Nord User Forum

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libr ... fortepiano
http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libr ... hris-maene

Its just me or these pianos didnt catch you to? Well, it doesnt change the fact i gonna give a try on these oldies soon. I hope it has some overall classical music or even jazz application.

What about the tuning? Is it equal temperament or is it an antique tuning? That would be interesting.

Horacio wrote:What about the tuning? Is it equal temperament or is it an antique tuning? That would be interesting.

As far as I can hear, they seem to be in standard tuning.

Hi everybody,
A question to you guys, what is the difference between an equal temperament and an antique tuning?
Thanks
De fursaK

I believe antique tuning may refer to the Pythogorician scale generation, when you stop at 12 pitches you have a remaining coma.
That coma has been spread equally when you have equal temperament tuning.

Do a google search on Werckmeister and Kirnberger tunings!

This is waaay cooler than "yet another Steinway sample"!

Sounds like equal temperament tuning to me.

Equal Temperament is the compromised system used for tuning keyboard instruments where, in order to sound acceptable when playing in any key signature, there is a regular frequency multiple between each note of the chromatic scale. With Equal Temperament, the only perfect interval is the octave.
In Just Temperament, the fourth and fifth are also perfect as they would be if changing the length of a string or air column by the same ratio. Other intervals do not conform to any regular frequency ratio from one semitone to the next. Just Temperament therefore is only ever truly accurate when tuned based according to a specific fundamental.

I would expect these new pianos to be Equal Temperament since the Nord doesn't support changes of temperament and 'fixing' each sample in Just Temperament based on one fundamental would compromise usability in every other key signature.

Wow that was quick, after the NAMM hints. I look forward to trying these two extensively.

I would LOVE it if Clavia would offer us the possibility to make and use our own temperaments/mictrotunings with .npno sounds. But I fear that's still quite a bit beyond their horizon.

De fursaK NE5 wrote:Hi everybody,
A question to you guys, what is the difference between an equal temperament and an antique tuning?
Thanks
De fursaK

To give very rough overview, the mathematics of tuning is complex and doesn't work out very well. If you tune a piano or harpsichord (or other "fixed pitch" instrument), then it's only perfectly in tune for the key you tuned it to. As you get further away from the original key, the other keys get more and more out of tune, eventually becoming effectively unplayable. To try and solve the problem, people invented various tunings [properly called temperaments] which boiled down to deliberately making some notes slightly out of tune, so that all keys could be played by an instrument with a single tuning. The Werckmeister and Kirnberger tunings which kagamul referred to are two of the better known, each having its own individual compromises. These tunings were developed during the 17th and 18th century at a time when the harpsichord was very popular, and are the source of the slightly "quaint" or "period" sound you may associate with harpsichords, and are generally referred to as "Well temperaments". "Meantone temperaments" is the general name given to tunings that are specifically focused on getting some keys right at the expense of others being badly wrong.

J. S. Bach promoted the idea of these well temperaments, by writing "The Well Tempered Clavier" a series of twenty-four preludes and fugues, one in every single major and minor key, the idea being to show that with one of these tunings, you could play every single piece with a single tuning on your keyboard (or clavier). That was quite a feat, so Bach being Bach, he did it all over again some years later. He was not work-shy, that's for sure, our Johann! The two books together are often referred to as the 48 preludes and fugues.

After his death, work continued steadily on improving tuning systems until we get to the "Equal temperament" system we've got now.

Edit: It's well worth reading up a bit on the life of JS Bach, it is absolutely astonishing what the man accomplished in a single lifetime, including two wives, twenty children and about 100 albums worth of some of the greatest music ever written (and no filler!). He famously once walked 250 miles just to hear a recital by another organist.