Nord User Forum

Registered on the forum. I have the same NS3 Compact and planned to buy an 88-key keyboard for it and play through midi from Nord, but I still had to purchase an NS 76HP or NS88 + random waterfull keyboard.

Reporting back here, I ended up getting the HA88 and realized that the keybed is lighter than the Rd300NX and acoustic pianos. Also I probably can o ly get 400/500 by selling my RD300nx so I’ve decided to keep the HA88 with the Novation Impulse 61 as a midi controller and keep the RD300nx as well when I want to work on my technique.

Sounds like a good decision

I find that using the internal HA88 keyboard helps getting the most out of the Nord piano sounds. And with the Novation, you have the synth keys also (which the Nord works well with for organ and synth).

Make sure you upgrade to 1.60 for this setup!

baekgaard wrote:

AlexTognam wrote:If I use the RD300NX as a controller for the NS3 compact - would I experience any sound delay?

Probably only minor delays; MIDI sends one byte every 1/3 ms, and one note-on message is 3 bytes IIRC, so one tone takes 1 ms to transmit. Sending a chord may thus be around 5-7 ms, which is not really an issue. As long as you're below 10 ms or so, it's not noticeable for most people (sound travels 3.4 meter pr ms, so 5 ms is like playing with a speaker that is maybe 17 m away).

Sorry for being late to the table but these numbers are not correct. The speed of sound is about 340 meter per second meaning 0,34 meter per millisecond. Playing with the monitors 17 meter away would feel very bad, but 1,7 meter is ok!

By the way: Anyone have a recommendation for an 88 keys weighted hammer action midicontroller/stage piano with velocity curves that plays well dynamically with a NS3 Compact?

Yep, you're obviously correct; must have been late when I divided 340 by 1000 and got it to be 3.4

Anyway, 5 ms is like 1.7 meter, and it is not normally an issue. Playing with a drummer on the other side of a large scene is horrible, though!


Anyway, as said, below 10 ms is normally OK for most people. Some papers demonstrating this are the following:

Teemu Mäki-Patola and Perttu Hämäläinen: Latency Tolerance for Gesture Controlled Continuous Sound Instrument without Tactile Feedback. They find 20-30 ms is the "just noticeable difference. They also published Teemu Mäki-Patola and Perttu Hämäläinen: Effect of Latency on Playing Accuracy of Two Gesture Controlled Continuous Sound Instruments Without Tactile Feedback.

Nathan Schuett: The Effects of Latency on Ensemble Performance. Finds that latencies above 30 ms, tempo starts to suffer. Interestingly, latencies of 10-20 ms helps to stabilize tempo whereas 0 ms latencies are worse!

D. Wessel and M. Wright. Problems and prospects for intimate musical control of computers. This is an often quoted paper (requires a subscription to read) which states that 10 ms is the upper boundary for "acceptable" latencies in computer systems.

N. P. Lago and F. Kon.: The quest for low latency. This paper cites others (Rubine, D. and P. McAvinney:. Programmable fingertracking instrument controllers, Repp, B. H.: Compensation for subliminal timing perturbations in perceptual-motor synchronization, Friberg, A. and J. Sundberg: Time discrimination in a
monotonic, isochronous sequence) and discuss that 10 ms may depend on the context; for percussive sounds, humans can achieve 4 ms "accuracy" and more that 6 ms variation from a steady pulse is noticeable... but end concluding that for most applications 20-30 ms is "OK". They also discuss the fact that when the brain integrates multiple modalities (such as haptic and acoustic feedback) even events that are truly simultaneous may not appear to us being so; I guess this may means that the haptic feedback you perceive from your keyboard can impact the perceived latency.

Andrew P. McPherson and Robert H. Jack and Giulio Moro: Action-Sound Latency: Are Our Tools Fast Enough? These guys also use 10 ms (from the papers above) and shows which platforms are (or aren't) capable hereof.

... etc.

So the bottom line seems to be that for < 5ms latencies, you should be fine in most cases anyway.

On the stage-piano question: I think both the Nord Stage 3 and the Nord Piano 4 would work well with your compaction

baekgaard wrote:On the stage-piano question: I think both the Nord Stage 3 and the Nord Piano 4 would work well with your compaction

Yes probably their key velocity curves would fit like a glove
But I am trying to use the NS3 Compact for all it is worth. Love to have a setup where all configurations and sounds is within a single unit. Also prefer to have a «dumb» 88-keys lower manual as close as possible to the NS3C, currently use a Yamaha S90es just as a midi controller. Dream to have graded hammer, triple sensor, great action lower manual. CP4, MP11.... but does not need their sounds or control surfaces or weight. Still sourcing.

I am in the same boat. I have a NS3 compact and "Dream to have graded hammer, triple sensor, great action lower manual. CP4, MP11.... but does not need their sounds or control surfaces or weight."

I currently have a KORG SP-250 which does not generate the same dynamic range as playing the NS3.

In the Korg manual: 88 notes, velocity sensitive, with Korg RH3, Real Weighted Hammer Action

Hi, I would recommend a brief look at the Studiologic SL88 Grand. I once had its pre-predecessor and was very happy. Right now I‘m contemplating a Studiologic SL73 Studio to add to my NE5D. Have fun, stay healthy. Cheers

I used a midi board with a Kronos for a long time, and later with an NS3. I preferred using it with the Kronos. I've had an m-audio 88 and SL 73 boards. They were both good but I preferred the feel of the M-audio. Now I use the NS3 with a Piano 4, which I LOVE, and no midi board. I know lots of players who use midi boards and are very happy, however for me they became sort of a hassle (plus I'm just lazy). I guess my point is don't rule out ditching midi and using two stand alone boards (if for redundancy if nothing else).

dwlafferty wrote:Now I use the NS3 with a Stage 4, which I LOVE, and no midi board.

Is it a Piano 4 you are talking about? That would be the same as cphollis combined.

Stage 4 might be something in 2021 or 22 - but it's still 2020 for a little moment.