Extremely important info for the sound of piano samples!

[Bandinabox]

How do I say this short?
I have owned all different clavias, today I own NP2, HP3 and Electro4. The last time I had the Stage 2 I sold it due to one single reason:
The "phaze shifted" kind of piano sound you get in a PA. The sound that sounds great in headphones is way of in a PA. Many players can agree with me.
The bulky "boink boink" of these beautiful samples in a PA system is bad for the goodwill of such a great product.

I was at a Steve Lukather concert in Gothenburg and the same issue, Steve Weingart's piano sound from the red piece was really bad and even my non pianoplayer friend said it sounded way of, "strange with that kind of toypiano sound from such a band" was his comment.

Ok, enough said. The solution is and should be sticked on with a note on every piece of clavia with a piano sample in it.
PAN THE STEREO FULL LEFT AND RIGHT! NOTE, if not it sounds out of phase, the channels tie in to each other and you should avoid it. DO NOT TRUST THE SOUND GUY, make sure you see it yourself. PAN THE STEREO FULL LEFT AND RIGHT!

I have just recorded my new solo piano album and I have used the NP2 in a creative way and of course the PAN is full left and right. (Even if that is not the default case in the duet 2 sound card.


Some Nord Piano Sounds

• 00_Christian_Lindquist_SoloPianoDiaryIII-TeaserMix.mp3

[Mr_-G-]

The outputs in the NS2 are left and right so I am surprised that anybody would attempt to mix those with the pan setting in the middle...
That applies to ANY stereo source connected to *different* mono channels in a mixer. So yes, pan has to go full in opposite directions.
I usually connect to a *stereo* channel in the mixer, so the pan only does the relative volume of the 2 channels and of course it sounds glorious.

[danvb01]

Can you please explain this further, I mean, which steps I need to follow to make this in my NP2?

[danvb01]

Case 1: Mixer with only mono channels
Connect left output to one channel and right output to the another (let's say Ch1 and Ch2).
Then move the PAN setting in Ch1 all the way to the left and the one in Ch2 all the way to the right.
That makes the outputs go to the right output (speakers).

Case 2: Mixer has some stereo channels
Usually the stereo channels are labelled Ch4/5 or similar and have a pair of inputs in that strip instead of one)
Connect left from kbd to L input and right to R input in that stereo strip.
The PAN dial should be pointing to the middle.

[selmer]

what about those gigs where the pa is mono?
the only way to get a decent sound is to use the right channel only, the mono function is useless because of the phasing issues.
how about a nice vanilla mono sample with more ppp to mp velocity levels.

[bluesbaba]

Same as selmer above

[bluesbaba]

I do not think there is much you can do if you need to use a mono PA system other than checking whether the mono mode switch causes a lot of cancelling for a particular stereo instrument (presumably the same advice that you read about stereo recording applies here: check how it sounds in stereo AND in mono). If it sounds awful, you could try using one of the stereo channels.
Using one channel only might bring other problems, e.g. if the samples are panned for stereo positioning of the keys in space [the Yamaha p80 is sampled that way], then some part of the keyboard might sound quieter/louder that it should.
I know this is not the case here, but try listening to one channel only in the Beatles "White album". You will be surprised the odd positioning of the instruments in the stereo image ("Dear Prudence" is a good example). Using one channel in those tracks would be missing a lot of the action.

I doubt Clavia would resample all the pianos in mono because although you hear a difference, it is not what I would call it "unusable".
And even if they did provide mono samples, there is potential for more cancelling when applying some of the built in effects that convert the signal to stereo and making it mono again. That is the case of the rotary effect: the organs are actually mono sources, but the stereo rotary makes a huge difference and brings a lot more of life to the sound compared to playing mono.
Maybe another (more expensive) possibility is trying something like this:
http://www.radialeng.com/r2011/phazer.php
but I have no experience at all with those boxes. Perhaps somebody else can comment.

Minor edit for clarity

[bluesbaba]

Why would Clavia implement the MONO mode(with button and all/NS revision C/NP/NE3 ..) if it does not work???

[Mr_-G-]

I think it does work and it converts the stereo signal into mono. The fact that some samples (or effects) might suffer from some degree of phase cancellation is not really unexpected (do we really expect to hear the same from a stereo and a mono source?) and also not something that you can resolve in a generic way for any arbitrary signal.

Maybe the samples we have now have been acquired so the phase cancellation is minimised anyway and we need to be happy to hear better/different in stereo than in mono.
In the worst case of 180 degree phase between channels you would not hear anything if mixed to mono!

[bluesbaba]

Just found this (KeyboardMag)
THE NORD SOLUTION

Instead of investing the significant time and expense it takes to create new mono piano libraries, Clavia created algorithms that correct the phase issues that mono summing created in their existing (and future) stereo piano samples. The Nord Stage EX, Electro 3, Nord Piano, and their descendants access this feature via pressing the Shift button and a button marked (conveniently enough) Mono. The result is simple, elegant, and great sounding.