Nord User Forum

Does anyone know or better yet have a picture how the mics used to record grand pianos are typically positioned?

This issue comes every so often. My humble view is this:
accessories-and-amplification-f8/qsc-k8 ... ml#p128152

Mr_-G- wrote:This issue comes every so often. My humble view is this:
accessories-and-amplification-f8/qsc-k8 ... ml#p128152

In your opinion do you prefer L or R since you prefer a single channel over the mono button.

d3adrock wrote:Does anyone know or better yet have a picture how the mics used to record grand pianos are typically positioned?

That *really* depends on the sound you’re going for.

d3adrock wrote:In your opinion do you prefer L or R since you prefer a single channel over the mono button.

I always use stereo, but if you are in a band, as mentioned earlier, in theory the 'higher' output might interfere less with the bass frequencies. Best thing is to try yourself.

chatfd wrote:It would seem to me, & actually - I may be forced at times to at least TRY this, that one could use the STEREO (headphone) jack. Of course with a TRS 1/4" cable to a (???-tbd). Why? (for me), a band I may play with wants each keyboard in a separate SINGLE channel in their mix...Any thoughts on trying/using the single stereo headphone out??

You could break out a TRS stereo headphone jack into a pair of TS mono (left and right) quarter inch jacks... but it doesn't save you any channels in the mixing board. It just gives you a (slightly amplified) duplicate of what is coming out the main left and right 1/4" jacks, so you then have two pairs of left and right 1/4" jacks.


Anyway, to the main topic at hand, AFAIK...

The Left out gives you the left side of the sounds; the Right out gives you the right side of the sounds. If you're not using a stereo effect, many (probably most non acoustic piano) Nord sounds are mono, so they will sound the same coming out of either jack, but some sounds are stereo or have stereo effects, and then your option is to use just the left side of the stereo sound, just the righht side of the stereo sound, or merge the two sides into mono, which you can do either with the mono button (in which case the left and right outputs will have the same mono sound), or by putting the left and right sides into an outboard device (e.g. mixer, or two channels of a mono amp) and having them combined on that end.

Right output. I use White Grand and Amber Upright samples, both are sounding good in mono on the right output, and the upper notes sound crisp and clear when soloing. For the EP‘s it makes no difference, if you don’t use stereo effects. But even the chorus and the Leslie effect are ok in mono for my ears when playing live.

daniel70 wrote:Right output. I use White Grand and Amber Upright samples, both are sounding good in mono on the right output, and the upper notes sound crisp and clear when soloing. For the EP‘s it makes no difference, if you don’t use stereo effects. But even the chorus and the Leslie effect are ok in mono for my ears when playing live.

Yes, on most sounds other than acoustic pianos, it makes no difference. The left half of a stereo effect (like chorus, rotary, autopan, reverb), by itself, sounds the same as the right half. The main exception is acoustic piano, where the left tends to emphasize the low notes and the right the high.

And...
with Mono button ON: autopan = no effect
with only 1 channel out (and Mono button OFF): autopan = tremolo
(at least on the NS2)

I’ve written this before, but what has worked best for my ears is to run both L and R outputs into the speaker inputs. Leave it in stereo, and I don’t hear phasing issues.

Of course, stereo effects like auto pan won’t work, but you would need a second speaker for that anyway.