Nord Piano 5 Announced

[ElmerJFudd]

What is their aversion to pitch bend or mod wheel controls?

 

The assumption is piano players don"t want/need it on a board they are marketing for mobile piano paying.

 

So what are we driving at here? It"s a TP-40 variant?

[cphollis]

I'm a huge Nord fan, and have to admit I am somewhat confused with what they are trying to achieve here -- at least from a gigging performer's perspective.

 

What I understand:

 

- A 73 note with a decent weighted action for gigging. Sign me up, please.

 

What I don't understand:

 

- The desire for two piano engines. I have this on my Stage 3, and almost never use the feature. I do, however, sometimes layer a piano-ish sample on top of a real piano if I want a big sound.

 

- Two sample playback engines. Ok, if having to choose between flutes and strings behind your piano sound is too difficult, well maybe. Again, I almost never use this feature on the Stage 3. Besides, you can't do a lot to shape the samples here vs Stage 3.

 

- 2GB of piano memory vs 1GB. If you play live, you rarely use anything larger than "Medium" samples, and a bunch of them fit in 1GB. More than I use across three bands. 512MB was tough on the NP2, though. Ok, maybe I would use this a bit.

 

- 1GB of sample playback memory vs 512MB. Right now, I've got around 100+ samples in my NP2, many more than I'll ever use.

 

- A $500 retail premium for the above goodies (MAP in USA).

 

I will admit, a 73-key version of the Nord Piano 4 would have been mighty attractive when I was shopping. But not at the price of the new NP5. What's even crazier (at least to me) is that $500 more gets you into a NS3 Compact (unweighted keybed) which does a heckuva lot more, including doing a lot more with shaping your sample sounds.

[cphollis]

Additional thought? I think of the Nord piano samples as raw material for whatever piano sound you're looking for. Unvarnished and fresh out of the box, they sound a bit plain like, well, real pianos I've learned to dial in touch, filtering, reverb, compression, etc. and I really like the result.

 

I've learned that if you play live and loud, a piano sound with gigabytes of rich nuance isn't very helpful. A piano sound that has personality and character (and sits well in the mix) is much more useful. Which is why I like the Nord piano samples -- they have distinctive characters, just like real pianos.

[jeffincltnc]

4 layers of Nord sample stacking and rolling your own samples is pretty cool on Wave 2, though. Totally different instrument, but it's easy, fun and most interesting.

[zephonic]

 

What I don't understand:

 

- The desire for two piano engines. I have this on my Stage 3, and almost never use the feature. I do, however, sometimes layer a piano-ish sample on top of a real piano if I want a big sound.

 

 

Two piano engines could be handy for blending acoustic and electric pianos, you know, that LA sound.

[cphollis]

 

What I don't understand:

 

- The desire for two piano engines. I have this on my Stage 3, and almost never use the feature. I do, however, sometimes layer a piano-ish sample on top of a real piano if I want a big sound.

 

 

Two piano engines could be handy for blending acoustic and electric pianos, you know, that LA sound.

 

I do this on my NP4, layer in something like a DX7 tines sample on top of rhodes or acoustic You're right, it's a very useful sound. The full piano sample versions of the digital keyboards are also pretty sweet (multilayer vs single layer) and would make a better layer if there were two real piano engines vs. one piano engine and one sample engine.

 

All that being said, I'm still scratching my head over this product. And I arguably would be in their target market segment.

[AnotherScott]

So the Nord Piano # are Stage # without the "roll your own" synthesizer section?

The piano doesn't include the drawbuttons (organ) either.

Or the external MIDI zones, aftertouch, pitch/mod controls, morphing, separate rate/amount knobs for the effects, and sub 30-lb options.

 

So what are we driving at here? It"s a TP-40 variant?

Yes, presumably same as the Nord Piano 4. On their comparison chart, they indicate no difference there.

 

What I don't understand:

 

- The desire for two piano engines.

...

- Two sample playback engines.

It's a lot more split/layer flexibility, especially with the latter. One example would be LH bass... on the 4, if you pick a bass guitar sound for your left hand, all you can put under your right hand is a piano sound. Now on the 5 you could do strings, brass, whatever... or even a piano+string layer. Two piano engines is probably less significant, but layering 2 pianos with a slight detune can be nice, and it can also be useful to split or layer, say, rhodes and clav, or whatever... That said, when I was briefly cosidering oe of the Nord Piano models a while back, the deal killer was that I could not play the piano from its own keys while playing its sample sound from another board via MIDI, i.e. you couldn't have its two sounds respond to different MIDI channels. I guess my point being that different people need different things.

