Nord User Forum

So wondering if there is a difference between the piano engine in the Electro 5 compared to the stage and Nord piano. I have unloaded pianos as to allow the large samples to be tried messed with this and that but can't seem to get the piano sounds as crisp and clean as the demo posted on the download site. Using the same mixer and stereo Pa for computer and my Electro 5. Hate to say it but my Casio digital grand sounds better then my Electro 5 piano engine. I wouldn't trash the Electro 5 the organs, electric pianos and syncs are terrific. But when paying out I'm a bit disappointed with the acoustic pianos. So the question maybe the stage and Nord piano are using a different engine I see the memory is larger for the piano section. thanks for reading

Hi,

I don’t own an Electro 5 but I have some Nord Stages like a Stage 3 with fully weighted hammer action 88 keys (HA) and a Stage 3 Compact with a 73 key waterfall keybed. Playing acoustic pianos on the 88 key model sounds much better than playing the same piano with the same settings on the Compact. The reason from my point of view is the different velocity curve of the keybed, 88 keys do respond much more like an acoustic piano than the waterfall keybed. Do you use the Electro 5 with the HP or the SW keybed? The HP may get a bit closer to the HA keybed of the Stage 3 but still is different which may be audible with acoustic piano samples.

The additional EQ setting options of the Stage piano section may also have an impact

The demos on the website are made in order to attract customers, for that reason the sound quality of those videos is the best it can be.
When it comes to live playing the sound quality you get may not be the same. That depends on many other factors as amplification, room size, if you play solo or with a band, the piano sample you have chosen, eq etc.
I'm sure that if you play through your headphones you will find the sound of the pianos excellent.
Anyway, this topic has been discussed briefly in this forum, if you use the search engine you will find a lot of information about the nord acoustic pianos.

From a development cost standpoint, it would make sense that they would use the same software, firmware, and hardware for the different keyboards. If they did use different chips, then in addition to have multiple production runs for the hardware, they would likely have to implement different versions of the software and/or firmware, which is typically very costly in terms of development and maintenance. And even from a marketing standpoint, it seems it would not make sense to have those keyboards at different quality levels. They are all high end keyboards; making one of them sound worse seems like it would be a poor business decision.

So my totally uninformed (and useless to be honest) opinion is that they would sound the same outside of keybed action differences (velocity curves, etc.). A more informed set of answers might be found in this earlier thread: general-nord-forum-f29/new-nord-electro ... 16882.html

Are you running the Nord in stereo, with the left channel panned hard left and the right channel panned hard right? Makes a massive difference.

Thanks for all the replies. I believe that the Piano engines are the same after reading the above. With that in mind will do some more tweaking and see what happens. Great bunch of people here and always good info.

Try playing the Nord samples from your Casio action via MIDI. That will be a fair comparison. I would love to know your findings. Best Wishes