Not bad. Opinion?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuk5jGKLUg

robipiano

Funny that this hasn't come up before here that I've seen. Looks like an interesting piano to me. I guess it kind of got outshined by the VPC1 announcement.

In the past, numa models have had some QC issues--particularly with the electronics IIRC--which have made made them less popular in this forum. However, I have heard multiple people that liked the feel of the TP/40 wood action. I've never had the chance to play one unfortunately.

A gigabyte of samples is a good sign...I suppose that's a gigabyte for all the samples put together. Probably it's still significantly more than we have in typical DP's around here. It sounds pretty good, but virtually all demos do so we can't read too terribly much into it.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm very intrigued to give Studiologic another go with the release of the Concert. My main complain regarding the cheaper Numa Piano was the action, which was hard to control and very noisy. If this TP40 wood action is comparable to the better actions in the market, and the new 1 GB AP sound is a further development of the high quality sound of the Numa Piano, the Numa Concert is quite interesting. One would still have to consider the lack of customer service from Studiologic...

I guess this the same keybed as in the Physis weighted piano version ? If that is the case,then according to some reviewers here the action is good, but as I understood not as good as e.g. Kawai GF or RM3-II . Please correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to be an interesting board. Design and philosophy behind VPC is of course different, but this Numa has in addition
- build-in sounds, doesn't seem bad
- mod / pitch wheel (a request from several people interested in VPC here)
- audio in/ out
- expression pedal (?)
- a few controls
- only 20kg vs 30 kg in a sleeker design, making it more portable

If the street price is the same and the keybed is indeed very good and well tuned to the piano sound, it could become a tough choise.

Problem is its still studiologic with their notoriously bad after sales support, QC and lack of quick bug fixes etc. What if they acknowledged their failures regarding those issues in the past and make a statement that customer support , fixes and communication is from now on a top priority for the company. And act on it ! They might then convince a lot of pianists to try and go for the new numa.

As long as I still see many SL board returns at the shops as b-stock I'm not convinced yet

The Numa Piano had a USP, which was that it combined good sounds and simple controls with a lightweight chassis. Even so, I don't think it sold well on this side of the pond, and there were compromises in respect of the action, as well as design flaws.

The Numa Concert seems to have the USP of lightest DP with a wood action. I wonder whether this is enough of a draw when compared to, say the MP10, which has an established reputation in respect of both action and sounds. If the price is set significantly below the MP, then it may stand a chance, but it will be an uphill struggle to overcome the poor reputation that JFP refers to above.

Sounds good in the demo, though.

http://www.maclife.de/beat/news/studiologic-numa-concert-vereint-digitalpiano-und-masterkeyboard

In a few words – € 1783... IMPO a bit pricy for a piano with limited maintenance.
When I listened to the demo – it sounds to me as Fazioli in lower register – first preset, thought the pianist who plays did not show any classical fragments.
Mostly the low level instruments are being presented with such blah-blah tunes.
Moreover, no any word about half pedaling and so on.

Too expensive . We don't know what the street price will be, but at this level there's enough to choose from with the big(er) Japanese brands. If it where in the same price range as the VPC that would make the choice much harder. That is, if you can overcome the lousy QC / after sales reputation of SL...

Website states StudioSledge Numa Concert. Interesting rebranding.

Wonder what the reviews will tell us of people who can try the Concert at the Messe.

Listened to the YouTube demo once more ; this time on good headphones. I'm actually rather impressed with the grand piano sound. Pretty good ! Would love to hear more - also in other styles of music. And a completely sustained chord or note , so we can hear better the decay and loop phase of the piano and how it dies out.

Only in FF / FFF notes that are hit, it has a little artificial harsh 'twang' to it that I don't like. You see that more often in DP's - don't know why they do that (Roland SN, Korg Kronos Grand, Kawai HI-XL). As if all is perfectly right and well balanced , but when hitting the keys hard - the DP suddenly has to be turned into a rock stage piano, with a hard, over-brilliant , short tangy character. Nice to cut through the band-noise, but for normal use completely out of place and disruptive.

If it's in the samples there's nothing to do about it (Korg), but if it's in the processing algorithm , some tweaking or future firmware might take the hard edge out of the highest velocity layer.

Let's wait for more demo's...overall the AP sound is very nice to my ears.

After some investigations I found this
http://www.ekomusicgroup.com/viewdoc.asp?co_id=93967
And in the last picture you can see the electronic circuit with a web addres printed on.
And this is the website
http://www.sgmusiclab.com/products.htm
Here you can find other demo.

I love that "harsh twang" (most noticable in the second AP preset). Sounds very expressive and downright ballsy!

According to here it has a triple-sensor action - does the Physis also have triple-sensor?

Greg.