[Fleer]

I. Want. This.

[jeffincltnc]

The Nord Piano 5 now comes bundled with the triple pedal included, whereas it was previously a $400 add on accessory. That would certainly factor in as a value add to the price differential if you were likely to buy this separately, but I personally do not need one for that price point.

[AnotherScott]

The Nord Piano 5 now comes bundled with the triple pedal included, whereas it was previously a $400 add on accessory.

I think that's a misleading inaccuracy in the comparison chart on the web site. According to the specs for each model, every 88-key iteration of Nord Piano has included the pedal. The only thing new in this respect appears to be that the 73-key HP version includes it, whereas the previous 73 HP version (Nord Piano 2 HP) did not.

[cphollis]

The Nord Piano 5 now comes bundled with the triple pedal included, whereas it was previously a $400 add on accessory. That would certainly factor in as a value add to the price differential if you were likely to buy this separately, but I personally do not need one for that price point.

 

Nope. All the Nord Pianos (2,3,4,5) included the triple pedal. Yes, it's an expensive beastie.

[jeffincltnc]

Got it - I stand corrected! I wasn't clear on the comparison chart.

[stoken6]

I will admit, a 73-key version of the Nord Piano 4 would have been mighty attractive when I was shopping. But not at the price of the new NP5. What's even crazier (at least to me) is that $500 more gets you into a NS3 Compact (unweighted keybed) which does a heckuva lot more, including doing a lot more with shaping your sample sounds.

Chuck FTW. The Stage justifies its (substantial) price through a very capable sound portfolio: piano/EP/clav, clonewheel, samples, VA synth, and also control features like: aftertouch/wheels/pedals, assignlable outs, assignable MIDI (controller and slave functions - Scott's examples above).

 

At the Piano tier, no clav or VA synth, no aftertouch or wheels, and limited MIDI makes it much harder to charge a premium: you've got to really, REALLY want a 73 in red. Still, 5/5 for 73 decent-action keys at a tolerable weight, 2/5 for value.

 

Regards, Mike.

[jeffincltnc]

I ordered a Kawai ES920 today. I probably won't have it for more than a month and I can change my mind between now and then, but there is a 10% price hike or so starting tomorrow 4/1 on all of the Kawai digital and stage pianos so I figured may as well order now. I chose it over the MP7SE to save 8 pounds of weight and I just needed a piano in this case.

[ElmerJFudd]

[video:youtube]

[Fleer]

2 GB almost covers the entire Nord Piano library and that 1 GB of synth memory more or less does the same for the Nord Sample Library 3.0, so I guess Nord finally got the upgrade right.

[Dockeys]

[video:youtube]

That demo tells me nothing about the piano. I"m not in the market and never connected with Nord products (I like the red but I find the interface too cluttered), but what is it with putting up all the information about the board and then have no audio demos on their website 'coming soon' and the video has some wishy washy piano playing in the background?

 

Nord obviously have a large fan base who are going to buy this anyway but do they bother with product demos on their site anymore? Is it something they leave up to youtubers to demo?

 

Agreed with Woodys earlier comments about how they keep blurring the lines between products....the Nord piano and stage are getting closer and closer in what they offer.

[konaboy]

an extra 1gb of storage, is that a feature?

 

Wonder when they will change to use an ssd, fully loaded with the XL versions of all their pianos and the entire Nord sample library, save you messing around with the Manager software, and having to make compromises on which samples you want to load and the quality level?

 

no, it won't slow things down noticeably, the Nautilus has a 40 or 60gb ssd, and loads its (vastly larger) piano samples sets seemingly instantly. I doubt reliability and cost are factors these days either.

 

I think my old Integra was running a 16gb compact flash inside for its expansions. If you're not constantly writing to it much then I think reliability is good and if it does fail, then it's a very cheap part!

 

It's baffling to me.

[Radagast]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

What I don't understand:

 

- The desire for two piano engines.

...

- Two sample playback engines.

It's a lot more split/layer flexibility, especially with the latter. One example would be LH bass... on the 4, if you pick a bass guitar sound for your left hand, all you can put under your right hand is a piano sound. Now on the 5 you could do strings, brass, whatever... or even a piano+string layer. Two piano engines is probably less significant, but layering 2 pianos with a slight detune can be nice, and it can also be useful to split or layer, say, rhodes and clav, or whatever... That said, when I was briefly cosidering oe of the Nord Piano models a while back, the deal killer was that I could not play the piano from its own keys while playing its sample sound from another board via MIDI, i.e. you couldn't have its two sounds respond to different MIDI channels. I guess my point being that different people need different things.

