Nord Christmas Gift ?

[Rusty Mike]

I spent a few minutes with the Pearl Upright to hear how it fares against the others that I keep in my Electro. The Amber is my go-to upright in most cases, as it has a very clear voice, punch when it needs to and blends well the rest of the time.

The Pearl has an amazing presence, particularly in the middle and upper middle register. You feel like you're in the same room. Just captivating.

It certainly has a slightly mellower sound compared to the Amber, which is most notable in the bass. It really thins out at the bottom. This works very well in groups where you don't want the piano stepping on the bass player but still have something to do with your left hand. I'm afraid it gets just a bit too lost for my taste.

For my purposes, I can see using it for recording because of the detailed sound (I tried out the XL), but not suitable for my own live use. I'll stick with the Amber for now.

I've said it before - Nord is the only manufacturer I know of that does the proper service to upright pianos. They are treated as true legitimate classy instruments, and not some sort of novelty after thought. They're not all to my own personal taste, but that doesn't matter really. There is variety to meet a lot of people's needs.

[afroskully]

I like the Pearl. Agree with Mike's assessment above... thinner on the bottom but middle register is gorgeous. It's a little quiet on the higher end as well. I found a little boost of treble and 6k made a nice difference. It's definitely taking the bambinos place for now. I liked how authentic the spinet sounded but it's never used in a live setting.

[Gambold]

>Do you have some examples of piano tones you'd like which are not possible with the current library? I'm genuinely curious, because to me the Nord piano library is already the most diverse piano selection on the market...what exactly are you missing? <

There is no question about the diversity and splendor of the current Nord sample offerings for both Grand and Upright pianos. What is at issue is the age of the samples.

A good chunk of them are at least 7 years old. Indeed, the one I use the most for band work, the Bright Grand, is 12 years old. We've already commented at length on the increasing hoariness of the current Stage and Electro models. The samples don't escape that criticism.

Given that the newest samples are considerably larger (often enormously so) than these older ones, one can only draw the conclusion that they are richer, more detailed, better sampled, etc. Never mind what your "ears" hear. Clavia sells digital keyboards, and like any digital keyboard manufacturer, they need to evolve with the times, and provide current product with the most updated technology available.

For those people here who play old boards and old samples and are perfectly satisfied with them forever - that's great. But that's now how a company survives and grows, selling decade-old technology. Not everyone, especially potential new generations of customers, wants to play vintage instruments and sounds, and the Nord offerings are starting to lean in that direction.

So you see...my beef is not a personal one, nor am I looking to enrich my own collection of samples. I'm sounding a klaxon to the company - evolve, or fade away.

PLUS - I want to buy a Stage, my first one, and I'm not going to spend over $4200 on technology that is 6 years old. When they DO finally come out with the fabled Stage 4 (this year, right?) I sure would like to see it loaded with something other than the four-year old White Grand as its A-11 program. I'm guessing most of you would too.

--Gambold

[Gambold]

>Given you (@Gambold) are really playing an Electro 6D, I don't understand how you can say that the most important sound on your Nord is a grand.<

Because it is. It's the flagship sample. The one in the number one program slot.

>The Electro should be a specialist for organ and maybe EPs in my eyes.<

I don't think Clavia shares your view - if they marketed the Electro only to organ specialists who dabble in EPs, that would cut the customer base down considerably. People (like me) buy Electros because the Stage is hugely more expensive. The Electro is the "entry-level" board for most Nord customers - and I would argue there should be an Electro Lite out there that sells for even cheaper.

[Gambold]

>I can't but end up being a bit perplexed at the level of certainty and even solemnity with which you make assessments about what is popular, what is "considered" best, used, not used, praised, forgotten...<

Certainty and solemnity - qualities which take years to hone

[agcohn]

Well, I redownloaded the Pearl piano, reinstalled it in my Nord Electro 6 and I no longer have the problem of parasitic noise. It may have come from a bug somewhere, I don't know where the problem came from but now it's not what! This new piano sounds so good

When I first started using the Pearl, I defaulted to something I do with a lot of the piano samples, which is to use KBD Touch 3 + Soft EQ filter + EQ to bring the treble back up to where I like it, which creates a rich sound that I like. However, on the Pearl, I noticed that this resulted in what sounded like a tiny "click" echoing after the notes somewhere between G4-E5 or so. I thought it was going to be a deal-breaker, until I found that I could not hear the issue when listening to the Pearl without any settings applied. I went through all of the settings to see what was causing the issue, and it seemed to be the combination of the Soft EQ filter + EQing the treble up. Once I stopped using the Soft EQ filter, the issue went away completely. I figured the Pearl was soft enough on its own that I didn't need the Soft EQ setting, and I've been happy since.

