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I've been very fascinated with the Nord Piano demos recently. I'm looking for any chance to test a Nord Piano myself but until then I could only listen to mp3 demos

In another thread I've already seen the Studio Grand 2 is very expressive, rich and dynamic sound, almost indistinguishable from a real grand. The same goes to some degree also for the Bosendorfer.

However I am also very impressed by the demos of two of the uprights, especially the Romantic Upright (Schimmel) and also to the Queen (Bosendorfer). Has anyone tried them on their Nord? Are they playable and fun as a whole. The Romantic sounds absolutely astonishing, a little bit imperfect and at the same time very deep and haunting and I am sure if it's playable, I would use it a lot if I had a NP.

How about harpsichords? It was only Yamaha digital piano so far, which offered a convincing harpsichord sound and I miss that. I used to play a lot of Bach pieces with the harpsichord sound on my P90, however the Roland and Kawai harpsichords are a joke. The good sounding harpsichord sounds are another aspect of the Nord Piano which makes it very desirable for me.

The upright and harpsichord sounds in the Nord Piano library are excellent.

James
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Hi CyberGene, +1 to what James says. The harpsichords are, in fact, quite varied; there is more variety here than in most Yamahas. There is a set of samples of a French harpsichord (two manuals), and a set of an Italian one, including lute variations of both. The key off samples are quite convincing - a pity that you can't adjust their strength on the Nord (at least not on my NE3HP). I find all the harpsichord sounds too bright (tiring for the ear on headphones) and deal in a substantial amount of dampening for the trebles.

The ability to adjust the volume of note-off samples would be terrific.
This functionality isn't built-into the Nord instruments, unfortunately, however it could perhaps be added to the Software Editor.

James
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They are outstanding. Not usable for the kind of music I play, but fun when I'm doing my own thing at home. The harpsichord is great, particularly the French ones. Seriously, the Nord samples, all of them, are the pinnacle of sample based instruments. There's an aliveness to the instruments, a real variety in sounds, and an overall quality that is above all others out there.

CyberGene, the only thing I would caution you on going into the Nord is to not expect too much from the action. It's great, feels great, connects wonderfully to the sounds, but with one caveat, 'for a keyboard'. At the end of the day the NP88 was designed with a gigging musician in mind, hints the lightweight design. Because of this, the action is far less involved and lighter physically and mechanically than the RM3 Wooden action you're used to. I'm not knocking the action at all-I love it. But when I go back and forth between the AvantGrand and the Nord, there's no comparison. But that's a good thing since I don't want to schlep a real grand piano down my apt stairs!

How about a little red box to sit on top of our DP's for those of us that don't gig, and wont/didn't buy the Nord pianos due to the light action and dont want to muck around with a laptop.
Let's face it, it wouldnt take any sales away from their DP's. You would only buy the Nord pianos if you a) don't mind a lighter action, b) gig frequently, c) want the best piano sounds on a DP, or d) are uber cool.

Light action compared to what? To a Kawaii. But a Roland PHA III is lighter and is an easy comparison for me since I have them on the same stand. CP5 has light action too.

Obviously it is not a real grand action but I actually feel that my fingers are a little worked after a couple of weeks on the Nord Piano.

It feels different but I won't classify it as light. On the PHA III (FP7F), I've had to set the touch weight to Heavy all the time.

I will correct myself now. When I have the power off, the Nord action does feel lighter than the FP7F. So the response perception makes me feel like it's the opposite. Interesting.

....and further to your earlier post my wrists tell me the FP-7F action is 'heavier' than the RH action on my Kawai.

Really -- I would have thought any Kawai to be heavier. But make sure the test is with the power off.

Rather than a hardware module, I would like to see an iOS/Android app that allows Nord samples from the V5 Piano Library to be played back via MIDI.

James
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