Nord Electro 2 Acoustic Piano

[147Keys]

I know the Nord Electro 2 has killer organ and EP sounds, but I've read some concerns about the acoustic piano. The examples of the new piano samples for the Elecro 2 on Nord's website sound pretty impressive. Has anyone actually downloaded the new sounds to their Electro 2 and played with them? If so, what do you think?

 

I've been thinking of replacing the outdated sounds on my Kurzweil PC88MX. I'm looking for good acoustic piano, Rhodes/Wurly and Hammond sounds all in one box. I guess the most important is the acoustic piano, as that's the sound I mostly use for gigs. I was hoping to go the economical route and just buy a module, using the PC88 as a controller.

 

I'm getting pretty tired of the 8-year old sounds on my PC88, and the Elecro 2 rack is definitely cheaper than replacing it with a PC2X or Yamaha S90. And it seems the sounds are more customizable (especially real-time) on the Nord. I guess the PC2R is another way to go, but again, the real-time control isn't as good as the Nord.

 

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!

[Dave Pierce]

Originally posted by 147Keys:

I know the Nord Electro 2 has killer organ and EP sounds, but I've read some concerns about the acoustic piano. The examples of the new piano samples for the Elecro 2 on Nord's website sound pretty impressive. Has anyone actually downloaded the new sounds to their Electro 2 and played with them? If so, what do you think?

 

I've been thinking of replacing the outdated sounds on my Kurzweil PC88MX. I'm looking for good acoustic piano, Rhodes/Wurly and Hammond sounds all in one box. I guess the most important is the acoustic piano, as that's the sound I mostly use for gigs. I was hoping to go the economical route and just buy a module, using the PC88 as a controller.

 

I'm getting pretty tired of the 8-year old sounds on my PC88, and the Elecro 2 rack is definitely cheaper than replacing it with a PC2X or Yamaha S90. And it seems the sounds are more customizable (especially real-time) on the Nord. I guess the PC2R is another way to go, but again, the real-time control isn't as good as the Nord.

 

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!

If acoustic piano is your main thing, you will almost certainly NOT be happy with the Electro. I love the Electro, and even use it as a single board for sit-ins and rehearsals, but I find the acoustic pianos to be barely usable. In fact on sit-ins I use either a Wurlitzer or Rhodes patch where I would normally use a piano, because I'm not willing to subject my audience to the Electro's piano.

 

Don't get me wrong -- I love the Electro, in fact see the "Favorite Keyboard" thread for proof of that. But acoustic pianos are not it's strength.

 

--Dave

[eric]

Review this thread for more detailed info on the Electro's acoustic piano.

 

Electro Piano Topic

 

I love the Electro, but seldom use its acoustic piano sounds. They're just ok.

 

Regards,

Eric

[147Keys]

Thank you for your replies so far. I went back and listened to the Electro acoustic piano examples on Clavia's website, and you're right, they are much better in stereo than in mono. And since I'm not planning on adding a second keyboard amp any time soon, that is how they'll sound on the gig.

 

That said, they are far superior to any of the pianos on my PC88MX, so I may be able to live with them for the time being, especially given the superb Rhodes and Hammond sounds. And no doubt Nord will continue to develop better acoustic piano sounds and offer them for FREE DOWNLOAD (hear that, Roland and Kurzweil???).

 

Besides sound quality, my main concerns are cost and speed of set-up/tear-down. As it is, the drummer in my band has his kit up faster than I can set up my rig, which is sad. So if anyone knows of a single module that offers better piano, Rhodes and Hammond sounds than the Electro 2 in the same price range, I'm all ears...

[Andre Lower]

Originally posted by 147Keys:

...So if anyone knows of a single module that offers better piano, Rhodes and Hammond sounds than the Electro 2 in the same price range, I'm all ears...

Well, I have been asking myself this very same question. I am yet to get a decent answer from someone who has real, hands-on experience with both the Electro and Kurzweil K2600 series (assuming, for comparison purposes, both as rack models). People tend to remark on the fantastic grand piano sound of the Kurz and on the fantastic EPs and Hammond of the Electro, but what about their opinion on the Kurz EPs and Hammond sounds compared to the Electro? Funny enough, both are sample-based, which makes the lack of a comparison made by users of both machines strike me as unusual. Specially considering that the age of the K2600 tends to reduce the pricing gap between them over time. Can Anybody shed some light on the subject?

