Nord User Forum

I know that the NP4 is mainly design for a Piano Player, but for certain tunes during a gig I will need some fancy Synth sounds to play with. So far I have just found two Lead presets which I personally quite like. But I have no idea how to craft some nice sounds on my own since I really don't have this experience. Also, there seem to be no options to modify the sound during playing because its lacking of modwheels and pitch bend stick. Is the NP4 partially usable as a Synthesizer on stage for some songs or would you rather recommend to buy a real Synthesizer to use along with the NP4?

Hi Sussko, one question (no offense): did you check what you will get before you bought the Nord Piano 4? According to your wishes in this post and also from what you were asking in some previous posts I would recommend to sell the Nord Piano 4 and buy a Nord Stage 3-88 or a used Nord Stage 2-88

Hi sussko,

I give it another try. Again here it depends on what style or what songs you play. If it would be a synth pad like in ´Time after time‘ or some other more or less static sounds like the synth in ´Summer of 69‘ a sample based sound in your NP4 could do the job. If you intend to play Joe Zawinul solos or similar tunes it for sure won‘t do it. Then a synthy as your second keyboard would by far be the better road to go, in my opinion.

What are the songs you‘d like to play? Name us some examples for better assistance. Sunny regards from the middle of Germany. Stay healthy everybody.

I'm concerned too by the possibility to use the NP4 as a synth.

For example, ACCORDIONMAN propose here in the Nord users samples section a great Van Halen "Jump" sample.

If I'm not mistaken, this sample can be load in the NP4.

What will be the rendering ?

Will it be the same on a NP4 and à NS3 for example ?

Projet Xion wrote:I'm concerned too by the possibility to use the NP4 as a synth.

For example, ACCORDIONMAN propose here in the Nord users samples section a great Van Halen "Jump" sample.

If I'm not mistaken, this sample can be load either in the NP4.or a Nord Stage.

What will be the rendering ?

Will it be the same on a NP4 and à NS3 for example ?

The raw sample is exactly the same one, so playing "straight up" will be the same sound.
But the stage has a LOT more adjustment possibilities, plus ability to run waveform synthesis.

The NP4 can absolutely be used to play samples, with attack/decay settings.

But for full synth sounds and adjustments It's the Stage, Wave 2 or Lead models that can do it.

OK thank you fieldflower for your explanation.

If the Nord Piano can read sample, I think that functions like attack, decay and release are enough for me.

According to me, this sample reading ability make the NP4 a very versatile instrument.