Nord User Forum

I admit I've been neglecting the Imperial. I never found it useful for cutting through loud rock bands, I use the Bright and lately the Silver for that.

For soft/solo work I've fallen in love with the Velvet, I just love its softness and expressivity -and it has lots of dynamics anyway, when you hit a ff it rings and screams as well as any other sample, only without the harshness of the Bright or Italian.

So there's hasn't been a place for the Bosie in my setup lately, but I'll surely give it another go when I have time to reshuffle my pianos.

"The Bösendorfer Model 290 Imperial or Imperial Bösendorfer is the largest model and flagship piano manufactured by Bösendorfer, at around 290 cm (9 ft 6 in) long, 176 cm (5 ft 9 in) wide, and weighing 552 kg (1,217 lb).[2] It has an eight-octave range from C0 to C8. For 90 years it was the only concert grand piano in the world with 97 keys, until it was joined in 1990 by the instruments of Stuart & Sons of Australia.
The Bösendorfer Imperial features 97 keys: a full eight octaves. This is in contrast to their other extended model, the Bösendorfer 225, which has 92 keys (down to F0). The extra keys, which are all at the bass end of the keyboard (that is, to the left), are colored black so that the pianist can tell them apart from the normal keys of an 88-key piano. They were originally covered with a removable panel to prevent a pianist from accidentally playing the extra notes.

While the keys are seldom used, the extra bass strings create additional harmonic resonance that contributes to an overall richer sound. "

For me the Bosie is the Best choice in all my presets.

88keyz wrote:I've been using Silver Grand because I felt it cut through the mix better in live situations with a full band. But now I'm using an Electro5D non-weighted instead of my Stage2 HA 76 (I decided to lighten my load at gigs - I'm getting too old to carry the gear!) The Silver Grand seems less dynamic on a non-weighted keyboard. I'll have to take another listen to the Imperial Grand.

I use the Silver Grand XL on my Stage 2 HA76 for live full band work. I have eq'd it a little to work with our RCF PA and my 2 DXR10's.
Before that I used the Bright Grand for a while.

I much prefer playing piano sounds on a weighted action and the HA76 has no competition really.
16.5kg and shorter than my Triton Extreme 61.
I played a Roland XP80 for years and loved the light weight (12kg) but couldn't play piano specific styles like boogie or classical on it.
I think I'd find the non-weighted Nords the same.

The Bosie is making a comeback on the boards here, likely because to everyone's surprise, it was packed as the second XL on the new Stage 3. Who saw THAT coming.

The Royal was the obvious lead pick, it's their newest sample, but I expected the Silver or even the Italian as the Spock of the Grand choices. Not the Velvet, that one was kind of a flop, sorry Bones.

I'm going to have to load it in again. I use the Bright almost all the time because it's STILL the best in a band environment, and for home play I use the Amber. The other uprights are a very mixed bag, and since I don't have the space to load many of them, because of Clavia's unexplained file size creep, I try to stay with the most recent they offer. So out with the Grand Upright and in with the Amber....the Mellow was too soft and the Bambino...well, Fredo always wanted respect...

The Bösendorfer has been my favourite among the grand pianos all along, and so far, none of the new samples really made me change my view. Depending on amplification and context, however, other pianos may suit better at a given occasion.

Actually I prefer the L version over the XL version for the Grand Imperial. It is more homogenous in tone over the range. In the XL version, they (deliberately) left a few too many quirks in the voicing of individual keys in the middle range, for my taste. These are smoothened out in the L version.

PS. At home, I also have a daily comparison with a nice acoustic grand, and the Bosie simply survives the comparison best... played from a VPC1 I should add (Nord's own actions can't compete, unfortunately).

maurus wrote:Actually I prefer the L version over the XL version for the Grand Imperial. It is more homogenous in tone over the range. In the XL version, they (deliberately) left a few too many quirks in the voicing of individual keys in the middle range, for my taste. These are smoothened out in the L version.

That's a great point. While not everyone may agree about a particular sample set, just in general, one shouldn't assume that the XL will always sound better than the L. Unlike the differences among S/M/L, XL is fundamentally a different sample set which will have something of a different character to it, and so it is perfectly possible that someone may prefer the sound of the L version of a piano to the XL version, eve if technically less faithful to the original piano (since some notes are stretched from adjacent notes rather than independently sampled from the source). The L and the XL version of the Grand Imperial definitely do sound different, and in fact, I've been meaning to go back and compare them to be sure about which I prefer myself!

Wow, talk about different audiences! The Bosie is probably my least favorite among the grand pianos.

To me, the overtone structure is just way too much. It’s very bold, and I’ve not been successful getting an intimate vibe with it myself. Lately, I’ve been using the Grand Lady D and Studio Grand 2, as they have less complex upper harmonics and more singing fundamentals.

Those, along with the Amber Upright, work very well for big band and jazz combos.

Agree with Mike regarding the Bosie, but my favorite for solo playing is the Studio Grand 1 (with his "perfection"). Lady D is, also, very good. For band playing the Silver or Bright are excellent.

Still dig the Bosie but have to agree about the overtones. I think they're a bit much sometimes.... I prefer the L over XL (maybe even M!)