I think I had a similar issue while trying to use the Felt at first, which was that it was too soft that I couldn't EQ it any brighter than it's default without causing odd metallic sounds to be heard (almost sounding like broken strings). I disregarded the Felt, because it was too easy to make any of the other piano samples sound soft like the Felt, while still being versatile enough to have a brighter sound as well.

The Pearl sounds nice on KBD Touch 1, 2 and 3 without much adjustment, so it is very versatile.

[Hlaalu]

So you see...my beef is not a personal one, nor am I looking to enrich my own collection of samples. I'm sounding a klaxon to the company - evolve, or fade away.

Do you want new samples because you'd like new sampling technology to improve their sound, or because you're sick of playing the same (good sounding) samples over and over?

I ask because:

There is no question about the diversity and splendor of the current Nord sample offerings [...] What is at issue is the age of the samples.

Since you call them "splendid, but old", I guess it's the latter: they sound good but you are sick of playing them over and over. So what you wrote here must apply to yourself too, making "the beef" personal indeed:

every new sample gets the same wave of enthusiasm and "this is the best one yet!" posts. After about six months the excitement fades.

If so, you already have the answer to the question of which piano is the best: the White is better than the Royal because it's newer. The Royal is better than the Italian because it's newer. And so on. I foresee that the upcoming Tacky Grand shall become everyone's favourite for about six months or so, then it will get forgotten.

Given that the newest samples are considerably larger (often enormously so) than these older ones, one can only draw the conclusion that they are richer, more detailed, better sampled, etc. Never mind what your "ears" hear.

So you 1) notice that samples are getting bigger, 2) wonder why multiple times, implying that it is nothing more than a marketing strategy to sell new boards -- that still don't exist by the way, 3) when being suggested that the reason could be because they are getting more accurately and richly sampled, 4) you concede that but can't hear the difference in quality with the older samples.

Yet, you not only still want newer samples, but even the new boards that they were so slyly trying to sell you, because:

A new grand piano sample, while always welcome, isn't going to cut it. We need updated boards, specifically the two biggies - the Stage and the Electro. Or even a NEW model, priced competitively, which could really build excitement.

I guess that even then, the excitement would only last for six months or so. Then, we'll need new hardware, to accommodate for inexplicably bigger and bigger samples (that we'll also be needing at some point) that nevertheless sound the same as before.

And then we are back at the beginning of the loop.

[Spider]

This thread (and the many about the Stage 4) are the perfect summary of all the pains that a frustrated Nord user goes through:

- I hate the old pianos because they're too old
- I hate the new pianos because they're too big
- I hate the old Nords because they don't have enough memory
- I hate the new Nords because they're too expensive
- give me a new Nord that has 100 Gb of memory, loaded with all the new multi-Gb pianos, and costing no more than 500 $
- then I will still complain because the new pianos don't sound as good as the Lady D and Studio Grand

[docbop]

This thread (and the many about the Stage 4) are the perfect summary of all the pains that a frustrated Nord user goes through:

- I hate the old pianos because they're too old
- I hate the new pianos because they're too big
- I hate the old Nords because they don't have enough memory
- I hate the new Nords because they're too expensive
- give me a new Nord that has 100 Gb of memory, loaded with all the new multi-Gb pianos, and costing no more than 500 $
- then I will still complain because the new pianos don't sound as good as the Lady D and Studio Grand

No matter what Nord or any other company does some people will always gripe, I saw that working in software biz for many years. Some people just aren't happy unless griping about something especially in the world of the internet.

[analogika]

Hlaalu dropped the mic.

Spider picked it up, and set it on fire.

docbop is prodding at the embers.

Gambold stands aghast — it was his mic.

/thread