 

WTF is going on with this website? This will be the third time I"ve tried to add the following text.

 

The same question applies. With split and layer capabilities that is all that is needed. See the Numa Compact 2 and 2X.

[TomKittel]

I will admit, a 73-key version of the Nord Piano 4 would have been mighty attractive when I was shopping. But not at the price of the new NP5. What's even crazier (at least to me) is that $500 more gets you into a NS3 Compact (unweighted keybed) which does a heckuva lot more, including doing a lot more with shaping your sample sounds.

 

I think the price range of the NP5 is wildly exaggerated compared to other quality brands. For me the NP5 is out of question anyway since I already own one so to speak in form of my Nord Stage 3 compact with a Studiologic SL88 Grand as secondary board. The Nord Piano samples really shine if played with the SL88 Grand's TP40 Wood keybed. And it's a incredibly flexible setup which combines the best of both worlds, waterfall keys for synth and organ plus TP40 wood for pianos. And this setup features not only two times aftertouch but also two sets of pitch and mod wheels, well, not exactly wheels but controls. ;-)

[eric]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

It gives the player the ability to use two DIFFERENT piano sounds at the same time, whether layered (think of a Rhodes/Piano layer for that "LA" type sound David Foster made so popular) or split (I could use one piano of any type on different zones of the keyboard). I've been using the Nord Stage for over a decade and layering pianos is one of my favorites - often I use an acoustic piano and CP80 layer, or Wurly with a regular piano assigned to control pedal to sweep in some extra punch, for example this is great on The Cars song Bye Bye Love between verse and chorus.

 

Hope that makes sense.

[cphollis]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

It gives the player the ability to use two DIFFERENT piano sounds at the same time, whether layered (think of a Rhodes/Piano layer for that "LA" type sound David Foster made so popular) or split (I could use one piano of any type on different zones of the keyboard). I've been using the Nord Stage for over a decade and layering pianos is one of my favorites - often I use an acoustic piano and CP80 layer, or Wurly with a regular piano assigned to control pedal to sweep in some extra punch, for example this is great on The Cars song Bye Bye Love between verse and chorus.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

It's a useful effect, to be sure. Shift one piano voice by an octave, and all of the sudden songs like Piano Man takes on a whole new appeal. I haven't faded different pianos in and out during a song, but that would be a nice effect as well. Detuning one piano voice is sort of cool, as is putting effects on one piano vs. both, and so on. But you don't need two piano engines to get close.

 

Just to be clear, you get a better version of this effect with two piano (multilayer) piano engines vs. one piano engine and one (single layer) sample engine as found on the NP2/3/4. Even on the Stage with two piano engines, I'll do it that way. And if anyone other than me can hear the difference, I'll give them $20.

 

Just to reiterate, the extra stuff on the NP5 does next-to-nothing for me. Really, if you've got the itch take a hard look at the NS3C, it's my do-it-all gig warrior across three different working bands. The only place it wouldn't work well would be a hardcore synth-centric band, which isn't my thing anyway.

 

If anything, the availability of the NP5 got me thinking about next boards, and I think the answer for me is to get another N3C as a backup, because if my current one dies I am out of business, music-wise. Besides, I've invested the time in really getting it to shine. I expect to spend $3200 for b-stock or similar.

[jeffincltnc]

I have used two layered pianos for an "Elton John" 80's sound as well. Bright Grand + Digital.

[Radagast]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

It gives the player the ability to use two DIFFERENT piano sounds at the same time, whether layered (think of a Rhodes/Piano layer for that "LA" type sound David Foster made so popular) or split (I could use one piano of any type on different zones of the keyboard). I've been using the Nord Stage for over a decade and layering pianos is one of my favorites - often I use an acoustic piano and CP80 layer, or Wurly with a regular piano assigned to control pedal to sweep in some extra punch, for example this is great on The Cars song Bye Bye Love between verse and chorus.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Again, if you have split and layer capabilities, you should be able to select ANY two sounds and layer them. I believe the NUMA Compact 2 and 2X do that quite easily. And that includes any two DIFFERENT piano sounds.

