Nord User Forum

Hey all,

(Brand new user, hello!)

After much debating between the Korg SV-1 and the NP2... I have, this morning, become the owner of a brand new (and sexy) Nord Piano 2. Yay! (Why did I go with the NP2? Two reasons: 1) the pianos sounds much better on the NP2 than anything else Korg has (this is obviously subjective); 2) I found out about the Korg's key problem (ie. If you stand it up vertically for an extended period of time - like overnight - for transport or storage or what have you, keys stop working. Having said that, I definitely prefer the Korg's RH3 heavier action over the Nord's but I can't have everything now can I? (The Roland RD-700NX was also in the running as I do like its keys but, I felt the piano sounds to be a bit lacking. Also, I noticed this weird tendency of the piano to cut-off notes weirdly; looked it up and it's definitely a problem that others have had.) Perhaps when I have some money, and if I'm feeling adventurous, I can try to see if I can get the Fatar TP400 in the NP2 for piano-like action. Probably can't happen but I'll have to talk to a nord technician and ask.

Anyways, seeing as many people are looking at the NP2, here's my quick and dirty review.

While this isn't my first keyboard (I used to have a Triton LE way back when that I rarely touched that was a present and I sold about 4 years ago), this is my first DP that I've purchased myself. And I'm so proud of it. So far I've been having great fun mostly playing around with the unit and now I'm getting into the sound manager and picking and choosing what I want on it. I'm a little upset that we have such little room to load stuff onto it (500MB only? this could easily have been 1GB), specifically in the piano section, considering that the samples are so large. Currently I have:

Grand Lady D L
Grand Imperial Bdorf XL
Bright Grand YaS4 L
Queen Upright L
Blue Swede Ostl&Alm L
Sparkletop

But I would love to have more room to maybe put another rhodes or the C7 on; or, to have the Bright Grand XL on too. I mostly play jazz (I'm teaching myself piano from books and jazz records and the occasional teacher here and there... been goin on a year now) so I'm interested in good piano sounds - this explains why I've removed all clavs, harps and so on from here. Kept the 1 EP for giggles - and versatility because rhodes are classic. Why am I using the Large/XL sample sizes? While I may not be a piano pro, I grew up in a musical environment (my father own a music studio where he records all sorts of stuff) and I learnt to play guitar from an early age so my 'musical' ear is fairly developed. I like to hear my instrument clearly and the NP2 had spectacular piano samples. I mainly play on an 52" upright in my apartment but that thing can't be carted around now that I would like to start maybe going out to jam to get used to playing with other people on piano (There's only so much BIAB can do.) Speaking of carting around - I haven't yet bought the gig bag, but I can easily see myself carrying this thing around. I didn't buy the legs for it because I already have a 4 leg stand to use so I figured there was no point.

I love the ease of use on this thing (I was similarly attracted to the Korg SV1 - that thing is made to gig with in terms of its user interface). I'm a piano player. I don't want to concern myself with a billion buttons and a canful of features that I'll never touch (I'm looking at you workstations); some people use that stuff - but it's not for me. Everything is easily accessible, a few buttons away and bam.

Keys - like I said, the thing I like least about the NP2 are they keys. They feel so light. From trying many grands and uprights when I was shopping for a piano, I know I like a medium action on real pianos but the nord feels light, even for my inexperienced fingers. The action isn't too bad, however, and I don't find myself super distracted when playing. I think that I'll eventually get used to this feel, maybe? Who knows.

So there you go, that's my initial impressions of my new baby. I do like playing it so much.


And now a question: As I play around in the sound manager, I deleted everything from the piano lib, sample lib and program lib as I wanted to put my own stuff on it. Now that I've loaded the samples I want into the piano/sample libs, how do I assign them to program banks? Like if I want the Grand Lady D in A1:1 and Grand Bosie in A1:2, how can I put them there? Do I have to "store as" on the keyboard or can I do it in the sound manager?

Thanks all

Roux

Hello Roux,

I'm pretty sure Fatar make a heavier version of the keybed used in the Nord Stage 2 and the Studiologic 88-key boards use this heavier version. I'm not sure what keybed the NP2 uses; it is not exactly the same as the Stage 2, as it has no aftertouch strip (so it will definitely feel a bit different).

As for your question about the Sound Manager: you manage ready-made programs (which are a collection of a piano/synth sound and a set of effects settings, eq, etc.) with it, but in your case you're making new sounds so you would need to do it from the board itself and use 'Store as'. You could've modified existing programs with the Sound Manager (replace a piano), but that might be too late now (though relink might fix some programs).

If you want to, you can always restore the NP2 to the original state (i.e. by downloading the factory backup from the Nord site and restoring that using the Sound Manager) and use the existing programs as starting points, but starting completely from scratch and getting the pianos to sound just the way you want them might not be a bad idea either.

I forgot if you can open a NP2 backup with the Sound Manager and download single programs to your board, but what you can certainly do is rename the backup file so the name ends in .zip (it is actually a zip file) and extract that. Inside the zip are the sounds and the individual programs, which you can open with the Sound Manager and upload. But you may be able to do this with the Sound Manager itself without jumping through those additional hoops. After uploading you may need to use the 'relink' option in Sound Manager or reselect the correct piano sound on the board itself (don't forget to store it) if the program isn't working as it should.

I finally bought a NP2 tonight! Very interested to see how it stacks up against the CP5 I just sold.