Blindfold comparison Nord Grand vs. Roland, Yamaha, Keyscape

[Rusty Mike]

I'm butting in out of context here, as I didn't watch the Anderton video. I personally find Jack a bit annoying to watch, despite his respectable level of knowledge.

In general, however, I tend to find any of the "Nord vs. <fill in the blank>" comparisons to be fruitless. They oftentimes use the very first piano patch in the instrument and don't bother to tell you which one it is. This is rather unfair to Nord, because the Piano Library represents a vast assortment of flavors, while most competitors feature a relatively lower number of piano varieties.

Yes, Yamaha has several piano samples to choose from in their digitals, but they are either all Yamaha models or the one Bosendorfer. Roland's modeling is a bit more flexible (I own an RD-800), but it's just variations on a single perspective of what somebody thinks a piano should sound like.

And Nord is the only company that provides respectful, quality hardware uprights. The other manufacturers tend to treat them as novelties, like they are all supposed to be detuned or crappy sounding (even Yamaha's U1 sample). I know there are a few software upright pianos available; I own Native Instruments "The Gentleman" and it's got a lot of character.

I guess my point is that it's easier to tell the overall sound profile of many digital pianos by listening to only a few patches, whereas the Nord library is a harder thing to quickly demonstrate. Most comparison videos only scratch the surface, which fails to demonstrate the versatility of the Nord Piano Library.

[kirsty]

Although I have seen the videos and do find them interesting, I do agree with you Mike here.

I see lots of comparisons and often they will put the Nord in there with say Italian Grand loade (which personally is one of my least favourite samples). Throwing a different Nord sample like the Grand Imperial into the equation would be like bringing a totally new instrument to the party in the comparison.

[SteveNordP3]

Kirsty and Rusty Mike - point well-taken - and - the Nord (probably White Grand) in that video still sounded the best.