[kad]

Perhaps I can help both of you...

 

I am a current K2600XS/K2VX/PC2X owner and a former PC88MX owner. Additionally, I have a Nord Electro 73 sitting in my studio as we speak. The Electro belongs to the second keyboardist in my band.

 

First off, don't even consider replacing the acoustic piano in the PC88 with the acoustic piano in the Electro!!! The PC88 piano is WAY, WAY better! As a former PC88 owner, I understand your frustration with the PC88 piano totally. It is a very serviceable piano that works in almost any situation. However, it is not a particularly "exciting" piano sound. For pop and rock stuff in particular, it can sound downright dull at times. However, it never really sounds "bad" - I found that it almost always got me through any musical situation. The good news is that for jazz and classical music, it is extremely effective. Although I play in a classic rock band, I am mainly a jazz player and I always loved the PC88 piano for jazz. The Electro acoustic pianos are, in my opinion, just plain unusable in most cases. Don't be fooled by what you hear in the demos - they really are as bad as everyone says!

 

Now, on to the K2600. In summary, it is the most powerful and awesome-sounding piece of music-making hardware that man has ever created! As you probably well know, the sound-sculpting capabilities of VAST are simply limitless. If you are willing to press the edit button and roll up your sleeves, you will enter a world of infinite sonic possibilities. Add to this the huge supply of third party sample libraries available for the K2xxx series and, well... you get the picture!

 

Now that the Kurzweil sales pitch is out of the way, how do the "out of the box" Kurzweil B3's and EP's compare to those in the Electro? Well, everyone has their own opinion, and the following is mine:

 

Acoustic Piano - WAY better in the Kurz.

 

Hammond B3 - I prefer the Nord. KB3 mode sounds very good, and the KDFX leslies are wonderful, but the Nord is simply exceptional in this area.

 

Wurlitzer - I prefer the Kurzweil ROM 4 Wurly to the Nord Wurly, although both are excellent.

 

Rhodes - The Kurz ROM 4 Rhodes sounds are awesome, but I have to give the edge to the Electro. The Electro Rhodes sounds seem to have more "life" to them, whereas the Kurz Rhodes sounds don't respond quite as well.

 

Clavs - In my opinion, it's a toss up. The good Kurzweil clavs are in the ROM 2 board (whereas most of the good EPs are in ROM 4). The Electro has more options for pickup positions, but the Kurz clav is just deadly accurate.

 

With the Kurzweil, KB3 mode is part of the stock unit, but the best EPs and clavs are in the optional ROM 4 and ROM 2 boards, respectively, which constitutes an added expense. However, you also have the ability to create just about any other type of sound imaginable - you are not limited to just electro-mechanical instruments, as with the Electro. Keep in mind also that if you don't care for the EPs and B3s in the Kurz, you have the option to load in third party samples of these instruments that are more to your liking.

 

I hope that's helpful - good luck!

 

Kirk

[p120dUdE]

The Electro's pianos are horrible. The action and velocity is not ment for piano playing, and the action will give you horrible dynamics if you play piano and EP.

 

p120dUdE

Owner, West Brook Music Studio

[eric]

The Electro's pianos are horrible. The action and velocity is not ment for piano playing, and the action will give you horrible dynamics if you play piano and EP.

You mock what you don't understand.

 

I felt the same way when I first played an Electro nearly 2 years ago. I loved it for organ and had little use for the EPs. I have since become very enamored to playing the Rhodes and Wurlies from the Electro keyboard. Very expressive and funky, in my opinion. The acoustic pianos are not the best in the world, but the piano sounds were more of a bonus on top of the first class organ, clav and EP sounds.

 

Regards,

eRiC

 

P.S. p120dUdE - Do you play in mono or stereo? Just curious...

[BP3]

Originally posted by eric:

P.S. p120dUdE - Do you play in mono or stereo? Just curious...

[Analogaddict]

Originally posted by p120dUdE:

The Electro's pianos are horrible. The action and velocity is not ment for piano playing, and the action will give you horrible dynamics if you play piano and EP.