[eric]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

It gives the player the ability to use two DIFFERENT piano sounds at the same time, whether layered (think of a Rhodes/Piano layer for that "LA" type sound David Foster made so popular) or split (I could use one piano of any type on different zones of the keyboard). I've been using the Nord Stage for over a decade and layering pianos is one of my favorites - often I use an acoustic piano and CP80 layer, or Wurly with a regular piano assigned to control pedal to sweep in some extra punch, for example this is great on The Cars song Bye Bye Love between verse and chorus.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Again, if you have split and layer capabilities, you should be able to select ANY two sounds and layer them. I believe the NUMA Compact 2 and 2X do that quite easily. And that includes any two DIFFERENT piano sounds.

 

Nord doesn't work like that.

[analogika]

The doubling of the piano and synth sections is a nice addition, for sure. This makes it closer to having some Stage features (where you get 2x piano, 2x organ, 2x synth/sample).

 

I'm not really in the market for something like this, though I've always been a fan of Nord keyboards going back to the '90s...so if I was revamping my rig, I'd give it some consideration.

 

What"s the point of dual piano engines? What does that give a player that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn"t?

 

 

It gives the player the ability to use two DIFFERENT piano sounds at the same time, whether layered (think of a Rhodes/Piano layer for that "LA" type sound David Foster made so popular) or split (I could use one piano of any type on different zones of the keyboard). I've been using the Nord Stage for over a decade and layering pianos is one of my favorites - often I use an acoustic piano and CP80 layer, or Wurly with a regular piano assigned to control pedal to sweep in some extra punch, for example this is great on The Cars song Bye Bye Love between verse and chorus.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Again, if you have split and layer capabilities, you should be able to select ANY two sounds and layer them. I believe the NUMA Compact 2 and 2X do that quite easily. And that includes any two DIFFERENT piano sounds.

Clavia agrees that this is useful, which is why the Stage lets you layer any two pianos, any two organs, and any two synth patches at the same time. The Nord piano doesn't, because it's aimed at people who don't need or want all that complexity weighing down their choice of gear.

 

But the question was what two separate piano engines give you that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn't. And the answer is: The ability to layer TWO piano engines. Because a single piano engine is, by definition, monotimbral. That is what "single engine" means.

 

Layering two pianos is great for the reasons described above. Also, it's the most realistic way to get the "Don't Stop Believing" sound â layer the same piano twice.

 

I recently did some production work on a track where I layered the Bambino and the Rain uprights, with slightly different EQs, for a rather charming and very dynamic piano.

[Adan]

Layering piano samples seems like something more appropriate for recording than live gigs. And if you're recording then you probably have other ways to do it besides inside your hardware keyboard.

 

I realized this morning that the Nord Grand is only $200 more than the NP588. NG is 6 lbs heavier, but still only 46 lbls. Lots of overlap amongst Nord products, but that's not a problem for the consumer.

 

I've always liked Nords for their stage friendliness. That appeal loses some of it's import for a piano-only keyboard. I think the NP is for folks who just really love the sound and feel of Nord pianos. If you're not one of those folks, you can get much more bang for buck elsewhere.

[Al Coda]

3568,81 EUR (NORD Piano 5 88)

 

3449,81 EUR (NORD Piano 5 73)

 

IMO,- simply just only too expensive for what it does,- at least for me.

 

A.C.

[Radagast]

 

 

Clavia agrees that this is useful, which is why the Stage lets you layer any two pianos, any two organs, and any two synth patches at the same time. The Nord piano doesn't, because it's aimed at people who don't need or want all that complexity weighing down their choice of gear.

 

But the question was what two separate piano engines give you that a single piano engine, with split and layering capabilities, doesn't. And the answer is: The ability to layer TWO piano engines. Because a single piano engine is, by definition, monotimbral. That is what "single engine" means.

 

Layering two pianos is great for the reasons described above. Also, it's the most realistic way to get the "Don't Stop Believing" sound â layer the same piano twice.

 

I recently did some production work on a track where I layered the Bambino and the Rain uprights, with slightly different EQs, for a rather charming and very dynamic piano.

 

So layering two 'piano engines' on a Nord is somehow different than layering two different pianos or the same piano twice on any other digital keyboard? Keeping in mind, the Numa Compact series has string resonance.

[mate stubb]

I recently did some production work on a track where I layered the Bambino and the Rain uprights, with slightly different EQs, for a rather charming and very dynamic piano.

 

This has been my exact recipe for my go to LIVE piano sound for years. I find upright piano to sound better for rock than grand except for ballads. Layering the two pianos loosens the unison and helps cut the mix without having to make it unnaturally trebly.