Nord Piano 3 review

I remember being very excited when I heard about new Nord Piano 3 (NP3) which was announced at NAMM 2016. I had owned the very first version of Nord Piano, but last couple of years my only Nord has been Stage 2 (76 keys) which is a work horse I still use on most of my gigs. In almost all my latest recordings I have used some of Clavia's piano sound - they have a great piano library which covers the most famous grand pianos from Steinway to Bosendorfer, many different soulfull uprights and great electric pianos. (link here)

Nord Piano 3

So basically with NP3 there was nothing new with sound. My personal reasons to buy it was to get 88 keys, doubled memory capacity (1 GB for pianos and 256 MB for samples) and the best piano action Clavia has been able to give us so far. Other very nice improvement was the new very bright OLED-display. 

I believe for many of us the most interesting question is how good this new piano action actually is? To my fingers it's very good and clearly an improvement over earlier models, but not quite as realistic as my Kawai CS-7's action which is little more close to a real grand piano. On the other hand CS7 weights 80 kg and it's clearly not for gigging. If you want to make more fair comparison with NP3 and Kawai, you should probably take Kawai MP11 (stage piano) for this comparison. More components of real grand piano action makes it bigger and heavier: MP11 weights 32.5 kg and NP3 just 18.2 kg.

NP3 in its place in my cellar

NP3 has triple sensor action which makes it possible to trigger hammers more precisely and more faster. For example, you don't need to release a key all the way up before pressing it down again and still you'll get a sound. This is a welcomed feature if you play lot of fast repetitions. In general I feel that with new NP3 I have more control over different dynamics from pp to ff. Difference is not huge but still I feel that my Kawai CS-7 is more sensitive and perhaps little more heavier. I believe that the some difference in playing feeling come from two things: Kawai has escapement feature ("point of sound" in middle of key press) and more steinwaylike texture on their keys. For some reason Nord decided to not use "Ivory Keybed" which was announced at NAMM 2016. To most demanding piano enthusiasts NP3's keys can feel little plastic. But anyway these things aren't deal breaker to me and my fingers; with my new NP3 I can have best possible digital piano on my gigs and best piano sound on my recordings. One last very good thing to mention is that NP3 action is very quiet. Older Nords were very noisy and therefore annoying to use at home with lower volumes. Time will tell how quiet NP3 remains when it has hundreds of kilometres of road behind.

If I need to say some critical about Nord Piano 3 it's about something that's been there since Nord Piano 1 and 2. First, there's no external MIDI panel which makes Nord Stage 2 very powerful with external MIDI devices. Of course, Nord Piano has MIDI in/out (both traditional and USB) so it's basically possible to play some other gear with it but to be honest it really should have some buttons (at least external MIDI on/off button) and few knobs for controlling external gear. In general I like Nord Piano's simplicity - it's A PIANO and certainly not a workstation! - but because of this simplicity it should have better options to connect it to other gear. My second criticism goes to its sample playback synth which is of course simple and many ways very usable. But in my opinion there's one thing that should be there: a filter (cutoff and resonance and preferably those most basic filter choices). I am a synth enthusiast and to my mind synth without a filter is quite handicapped one. Of course I am not imagining to play killer leads with Nord Piano but any synth pad is quite lifeless without a filter.

More about Nord Piano from Clavia's web site (link).

Kawai CS-7 and search for a best possible digital piano

I'm lucky to have spent time with Kawai CS-7 for six months now, so it's time to write few lines about it. First few reasons why did I buy it. I already had Nord Stage 2 in my cellar, but I began to feel that I needed a more grand-piano-like digital piano for practicing and recording. The idea was also to buy a piano for a stable setup and therefore it was a bonus if piano also looked like a piano. I also wanted to have an instrument which is as easy as possible to use; just switch it on and you're ready to play it. No need for mess with computers, sound cards, mixers and speakers etc.

Roland V-Piano

Before Kawai CS-7 I went through few options. Basically it was a battle of three brands: Kawai, Yamaha and Roland. I must say Roland's alternatives were not very compelling to my taste. I have actually had three Roland RD-models (RD-600, RD-700SX, RD-700GX) so I believe I'm familiar with Roland's pros and cons. To me their "Supernatural" technology isn't perfect (yet). There are obviously some great qualities - no hearable looping or velocity layers - but sound itself can be little artificial and "muddy". In my opinion Roland's keybed isn't same quality compared to Yamaha and Kawai. This ain't surprise; those latter two have long history of manufacturing real acoustic pianos. There is still one Roland model which might have been a real alternative: Roland V-piano. This undoubtedly revolutionary product which was introduced on 2009 was still unfortunately too expensive even when sold second hand. V-piano is a brave concept and many pianists appraise it, but in my opinion soundwise it has same artificial qualities as Supernatural pianos. Also I am afraid that with V-piano there's very little hope for getting updates or general improvement in the model(s).

Yamaha NU1

The most serious competitor for Kawai came from Yamaha NU1. I remember that when I first played NU1 in a local music store this was a first digital piano ever which gave me an illusion of playing real acoustic piano. Or at least very close. It also fulfilled the aesthetic idea of how a digital piano should look. NU1 was also getting great reviews from magazines and internet. To me it was still little pricey. However there was a one crucial point which finally ruled NU1 out. When I played it with headphones I had a strange feeling that I was lacking the full dynamic palette especially when playing Fortissimo. One more thing to notice is that NU1 do not try to imitate grand piano touch, it has upright action inside. Sound is anyway sampled from Yamaha CFX-grand. So basically with NU1 you're playing grand piano with upright action.

In Finland we do not have Kawai reseller so I had to travel to Denmark to test CS-7. Luckily Copenhagen was on our summer holiday trip route! After a short encounter I had a strong feeling that this piano is quite promising to fulfill all the needs I described. Keyboard action felt natural and responsive, basic sound was nice and clear. As a nice bonus I also discovered that there were actually quite broad palette of different sounds, great variety of features (good connectivity for example) and also nice little LCD-screen. But all these extras were still secondary to the best part of it: Kawai CS-7 has a great grand-piano-like action with escapement. It also looked beautiful. Still the price was very reasonable and clearly lower than NU1 for example.

Kawai CS-7

Now after six months of playing CS-7 almost daily, I have a good feeling that my choise was right. Thanks to Kawai, I believe my playing has improved technically and arthistically: piano gives just right amount of resistance to my fingers and very precise response. If I play good it sounds immediately good but when I play badly I get immediate feedback of that too. The feeling is very similar to modern grand piano which is very responsive too. Sound is very good for playing and practicing, but for recording I'd say it's quite good. Now I am comparing it to Nord Piano Library which is in my opinion very good for recording purposes. With Kawai's "piano technician" you can nicely adjust many things: touch, voicing, resonance features etc. As said, there are many nice little extras like chance to MIDI/Audio-record your playing, metronome which can play nice drum beats and audio input (to play with your iPhone for example).