Nord User Forum

Hello all,

I was thinking about the size of Nord’s XL samples. I bought a Nord Piano in 2010 in which the Gand Lady D in L was the largest size, then they introduced the 196MB XL Bösendorfer Imperial. I had a Nord Piano 2 from 2012-2016 and none of the released XL samples were any bigger. I’ve since been away from Nord, having just ordered a Nord Piano 5. I noticed there are several XL samples over 200MB, with the White Grand being 245MB.

My question is do you guys see the XL samples quickly getting much larger, and is this why we are seeing Nord bump storage up significantly? Any rumors or info you all have heard to suggest much larger samples are in the works? I am happy with current sizes/details, but would of course welcome XL samples 500MB in size. Can only imagine the detail. My NP/NP2 had just 500MB of storage, so I could only use 2 XL samples. I have downloaded 10 XL samples-5 grand and 5 upright and am at 1.9GB of storage.

I think that rather than massive piano files that leave space for nothing else, mono versions of the existing pianos would be much more useful to (relatively) duplicate the capacity of the piano section (especially for those who play mono setups).

If you look at the history of piano sample updates here (general-nord-forum-f29/nord-christmas-g ... 85-94.html), you will see that there has been only one new Acoustic Piano sound released by Nord since the White Grand was released in June 2019. It's hard to plot a graph when there is only one point to draw the line through over the last 3.5 years.

I think it makes sense for the most recent piano samples (and any new ones that might arrive) use large sample file sizes, because their newer keyboard hardware supports this. And most of us need only a single-digit number of the Nord-provided piano bank sounds to be loaded in our keyboards at once.

But I don't think the sample file size is the most important thing in the quality of the acoustic piano sound. An engineer who knows where to put the mic(s) can produce a better and more useful AP sound, even if constrained to a smaller sample file size, than someone else who does not.

harmonizer wrote:If you look at the history of piano sample updates here (general-nord-forum-f29/nord-christmas-g ... 85-94.html), you will see that there has been only one new Acoustic Piano sound released by Nord since the White Grand was released in June 2019. It's hard to plot a graph when there is only one point to draw the line through over the last 3.5 years.

I think it makes sense for the most recent piano samples (and any new ones that might arrive) use large sample file sizes, because their newer keyboard hardware supports this. And most of us need only a single-digit number of the Nord-provided piano bank sounds to be loaded in our keyboards at once.

But I don't think the sample file size is the most important thing in the quality of the acoustic piano sound. An engineer who knows where to put the mic(s) can produce a better and more useful AP sound, even if constrained to a smaller sample file size, than someone else who does not.

+1 and particularly to the last point, you can have 1Gb of bad sounding piano samples and 100Mb of inspiring ones.

Also, if "details" is what someone is after, then no Nord XL sample will beat a multi Gb Virtual Piano, but how much of that detail is really useful in a band/live situation (the main designated territory of Nord products)?

maxpiano wrote:

harmonizer wrote:If you look at the history of piano sample updates here (general-nord-forum-f29/nord-christmas-g ... 85-94.html), you will see that there has been only one new Acoustic Piano sound released by Nord since the White Grand was released in June 2019. It's hard to plot a graph when there is only one point to draw the line through over the last 3.5 years.

I think it makes sense for the most recent piano samples (and any new ones that might arrive) use large sample file sizes, because their newer keyboard hardware supports this. And most of us need only a single-digit number of the Nord-provided piano bank sounds to be loaded in our keyboards at once.

But I don't think the sample file size is the most important thing in the quality of the acoustic piano sound. An engineer who knows where to put the mic(s) can produce a better and more useful AP sound, even if constrained to a smaller sample file size, than someone else who does not.

+1 and particularly to the last point, you can have 1Gb of bad sounding piano samples and 100Mb of inspiring ones.

Also, if "details" is what someone is after, then no Nord XL sample will beat a multi Gb Virtual Piano, but how much of that detail is really useful in a band/live situation (the main designated territory of Nord products)?

When playing with band this kind of quality is not so much noticeable…

When solo piano and vocal this sample quality is huge noticeable… i even notice quality difference from large to xl nord samples when i am only piano and vocal live gig.. when band comes its not noticeable

maxpiano wrote:When playing with band this kind of quality is not so much noticeable…

This is why all this fuss about Gb of piano sounds from Kronos or Montage live players really makes me laugh as usually the PA system doesn't follow or the room is not designed for acoustics, or just listeners/dancers will not even noticing you play !

Fred

cookie wrote:

maxpiano wrote:When playing with band this kind of quality is not so much noticeable…

This is why all this fuss about Gb of piano sounds from Kronos or Montage live players really makes me laugh as usually the PA system doesn't follow or the room is not designed for acoustics, or just listeners/dancers will not even noticing you play !

Fred

Imho the real "fuss" about the Kronos' heavy piano samples is that they don't sound better than Nord's at all, unlike some premium piano libraries for PCs (e.g. Ivory), which weigh several tens of GBs (a lot more than Korg's) and do sound much better than any workstation out there. Using SSDs also entails that you don't care about optimisation at all, which might explain a good part of those several gigabytes of piano libraries. Can't say anything about Yamaha's pianos since I've never tried them out but the same probably applies to them too.

StrangeAeons wrote:

cookie wrote:

maxpiano wrote:When playing with band this kind of quality is not so much noticeable…

This is why all this fuss about Gb of piano sounds from Kronos or Montage live players really makes me laugh as usually the PA system doesn't follow or the room is not designed for acoustics, or just listeners/dancers will not even noticing you play !

Fred

Imho the real "fuss" about the Kronos' heavy piano samples is that they don't sound better than Nord's at all, unlike some premium piano libraries for PCs (e.g. Ivory), which weigh several tens of GBs (a lot more than Korg's) and do sound much better than any workstation out there. Using SSDs also entails that you don't care about optimisation at all, which might explain a good part of those several gigabytes of piano libraries. Can't say anything about Yamaha's pianos since I've never tried them out but the same probably applies to them too.

This. I am not saying Nord needs larger samples at this point. What I’m saying is listen to the difference in quality between say the C7 studio Grand samples and newer White and Royal Grand samples. The newer much larger samples sound so much better throughout the range. Nord is really good at that. So I imagine how good a 500MB sample might be. I only use one major sample at a time so I would welcome Nord’s XL samples to get to be 500MB.

cookie wrote:

maxpiano wrote:When playing with band this kind of quality is not so much noticeable…

This is why all this fuss about Gb of piano sounds from Kronos or Montage live players really makes me laugh as usually the PA system doesn't follow or the room is not designed for acoustics, or just listeners/dancers will not even noticing you play !

Fred

I agree on many.. and yes listeners wont even care.. listeners just get drunk dancing and trying to get laid with a girl..

I am thenone who cares about my sound and the whole details..

As for the pa system i have 1 of top ones.. so everything is noticeable there.. only if i have over 5 instrumenrs band then not noticeable the large vs xl samples.. but specially when solo its noticeable just because its a lot of watts on pa and a lot of dbs

Larger samples “encourages” customers to upgrade their keyboards.

Clavia has yet to release any information on why sample sizes have steadily grown over the years, sometimes hugely. We have made all sorts of assumptions in discussion threads but it’s all just chatter…no one knows for sure.

But the bottom line is if you want to load the newer samples you need the newer keyboards. So until
Clavia demonstrates otherwise, I’m assuming the prime reason for sample bloat is profit.