Nord User Forum

Hi everyone!
In the past years I've touring using NS2 & NS3 and I have noticed very important issues when playing stereo piano sounds over a mono return.
I always use the same sound backup, and many times pianos appear to sound lower in my monitor, but fine at the PA. I use many kinds of sounds, but it only happens on the pianos.
We tried to switch the phase, because of course could be a phase problem, but it isn't. The sound guy says it seems the pianos have a kind of fake widen stereo, that could affect only to certain frequencies when played mono.
Anyone experiencing the same?

Hi, Nord piano samples are stereo so they would show some frequencies cancellation if mixed in mono at the external mixer side, i.e. without using the onboard "MONO" function of the NS (as it is not a matter of overall phase, so inverting phase will not solve, that NS mono function does something more that a simple sum)

How are you sending the NS sound to that monitor, currently?

Simplest solution: don't send the stereo mix to the monitor, send just one channel (L or R) instead.

maxpiano wrote:Simplest solution: don't send the stereo mix to the monitor, send just one channel (L or R) instead.

But wouldn't be better to use the mono "summing" as provided by the board itself, as opposed to just send one of the two? Wouldn't the mono function of the Stage supposed to preserve more content of the original signal than just sending one output?

Hlaalu wrote:

maxpiano wrote:Simplest solution: don't send the stereo mix to the monitor, send just one channel (L or R) instead.

But wouldn't be better to use the mono "summing" as provided by the board itself, as opposed to just send one of the two? Wouldn't the mono function of the Stage supposed to preserve more content of the original signal than just sending one output?

Sure but in that way you apply the Mono also to the FOH, where instead you may want to keep the "real stereo" sound output.

Since the objective of monitoring is mainly to hear "what you play" (control your execution), I think that in a situation where you have only a single monitor it is more acceptable to degrade (to 1 channel) only the monitoring than the overall sound.

Sorry wasn't been careful enough reading the first post!
Grazie

Thanks for the replies, but yes, sending only one channel involves hearing more right or left side of the piano.... The funny thing is it doesn't happen with other kind of sounds...

arecio wrote:Thanks for the replies, but yes, sending only one channel involves hearing more right or left side of the piano.... The funny thing is it doesn't happen with other kind of sounds...

It can happen to anything that has a stereo component to it, not just pianos. But the piano samples are inherently stereo, which is not true of the organ and synth sections.

arecio wrote:Thanks for the replies, but yes, sending only one channel involves hearing more right or left side of the piano.... The funny thing is it doesn't happen with other kind of sounds...

It will be anyway better than having cancellation (try it, probably the Right channel is a best option); otherwise if you want to hear the stereo sound properly you have to use 2 monitors or in-ear monitoring, there is no way around.

maxpiano wrote: (try it, probably the Right channel is a best option)

I am not sure as to which out counts as the "right". They are named 1 and 2 in the Stage.

1 is left, 2 is right. Odd left, Even right is the general convention.

With my Rig, I have a bunch of choices using one speaker:

1. Nord set to Mono
2. Both L&R inputs to KL-8 in stereo to both inputs of a single K8.2
3. I can also have the KL-8 Mixer sum to the 2 inputs to mono before hitting the inputs of the K8.2

In any of these scenarios I don't hear any appreciable difference in the sound when playing live-

-dj