Nord stage4 Piano Filter

[Arni61]

Has Nord Stage4 a special piano filter?

[FZiegler]

Where's this question coming from? What's the background?

Of course, the piano section has the known functions: "Timbre" (soft, mid, bright, Dyno1/2) and "DynComp" (dynamic compression). At least the former is some sort of EQ filter (and available on the Stage 3, too). As piano sounds differ with the velocity curve changed, even the "KB Touch" button may be seen as a filter. What exactly do you mean by 'filter'? And what are you expecting?

[Arni61]

I got this statement from a keyboardist who missed a missing piano filter on his Nord Stage 2 and therefore sold it to switch to a piano module on which he controlled these filters with the pedal to get a more assertive piano sound on stage in the band structure. He complained that the piano sound of the Stage 2 was not so assertive in the band structure. As I said about Stage 2, I wonder if it has been improved for Stage 4.

[Arni61]

I got this statement from a keyboardist who missed a missing piano filter on his Nord Stage 2 and therefore sold it to switch to a piano module on which he controlled these filters with the pedal to get a more assertive piano sound on stage in the band structure. He complained that the piano sound of the Stage 2 was not so assertive in the band structure. As I said about Stage 2, I wonder if it has been improved for Stage 4.

[maxpiano]

I got this statement from a keyboardist who missed a missing piano filter on his Nord Stage 2 and therefore sold it to switch to a piano module on which he controlled these filters with the pedal to get a more assertive piano sound on stage in the band structure. He complained that the piano sound of the Stage 2 was not so assertive in the band structure.

Compared to what? I see Nord Stage being used in plenty of bands and also high-level live/TV shows, maybe it was that keybaordist was not able to set it properly in his context...?

We also have plenty of discussions on NUF regarding that, including understanding how to manage the fact that Nord piano samples are stereo, choosing the appropriate speakers and/or how to EQ and use Compressor properly (where/if needed)....

[Slide]

T. Hortschman got away from Nord and went with a Roland workstation, and others do similar things. There are a lot of products out there that are worth being carried onto a stage. And fortunately, they differ in a multitude of ways: Sound, weight, handling, controllers, support, durability etc.

In my eyes, it won't help a lot to see if others get happy with the gear you have yourself. All of those products have users. The max you can do is seeing what people often use them for.

I like my Stage 3 Compact a lot and it helped me enter the world of pop, rock, jazz and latin piano and organ sounds. And that's probably what it is for. Which won't make it the best board on earth on the other side.

T. Hortschman is a TOP40 player and may need more synth power - he indeed may be happier with a workstation. But first of all, you'll need to find out about your use case and the music you want to make. And unfortunately, you'll need to find out about the opportunities and limitations of your Stage 4 by diving deep into it for yourself. On this forum, you'll find enough people who are happy with their Stage 4 -- but there is nothing to wonder about in that respect.

I can't answer your original question: Whether Nord have improved the filters or not. At least, they added ths Dyno filters that make a big difference for EP sounds. And indeed, sometimes, I'm not perfectly happy with the settings to choose from: No one-button-wonder to exactly get what you want. Then, you've got to dial in more EQ changes manually, need to test different piano sounds, add some synth attack and the like. There are probably quite a number of possibilities you haven't exploited yet.

[timmmy000]

T. Hortschman also remaked that he only owned a NS2 - he pointed out that it might be possible that further generations of the NS don't have those limitations that are important for his specific work as a coverband-keyboardist.
I owned a Korg Kronos for over 13 years - this board can bear all kinds of usage...but also the NS4 is much more powerful than the NS2 (2 /3 sound per section, scene layer button, extended FX-section etc.) and do the same....!
I've sold all my keys and am happy with the NS4 - it is (sound-wise) "cutting through" in every situation...and the workflow for creating a desired sound/patch is tremendously fast.
Yeah, if you need more the 4 split and a huge amount of synths or multi-sampled instruments you have to look for an alternative solution (or a addition of your setup)...
I always use the piano filter/piano-comp together with a small amount of EQ...

Cheers
Tim

[Arni61]

Thanks !

[Slide]

Finally, I watched that video you were referring to.

T. Hortschman assigned what he called a 'filter' to the expression pedal of his Fantom 07 to smoothly change between soft and open sound of the piano -- that's what you'd do with a morph on a Nord Stage (control pedal or mod wheel). 'Timbre' can't be used for that, but the EQ can. Try to figure out what you are looking for (sound wise) and play around with the settings -- you'll learn to use what you have!

What you can do to smoothly move between two different sounds that differ only by something being on or off: Use both piano layers, load the same sound to them and just set differently that one property - then morph volume between both (one up, the other down).

[Klondyke77]

I saw the video too. With "Piano Filter" he means a Low-Pass Filter on which he can modify the filter frequency with an expression pedal.
Means: He can use his foot to change (fluently) from a dull/damped to a bright piano sound.
As I own a NS3 I checked the NS2 Manual and found that you cannot do this with a NS2:
Nord Stage 2 can use the EQ-Section for this effect but it is not capable of morphing something there with an expression pedal.
But Nord Stage 3 and 4 provide both a Low-Pass filter (EQ in Effects section) with morphable frequency. So both CAN achive the "Piano Filter" he is talking about.
In addition Nord Stage 4 has dedicated effects per engine.