Topic by Ecaroh

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  • Ecaroh
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Topic: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

Has anybody here had a chance to test this new piano? I've played it twice now and it's quite welcomed product to again raise level of this competition of professional stage pianos (right now there's V-piano, Yamaha new CPs, Roland RD-series, Kawai MP-series etc.).

In my opinion Nord piano (sound is this new V5 which is soon released for Electro and Stage classic -users too) has managed to catch at least some of this natural "woodiness" which is lacking in many digital pianos and PTQ also. Woodiness is something that is hard to describe but quite many people are after it (still there's no guarantee that they speak about same thing...). Anyway Nord Piano had my kind of "woodiness".

Sound is completely sampled and they have also key release samples, pedal down samples, mechanical pedal noise samples which are velocity controlled and now even string resonance samples. I tried to listen how well it (resonance) works and I must say that is better than I thought. And for sure it's better than nothing.

Best thing with Nord is that you can download freely those sounds you like/need most. For example they have recorded their pianos in close position but also from distance. This is quite unique in hardware pianos and great.

Weakest part again is Nords (fatar's?) keyboard which I think is same that they use is Nord Stage models. This is why I don't even consider buying it.


Check for yourself (I must say these first examples are quite merciless for Nord Piano sound cause it's just some individual notes):

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t...Nord_Piano

Last edited by Ecaroh (03-06-2010 13:12)

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Reply by aandrmusic

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Re: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

Any idea if that 3 pedal board is;
a) 3 midi continuous controllers and therefore a useful generic 3 pedal board.
b) Available separately.
?

Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

I'm afraid it's just for Nord Piano. Those new flagship pianos (V-piano, Yamaha CP and now Nord piano) have those great 3-part pedals but I'm not sure what connectors they use - probably they aren't normal pedal jacks. I'm afraid it's part of the marketing strategy; you cannot (easily) get those great pedalboards to your "lower level" setup. Hopefully Im wrong and soon we'll get those kind of pedals to our existing systems...

Last edited by Ecaroh (03-06-2010 13:15)

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Reply by aandrmusic

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Re: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

Ecaroh wrote:

I'm afraid it's just for Nord Piano. Those new flagship pianos (V-piano, Yamaha CP and now Nord piano) have those great 3-part pedals but I'm not sure what connectors they use - probably they aren't normal pedal jacks. I'm afraid it's part of the marketing strategy; you cannot (easily) get those great pedalboards to your "lower level" setup. Hopefully Im wrong and soon we'll get those kind of pedals to our existing systems...

I will try to get my hands on one.
Wire is wire, pin, plugs, sockets, etc. are just hardware.
If it has 3 potentiometers and reasonable action the guts can probably be re-jiggered and the outputs come out on whatever pins of whatever plugs one chooses (-:

It would still be NICE if they were just 3 midi continuous controllers and it might take very little to make them so.

Reply by aandrmusic

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Re: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

64, 66 and 67 - on a "stereo" instrument cable.

According to the manual a "regular" sustain pedal can be substituted if you don't have the nord 3 pedals, then you can assign it to whichever function you choose.

Reply by Michael H

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Re: Nord Piano and "woodiness"

aandrmusic wrote:

I will try to get my hands on one.
Wire is wire, pin, plugs, sockets, etc. are just hardware.
If it has 3 potentiometers and reasonable action the guts can probably be re-jiggered and the outputs come out on whatever pins of whatever plugs one chooses (-:

It would still be NICE if they were just 3 midi continuous controllers and it might take very little to make them so.

I agree that adapting these pedals, if necessary, would be doable. But you might also have to mess with resistance values of potentiometers, making it a bit more of a pain in the butt. For instance, I've got both Yamaha and Roland expression pedals, which have pretty similar mechanics, and they're way different in responsiveness even after the polarities are matched, the Yams not giving the full range on non-Yam boards. So, swapping out pots might be necessary.