jmanrique wrote:I’ve been reading comments here for a while about the piano sounds on Nord keyboards. I haven’t actually tried them myself, but I’m intrigued by how good they might be, especially since in a forum like this, full of Pianoteq fans, people even talk about how to tweak Pianoteq to make it sound like Nord pianos.
I have two questions:
Isn’t Pianoteq clearly superior to any other piano out there, given that those others are sample-based and therefore, by definition, can’t get close to the unique playing experience Pianoteq provides?
And why is it that Nord pianos get a pass, while pretty much every other digital piano (its internal sounds, I mean), no matter how professional, tends to be treated with a hint of ridicule here?
I have a Kawai MP7SE myself, and that’s been my experience. When I bought it, the internal sounds seemed wonderful, but now that I’ve been using Pianoteq for a while, I realize I never use them anymore. I could easily have bought a VPC1 instead, which even has a better action.
first question . Pianoteq is also my favourite virtual instrument because you can shape the sound to your liking and have a level of control of notes on an incredible number of parameters which are relevant for players used to acoustic pianos and familiar with tuning . On the other hand , sampled libraries are more plug and play and accessible to users less familiar with tuning.
But Nord Pianos are something relatively unique in their market segment which live gigging musicians .there are a lot of imperfections related to Nord but they are necessarily relevant for live gigging in jazz/rock band
The con’s first
Forget about una corda pedal , let-off simulation , complex sympathetic resonance and pp samples . Nord doesn’t care about it for the pianos are going to be used in noisy environments in the context of a live set
Not the best actions of the market . A part the Nord Grand 1/2 which are equipped with Kawai excellent RH3 action all the other actions are Fatar actions , which are quite average actions but not so many brands sell actions . Probably Nord makes a huge margin on that particular component of their keyboard.
The Pro’s now
First of all , they have developed an image based on the Red colour, which is quite effective as playing one you are part of the club. One should never have been underestimate the power of symbols in branding . ( Roland recent vstage keyboard is definitely trying to compete with the Nord stage 4 including the red color)
Secondly they offer a vast library of sound accessible to every user (for free) . Even vastly inferior to Pianoteq for solo piano in studio / home recording , they sound nice , although quite compressed and are really top notch for the target audience .
Above all, they have developed a user interface on the keyboards with the knobs and buttons which the reference for live musicians .
To cut a long story short , the targeted user segment is different . In the sale way you cannot compare domino’s pizzas to Michelin restaurants, you cannot compare Modartt with Nord , given their strategy & markets are différents .
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