Whither, Piano Library?

[Gambold]

From Clavia's webpage, where they market their wares:

Our exclusive Nord Piano Library is regularly updated with new unique world class sounds, and always free of charge.

I'm not sure how "regularly updated" translates from Swedish. The English phrase might be "when hell freezes over," or "don't hold your breath."

Don't get me wrong - I'm always thrilled to see sample offerings like the Bowed Vibra or the Thaigong. They will certainly add sparkle to my band's covers of Come Fly With Me or Take Five. But the above advert copy, which fronts all of Clavia's sales material, is about the piano library, which is starting to resemble an old ghost town in the American West.

[FZiegler]

I don't own a Piano 5, but if I did, I'd first wait for the Sample Library 4 to be published with the new Round Robin samples. It would be perfect to have it accessible after half a year of sales. But shaping 2-3 different sounds for one note is probably 3 times the labour if it isn't even much more. Not the best perspective for a new piano sample, in my eyes.

[afroskully]

sorry, but what are the new Round Robin samples?

[afroskully]

Quickly explained: The Nord Piano 5 is the first product that uses the Sample Library 4 file format. Which has some advantages for a more natural vibrato and Round Robin samples. That's neither a new instrument nor a sound lab, but a sampling technology.

It means that there are multipe samples for each note and they are randomly picked each time you hit the key. Which means that fast repetitions of a single note will sound slightly differently for each stroke. The factory samples of the Piano 5 do have that already, but the full sample library doesn't seem to be finished yet.

[daniel70]

I think that’s not the topic which Gambold has started in this thread. He wrote about the piano library, which has not been expanded for a relative long time now.

[CountFosco]

I was just thinkin this morning, the life's completely gone out of the forum of late. Where's...whatsis....there he is!

[Gambold]

Yeah, you'd think with the past year of Queen/Freddie Mercury overkill, which has over-run everything from Ted Lasso soundtracks to elevator lobby music, they would get a Bechstein up and running for us.

[StrangeAeons]

It's true that it's become more of "A new piano every couple years" than a regular update schedule, but I can't really get mad at Clavia. Most, if not all competing brands, never update the pianos shipped with their instruments. For example, I can't remember the last time I read about new pianos on the Kronos (which are by the way much heavier: I hope one day someone'll explain how on earth Nord can fit in 200 MB what Korg does with 1-2 GB, since I doubt they have a secret algorithm that the whole world could benefit from). There's also a limit to timbre character, imho: after you try out a dozen different pianos, everything else will necessarily closely resemble something you played already, and sometimes samples simply can't catch all these nuances and quirks.

What Clavia should do is not baking up new piano samples, but rather updating the older ones: e.g. I'd love to have an XL Model D or C7, since the related samples are now quite old and sort of smallish, size-wise; same goes for the beautiful Rain Piano and so on. Basically what they did with the EPs: resample (if they need to: I actually believe they already have everything stored at max quality, there simple wasn't enough storage on the older Nords for a lower compression level) and enhance. And by the way, I hope we'll someday get the XL treatment for the first four EPs, especially the Suitcase Close Ideal which's the most balanced and neutral one.

[daniel70]

It's true that it's become more of "A new piano every couple years" than a regular update schedule, but I can't really get mad at Clavia. Most, if not all competing brands, never update the pianos shipped with their instruments. For example, I can't remember the last time I read about new pianos on the Kronos (which are by the way much heavier:

But Clavia launched a new (expensive) product, the Nord Piano 5, which contains not a single new piano or electric piano sample. That’s rather unusual, if you look at other brands.

[Rusty Mike]

What Clavia should do is not baking up new piano samples, but rather updating the older ones: e.g. I'd love to have an XL Model D or C7, since the related samples are now quite old and sort of smallish, size-wise; same goes for the beautiful Rain Piano and so on. Basically what they did with the EPs: resample (if they need to: I actually believe they already have everything stored at max quality, there simple wasn't enough storage on the older Nords for a lower compression level) and enhance. And by the way, I hope we'll someday get the XL treatment for the first four EPs, especially the Suitcase Close Ideal which's the most balanced and neutral one.

I agree with this. I'm happy with my go-to pianos (White, Amber, Silver, Mellow), but would thrilled with a higher quality Grand Lady D and C7.