Nord User Forum

What if the new product was a physically modeled technology Nord? Like the one that Pianoteq uses now. For me, the sound of Pianoteq is so far the best I have heard and felt under my fingers, besides, it practically does not use gigabytes of memory, but is sensitive to the processor. Nord Electro is, in fact, modeling an organ, electric piano, harpsichord, grand pianos and upright pianos - the modartt company has all this and even more.

I was very surprised by the collaboration with the Kawai company at one time, when they took their RM3 Grand II keyboard and made the Nord Grand. it would be cool to see a new product with physical modeling, although this is just a dream, but let's imagine how cool it would be!

Some other brands already ventured into that in the past (Yamaha with CP1, Roland with V-piano, Viscount with the Physis) but they didn't succeed much.

Of course meantime the modeling has improved and I like Pianoteq too, but since it exists as a Virtual Instrument (and can also run on my computer or even smartphone/tablet, which I can connect to any keyboard, including a Nord), I see no reason to package it into some hardware that would inevitably become obsolete (and as you say Pianoteq is sensitive to processor performances)

The good of Pianoteq is that it still evolves, but each evolution is more demanding in terms of processing: Pianoteq 8 still runs fine on my old iPhone 6s (which basically I kept just to run plugins and music apps on), but Pianoteq 9 not any more, for example.

That would actually be a really exciting direction for Nord. A fully physically modeled Nord—something like a “Nord PM” line—could combine their great interface and build quality with the expressive depth you get from Pianoteq-style modeling. The idea of having detailed acoustic and electric instruments without depending on huge sample libraries is really appealing, especially for live players who want responsiveness and low latency.

And you’re right—the Nord Grand collaboration with Kawai showed that Nord isn’t afraid to mix things up if it improves the playing experience. A future Nord with real-time physical modeling would be a dream for a lot of players. Who knows—maybe one day!

There’s an eternal debate going on certain forums about sampling vs. modeling. It’s almost religiuos like it is with analog vs. digital. Quite resently on Pianoteq forum someone even suggersted that Modartt should model Nord piano sound. That’s nonsense to me.

I too don’t think Clavia should go on full modeling path on pianos (don’t they already do it on organs?). IMO Nord is best in their sampling approach which captures uniquely the ”soul” of different pianos. I also think Pianoteq and Roland V-piano has a lot to improve to make same with modeling. Fair to say, it just SO difficult task. Hybrid approach might be more interesting: Nord could perhaps try to model resonances better - give more realism, parameters and adjustability. Nords already have ”symphatetic resonance”, I don’t know how it’s done but it’s fairly simple and FAR from Pianoteq’s.


(* In fact I remember that one Pianoteq user have tweaked Pianoteq in way that it only takes resonances from the model and basic sound from sample library and it sounds concing). Best of both worlds?