarely use my Nord live, I did a house show with my talented friend, and she used the Rain (Medium) the entire set... sounded amazing (she does mellow pop/indie stuff). Another performer used the Lady D (again, Medium) for their set (which sounded incredible, too). The Lady D really works live, for pop/folk. The Bright just sounded too bright. The Royal just did not work live, for the other performer (though I thought it would, we had it running in stereo).

How are you guys digging the enhanced EPs? Seems like they have more "release" noise, don't they? I dig that. Especially in the lower register.
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby Gambold » 11 Mar 2019, 17:39

There's never going to be consensus on any of this, largely because there are just too many choices! Obviously if you have the room, the bigger files are the most desirable. You want to be able to use your Nord's features to the fullest, and the larger samples take advantage of them. Plus, although it's true that the nuances of the larger files will be lost in a loud combo setting, I'm betting that most of us spend the bulk of our keyboard time playing alone. Might as well have the nicest sample for that.

I've done a lot of A/B testing too and I confess - I just don't have the ear to distinguish all the finer differences between most of the piano samples. And once you start tinkering with the EQ, those distinctions can be even more minimized. SO - my final decision, made mostly to avoid an excess of Nord sample obsession, was to choose a small group of samples, download the biggest file sizes of those I could handle - and let the rest go, never to look back.

I am biased towards NEW, however. Although Nord has never offered an explanation on why sub-XL file sizes have steadily grown over the years, I'm making the assumption that the more recent samples were created with newer technology that captures more data. A Large is now over 100mb - back in the good old days it was around 70mb. Something accounts for an almost 50% size increase so I'm rolling with it.

The current list (although I'm still OCD enough that this will probably change):

Velvet and Bright - XL (I'm looking at the Silver to replace the Bright, but man, that Yamaha sample has been such a warhorse for me).
Amber XL (Grotrian is as close to Steinway as you'll get).
Black and Bambino L (I wanted a Baldwin on there since it's classic American, the one we grew up with in school - the Black Petrof is out of Nord nostalgia, and could probably go).
Saloon and Honky S (one-shot pianos, good for parties)
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby stringtapper » 16 Mar 2019, 17:23

I just went through this when the high res EPS were released. I loaded all of the upgraded EPs and then went with this for the APs (on an NS3C):

Royal Grand 3D XL
Grand Imperial Lrg
Velvet Grand XL
Silver Grand XL
Grand Lady D Lrg
Studio Grand 2 Lrg
Bright Grand Lrg
Amber Upright XL
Baby Upright XL
Bambino Upright XL
Black Upright Lrg
Mellow Upright XL
Queen Upright Lrg
Rain Piano Lrg
Saloon Upright Med
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby monsterjazzlicks » 14 Dec 2019, 23:33

Hi folks,

I am an Electro 6D newbie and I think I will start by d/l the XL sample files and auditioning them...

Best,

Paul
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby monsterjazzlicks » 14 Dec 2019, 23:53

Hi again,

From 'Concert Grand Ambient' (2011 - 03 - 29) thru 'Lady D' (2011 - 03 - 29) the largest available size is 'large'. Do you think that Clavia will ever update these models to incorporate 'string resonance' (ie. rendering them 'XL' in size), please? Or does the company only operate in a forwards manner?

btw. I have just d/l all of the six Grand Piano 'XL' sample files and they amount to a size of 1.19GB; the five 'XL' Upright Pianos are 741MB; and the four 'XL' Electric Pianos are 104MB - (in case these figures are of interest to anyone)

Paul
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby baekgaard » 15 Dec 2019, 00:25

monsterjazzlicks wrote:Hi,

From 'Concert Grand Ambient' (2011 - 03 - 29) thru 'Lady D' (2011 - 03 - 29) the largest available size is 'large'. Do you think that Clavia will ever update these models to incorporate 'string resonance' (ie. rendering them 'XL' in size), please? Or does the company only operate in a forwards manner?

btw. I have just d/l all of the 'XL' sample files and they amount to a size of 1.19GB (in case this figure is of interest to anyone). And the five 'XL' Upright Pianos are 741MB.

Paul
String res is in the M, L and XL - only the S lacks it. L and XL has it fully; the difference is just that the XL had every tone sampled individually whereas the L shares samples between some adjacent keys.

I think it's unlikely that Nord would release XL versions of the old pianos. I guess that they maybe don't have all keys sampled on at least the oldest of the original "tapes", and it's not likely they will go back and resample the same instrument again under the same conditions. So even if they wanted, they may not be able to do so for all of them. But I don't know if course - maybe they were able too think ahead 10+ years when the original recordings were done :-)

Otherwise Nord has been good generally to not only move forward, but also to upgrade older stuff. Here more recently the old EPs were overhauled extensively, as discussed above too. The newer EP5 and later got XL versions and the older EP1 to 4 got other upgrades (but stayed in L - presumably because they were not sampled individually for all keys?).
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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby monsterjazzlicks » 15 Dec 2019, 01:17

baekgaard wrote:String res is in the M, L and XL - only the S lacks it. L and XL has it fully; the difference is just that the XL had every tone sampled individually whereas the L shares samples between some adjacent keys.

I think it's unlikely that Nord would release XL versions of the old pianos. I guess that they maybe don't have all keys sampled on at least the oldest of the original "tapes", and it's not likely they will go back and resample the same instrument again under the same conditions. So even if they wanted, they may not be able to do so for all of them. But I don't know if course - maybe they were able too think ahead 10+ years when the original recordings were done :-)

Otherwise Nord has been good generally to not only move forward, but also to upgrade older stuff. Here more recently the old EPs were overhauled extensively, as discussed above too. The newer EP5 and later got XL versions and the older EP1 to 4 got other upgrades (but stayed in L - presumably because they were not sampled individually for all keys?).

Hello baekgaard,

Yes, I remember now. The distinction between the L and XL is that the former has only been sampled between five octaves (E1 to E5 I think?). I had the Nord Stage Classic in 2007 but sold it around 3 years ago. The memory capacity was very small - 128MB (I am sure you are familiar with this complaint so I won't rant on!). I actually vowed to never by another Nord again (for a few reasons). But When I tested the Electro 6D I could hear instant improvements.

As I mention, I have now d/l the largest of all the Electric Piano sizes (yes, some only go up to L). But the other half have, according to the webpage notes, been 'enhanced'. Personally, I found the EP library to be quite poor back in 2007 and so the updates are truly welcomed.

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Re: Decisions, decisions (Piano Library)

Postby monsterjazzlicks » 15 Dec 2019, 01:20

LewTheKeysGuy wrote:...it's like being the pianist booked to a hotel where you take your stage 3, to find a rather beautiful, if neglected grand / baby grand, it's out of tune to a degree, but it has heart to it, there's a warmth and soul, it's like it tells it's story through the pianist's fingers rather than the pianist telling the story.

How delightfully creative and poetic a description!
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