IMO, I´d rather play piano sounds from an unweighted keyboard - which really isn´t that far from my Rhodes and Wurly when it comes to action - than B3 sounds from a weighted keyboard. And since there are so many different actions on Rhodes pianos out there, saying that one type of action isn´t suitable for Rhodes playing really doesn´t apply. Playing acoustic piano sounds from an unweighted keyboard is something totally different; it requires a lot of re-learning and practicing if you come from a piano background. Of course it won´t be the same, but some of us have other priorities than playing fully-weighted-hammer-action-stereo-sampled-piano-mimicking keyboards all the time.

 

I wonder, if Clavia hadn´t included an acoustic piano sample from the beginning, would people have been happier if it had been included later on with the (now implied) caveat "this is not a dedicated acoustic piano board, but here´s a piano sample anyway, maybe not the best, but still passable for some gigs and/or rehersals."?

 

/J nas

[147Keys]

The Electro's pianos are horrible. The action and velocity is not ment for piano playing, and the action will give you horrible dynamics if you play piano and EP.

I think I forgot to mention that my intent is to play the Electro 2 Rack with the PC88 as a controller, so the action is not a concern, and the velocity seems to have been fixed with the latest release of the Electro software. I'd probably get a MIDI controller with a lighter action to play the Hammond sounds.

 

The PC88 piano is WAY, WAY better! ...The good news is that for jazz and classical music, it is extremely effective. Although I play in a classic rock band, I am mainly a jazz player and I always loved the PC88 piano for jazz.

I am a jazz player as well, and I do NOT like the PC88 for that application. The lows end and high end are fine, but the middle, where most jazz comping takes place, is just horrible. And no amount of EQ seems to fix it.

 

I agree that the K2600 is probably a very nice instrument, but it's a bit, er, overqualified for my purposes. I don't think I'd use even 10% of its potential, and I'm not about to drop $2500 on such an instrument.

 

Thanks again!

[c4]

I have an electro 2 and I definitely wouldnt do a jazz piano gig with it. The piano is passable if you are playing in stereo in a rock or blues band but anything spotlighting the piano like a jazz trio would be quite a stretch...

[Michelle ggurl]

Originally posted by 147Keys:

So if anyone knows of a single module that offers better piano, Rhodes and Hammond sounds than the Electro 2 in the same price range, I'm all ears...

Well, the only other thing I can suggest is to replace the PC88 and Nord with a PC2 plus classic keys expansion. But, owning an Electro myself and loving it, I recognize that might be a hard sacrifice for ease of setup time. If you use organ a lot the Electro's kills the PC2's KB3 mode, IMO.

 

Of course this suggestion assumes you like the PC2's pianos (have one, I do), that you like the PC2's KB3 mode well enough, and that you can demo Classic Keys expansion in person, and like it. I haven't been able to do that yet.

[Nordude]

I own a Nord Electro Rack 2, and I use AcGrand 2 (the stereo Malmsjoe grand piano).

 

I can make it sound nice, although dedicated stage piano's offer better acoustic piano sounds, of course. But bear in mind that most synthesizers have mediocre ac. piano sounds; in this respect, the NE ac. piano sound isn't all that bad, if:

 

* some reverb is added (this makes a difference; other synths have reverb added as a factory preset)

* the piano is auditioned in stereo

 

The mono and dry piano is not very well, but the stereo and reverbed piano sounds good, except for the highest notes (but when do we use those in a pop/rock context?).

 

For classical music, take another instrument, but I wanted to defend the NE piano sounds a bit. They're not that bad at all, IMHO...

[drawback]

I agree with Nordude. The acoustic piano sounds good (agreeably not even in the same realm as my Yamaha P90) enough for combo gigs, IF you add some reverb and use stereo amplification.

 

When I do a solo piano gig I take the P90 - of course it's a whole other application. But the Electro's piano works just fine in a combo, where the sometimes muddy Kurz sound (I have an ME1 Module) just won't cut through the guitars and drums.

 

BTW I had tried the Electro 73 to control the Kurz ME-1. I found it actually to be great - except as a keyboard controller the Electro has limitations. But if you're looking for a more true grand piano sample, in stereo, with reverb, while having those other killer EP & Hammond sounds in a 20 lb package, it's worth considering.

 

I understand you're going the other way, getting a Nord module. I just thought I would add the above as an alternate approach and a solution that might work for you.