Thats one sharp keyboard!!

Weighted Physis also has triple sensor. It's almost certain the same keyed.

Mmm, I remember having seen this site before (with the printboard layoutI assume while dissecting the specs of another digital instrument a while ago. Can't remember exactly what it was.

Question is how Studiologic claims to have over 1GB of sample data onboard, whilst this board only has the max capacity for 128MB. That would mean almost 1:10 data compression, which doesn't sound too good to me. for comparison , that would mean about 150kbps , or average mp3 quality. Interesting. How much is marketing gimmick and what of this 1GB (uncompressed equivalent?) is true.

Nevertheless I found the first grand preset quite good on the demo. Hope too hear more soon. Best is some notes or chords that they let die out completely , without pedaling (keeping hands on the pressed-down keys). Gives a nice indication of the decay, sustain phase and the looping (if audible).

I was wondering the same thing. In fact, when I owned the Numa Piano, one of the first things I noticed was that the soundpack update file was around 120MB, as opposed to Studiologic's claim of 1GB for the internal sounds. It seems like there is indeed heavy compression involved. I believe that Korg's claim of 3.8GB for the Krome may be subject to similar qualification.

Did we ever determine that the update actually changed the piano samples? I could be wrong or mis-remembering, but my impression was that the update altered many parameters yielding numerous sonic differences, but did not actually load a new set of samples.

120mb is a pretty large update without containing any sample data though...

Yes, I agree.

And in any event, if the main board is limited to 128MB, as now seems likely, the claim of 1GB has to mean, logically, that compression is involved.

Yes...and lots of it (data compression) !

Question is if you notice it, but at least it gives you doubts about the quality and marketing strategy. I know of data compression being used in multiple brands and boards, but they usually range from 2:1 to max 4:1.

If a StudioLogic representative could chime in to clear things up, that would be welcome. Kawai and Casio have some presence here to answer questions, so why don't others join in. It may help...

By the way, Kawai also gives no details about the exact ROM size that is used for the samples, but at least they neither make bold statements like 1GB Piano's. For the Numa Concert it should then be at least 500MB with lossless compression to forgo the impression that they're cheating the customer here...

Perhaps they meant 1 gigabit?

James
x

Maybe they did, but it's not a common term in the non-nerd world (no standard retail products I can think of use 'bit rather than 'byte), and would undoubtedly cause confusion.

Edit: the only example that comes to mind is when internet service providers measure their upload/download speeds in kilobits per second.

Wonder what the reviews will tell us of people who can try the Concert at the Messe.

That would make sense: 1024 Kbit = 128 MB (fits exactly).

However it is indeed not common among instrument makers to give specs in Kbit instead of MB's. So if this is true , it is a real nasty misleading piece of marketing , although technically it may be listed correctly (if it is indeed Kb instead of MB).

The first grand preset sound quite good to my ears though, no matter how many MB's. Mostly because of the resonance effects.

Perhaps the base samples are not the most interesting part of a convincing AP sound, but a lot of it depends also on the 'acoustic effects' algorithms. E.g. the Kronos has a few good piano sample sets, but lacks good processing algorithms for smooth blending between velocity layers (that's we're PHI shines) and has no resonance effects at all, apart from damper resonance samples. That's we're it lacks in authencity and 'playability' , despite good long base samples.

GB is gigabyte, Gb is gigabit. Which does Numa use to describe their sample size? (Not that that would be definitive, either... this is Numa we're talking about. I wouldn't necessarily count on typographic accuracy. But if they used Gb, that would lend support to the idea that they're talking about gigabits.)

GB

€ 1727 @ MusicStore - estimated delivery time ; 10th of April. (Although that date means nothing , cause MusicStore notoriously changes the expected dates all the time).

IMHO > € 1700 is pretty pricey. FP7F (and upcoming successor?) is in that range , and a VPC + extra controller for mod wheel and such is still cheaper as well. Of course you then have to add the computer in the equation, but most often people have a computer already anyway.

For < € 1500 it would be more interesting - at least to me. After all it's studio-logic, not Yamaha, Roland, Kawai ...or it has to be really really d... good. There's still way too limited info to judge that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tXG5fixCKXU

Judging from his text it seems the piano sound will spill over to the Numa Piano in an upgrade. That also means it's probably indeed 1 Gbit (128MB), like in the Numa Piano and not GB.

Furthermore the local MusicStore price is € 1699 (incl 21% VAT), which is more than the list price in Italy for € 1499 (what's the tax in Italy ?)

One more video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIeisYUq-04

Thanks. Don't really likes what he plays (a normal classical piece please - instead of fake jazzy nonsense ?) , but I still like the sound !

The sound appears much different than in the first video posted. Could be a question of recording and eq...

What's normal? You?