Nord User Forum

Gambold wrote:Larger samples “encourages” customers to upgrade their keyboards.

Clavia has yet to release any information on why sample sizes have steadily grown over the years, sometimes hugely. We have made all sorts of assumptions in discussion threads but it’s all just chatter…no one knows for sure.

But the bottom line is if you want to load the newer samples you need the newer keyboards. So until
Clavia demonstrates otherwise, I’m assuming the prime reason for sample bloat is profit.

I can certainly hear the difference in the older samples Pre-XL and the newer samples, especially the Italian Grand and up. Much more detail throughout the range. The older smaller samples almost have toy-piano-like quality. Not usable in my opinion.

I don't think I'm in need of bigger samples. But it's similar to the clear and crispy sound of a Nord: You can easily lower the quality of a sound by processing it with the FX section. But you can't tweak what isn't there.

There is no Nord piano sound that I couldn't use in my band setting (apart from the honky tonk sample maybe) -- if we are not talking about sound preferences. I'm not soloing in a lot of tunes, though.

I can definitely hear the quality differences between the XL, L and M samples when playing on my own (with Nord Monitors or headphones), with the XL samples tending to sound more like I'm in the room with an actual piano, and the L and small samples sounding more like I'm listening to a recording of a piano. However, the quality difference really isn't that big for most uses. And especially if being mixed in with other instruments, or in combination with filters / EQ / sample synth etc, it would be nearly impossible to tell the difference, at least between L and XL.

I guess would have to hear side-by-side if an XXL sample would be noticeably better than the XL samples, but at that point I would have to make some very tough decisions about eliminating / downgrading some of the extra pianos I keep on my NP4.

To me it’s not that much the question if I can tell or notice the difference between an L and an XL sample but much more the question how close the nord piano sample gets to my real acoustic piano. Even the White Grand XL still lacks some „full rich body“ if playing slow solo ballads.

In extremely large file sizes such as in the iOS app Colossus Piano (14 GB) they offer 24 velocity layers per key. I‘ve asked clavia, they by far do not reach that amount of depth variety in the actual range. I would be glad if we could get one premium piano file with let’s say 1 GB file size to make it usable with most of the nords of today.

It would be an additional choice. No need to argue whether the existing range is good or not.

Cheers from Germany

agcohn wrote:I can definitely hear the quality differences between the XL, L and M samples when playing on my own (with Nord Monitors or headphones), with the XL samples tending to sound more like I'm in the room with an actual piano, and the L and small samples sounding more like I'm listening to a recording of a piano.

This doesn't however reflects the logic behind S, M, L, and XL samples. Take a look at page 22 of the manual to see in what sense they are different. Apart from the "fully mapped keyboard" thing, the only difference between M, L and XL is a matter of how many keys have string resonance. If you play in the mid region of the piano, there is literally no difference between M and L. As far as the XL goes, having a "fully" mapped keyboard (and by the way it's been hinted at that the keyboard isn't actually fully mapped, but anyway...) can certainly sound different as every note becomes "personal", but again it has nothing to do with the difference between sitting there with a real piano as opposed to listening to a recorded one.

Hlaalu wrote:

agcohn wrote:I can definitely hear the quality differences between the XL, L and M samples when playing on my own (with Nord Monitors or headphones), with the XL samples tending to sound more like I'm in the room with an actual piano, and the L and small samples sounding more like I'm listening to a recording of a piano.

This doesn't however reflects the logic behind S, M, L, and XL samples. Take a look at page 22 of the manual to see in what sense they are different. Apart from the "fully mapped keyboard" thing, the only difference between M, L and XL is a matter of how many keys have string resonance. If you play in the mid region of the piano, there is literally no difference between M and L. As far as the XL goes, having a "fully" mapped keyboard (and by the way it's been hinted at that the keyboard isn't actually fully mapped, but anyway...) can certainly sound different as every note becomes "personal", but again it has nothing to do with the difference between sitting there with a real piano as opposed to listening to a recorded one.

Well it's all a matter of perception, as I would say that having a more fully-mapped keyboard with more individual (or "personal") sounding notes and string resonances definitely fits my definition of sounding closer to playing a real piano than a digital recording of a piano. I am primarily comparing XL and L samples. I haven't used the M samples much since I started changing out the samples from which initially came loaded on my NP4.

The way I understand it the size of the samples relates to the number of keys actually sampled to number of keys software calculates and stretches the sound to fit. I know listening I hear a difference in the size of the samples especially on pedal down or sustain notes the overtones start to diminish on the smaller samples. With headphone it easier to hear the difference in sample sizes.

My previous keyboards were modeled sounds and now having sampled with the Nord I can really see the use case for both approaches.

docbop wrote:The way I understand it the size of the samples relates to the number of keys actually sampled to number of keys software calculates and stretches the sound to fit. I know listening I hear a difference in the size of the samples especially on pedal down or sustain notes the overtones start to diminish on the smaller samples. With headphone it easier to hear the difference in sample sizes.

My previous keyboards were modeled sounds and now having sampled with the Nord I can really see the use case for both approaches.

Yes, the XL samples definitely have a lot more body to the sound, which contributes to the more authentic "live" piano sound that I hear from them. The L samples sound thinner by comparison.

Unfortunately, the mere presence of the XL sample makes it the one you want to have. It's the best one - the others are all inferior because of the limitations placed on them to stay smaller in size.

There have been a lot of discussion threads on this forum about how noticeable the differences are - does XL matter when playing in a band, is M or S good enough for gimmick keyboards like the Honky-Tonk or Saloon - and sometimes how an XL version can sound odd or wrong compared to its L counterpart.

But we all know that if we had unlimited memory capacity, we would be loading the XL (or largest) versions of all the keyboards and that would be that. We wouldn't bother having a discussion about whether or not the L sample is good enough because no-one would be using it. AND - Nord wouldn't be releasing them anyway, since memory is now unlimited.

So a lot of the conversation claiming that "L is all you need" is kind of sour grapes. We convince ourselves that an inferior sample is good enough because our keyboards can't accommodate loading the best one.

>The older smaller samples almost have toy-piano-like quality. Not usable in my opinion.<

And yet they still have passionate users on this forum, esp the Grand Lady D, the Studio Grand 2, and the Rain piano. These samples always get a lot of praise. So the toy quality apparently isn't evident to everyone. Which brings us back to the mystery - just WHY are these older samples smaller, and what is causing these steady incremental increases:

Studio Grand 2 L sample (2011) - 68mb
Italian Grand L sample (2012) - 97 mb
Velvet Grand L sample (2015) - 106 mb
White Grand L sample (2019) - 155 mb