Nord User Forum

Hi,

I m a piano beginner (7 months) and read tons of threads before posting this. I m so depressed.

I Would please really need some guidance to try and fix the quality of sound - tinny, thin, not warm at all coming from :
- 2 krk Rokit g4 8
-1 krk Rokit s10 sub
- nord piano 4
- focusrite Scarlett 6i8

The nord sends to focusrite —> xlr balanced to sub with 80khz crossover cut —> Rokit 8

Focusrite Scarlett is connected at the same time to a Mac via usb-c

The sound is thin, too bright, not rich, lacks body and warmth regardless of the selected grand piano (White, imperial, silver, Italian etc) . I m just playing simple triads or arpeggios. I knew the keybed of the nord is not a winner but I believed the sounds of pianos were fantastic.

I tried dozens of changes by equalizing the speakers (also with the pink noise app from krk) and the nord piano (onboard equalizer) to no success..

A few points:

- it’s a big living room In a modern building with most walls made of glass for 75% of heigh
- the speakers seem too close to glass walls and the sub to the wall but not crazily close
- but if I play some hi quality tracks from tidal using a Mac through the scarlett the sound is 10x better, richer, warmer, detailed, not tinny. Compared to a music track my nord 4 sounds like a badly compressed low quality mp3
- when I listen to YouTube demo of nord 4 the pianos are incredibly better than what I manage to get from my set up
- the sound from headphones (akg 701 Reference - Directly connected to the nord 4 or amplified for better fit with impedance) is better
- if I switch to pianoteq 6 on the Mac using some presets of a Steinway B , there s a bit more depth to the sound , it improves a bit, not that much
- I was using up until a week ago a Roland fp90 and 2 Adam audio 7v (Via an identical Scarlett) in the same position and same constraints (lot of glass etc) - without a sub. I then moved this set up to another place for weekends. It sounded much better. Not like headphones but not so disturbingly bright.

What can I do? Thanks a lot !

I am guessing you ar getting mono out off your Focusrite. A quick test, if you unplug one og the cables from left or right output on your piano, will then the remaining cable play sound out off both speakers?
Then you have 2 x mono, and a mono return signal.

There was a thread here a couple of days ago, there is a setting in the Focusrite control app that might be changed :
nord-stage-forum-f3/nord-stage-stereo-settings-t20012.html

Bjosko thanks a lot for the idea! It might indeed be the case. I will test that later today and post my results .

Hi-

Based on my experience, a room with that much glass and a hard surface floor is absolutely the worst for acoustic reproduction of any sound. I would recommend you put down an area rug and install curtains on the windows. Your sound is bouncing all over the place on those highly reflective surfaces. As you said, even the Pianoteq software doesn't sound that well either-

-dj

I agree with @djkeys, there are way too many hard surfaces in that room. You'll need rugs, curtains, wall tapestries -- whatever you can do to tame the native reverb and resonances. Also, @bjsoko's suggestion regarding verifying stereo is a good one.

Since you have headphones, I'd start with auditioning the native sound of the Piano 4 with nothing in the chain, and then start adding things.

The room can make an enormous impact on acoustics, much more than most people realize. A while back, I put a nice grand piano in my cement block living room that has a tile floor and ceiling-to-floor windows. It was harsh beyond belief. I added several rugs, thick curtains, soft fabric furniture, several wall tapestries, a throw rug on a foot stool under the piano, etc. -- and it all now sounds marvelous.

But it took a while.

Thank you all for your inspiring comments! I will try my best, starting with the headphones and work back from that.
I agree. The right term is “harsh” sound in fact. And the different materials concur to that. I can add some elements, rugs, etc. I can’t install curtains unfortunately. It s a rented apartment and the glass surface is so wide and long that I would need way too expensive tailor made curtain sets (hard to re use in the future anywhere else, given the odd height) I had that work Done in a guest bedroom And it was quite costly for a fraction of the surface:(

Thanks a lot!