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).

"Long Release" to Nord Piano!

Good news for all Nord Piano owners:

Clavia finally gave us "Long Release" -function which was, so to speak, a little bit embarrassing to not have. Nord Piano 88 is supposed to be a flagship piano model of Clavia line but this feature was missing. Nord Stage 2 introduced it and then they put it into the newest Nord Electro 3 HP but still their flagship piano, Nord Piano, did not have it.

Fortunately now this is corrected with OS 1.40 update. Long Release gives a new kind realism to this already great(est) digital piano. To be able to use this function you must download also latest v5.3 piano sounds from Nord Sound Library.

Besides giving nice new realism to piano sound, this update has also kind of symbolical value: now all the essential parameters are there and Clavia shows us to pay attention to its customers' needs and wishes. In fact we raised this issue on Nord User Forum (http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-piano-forum-f10/piano-release-t988.html) and Clavia responded with a new update.

Nord Piano is a great product but if I could choose, I'd like it to have at least two improvements:

First, there's no chance to adjust preset volumes. Different pianos with different effects can have very different output volume and still you cannot set up a volume for a certain preset. What does this mean? You have to manually "mix" the preset volumes with main volume knob... This is not a very useful.

Second, Nord Piano is very powerful piano but same time very simple. This means that you'll only get piano from it. Many players would like to use for example a laptop to provide some synth pads or strings under piano sound. Basically it's easy with Nord Piano; it has normal MIDI in/out and also usb MIDI. To me its a pity that Clavia did not put any kind of external section to Nord Piano panel. I am sure that many players would really like to have external midi on/off -button and perhaps some knob to control some midi CC (control change) parameters.

Demos with Bright Grand

We just mixed a little bit further my two songs and I used new Bright Grand with both. Check My Music to hear them. In my own opinion Bright Grand performs well in this type music.

New Bright Grand on a gig

Yesterday I tested this new grand in real life, which unfortunately quite often means bad acoustics and bad sound system. Last nights gig was both. To be honest, I was little disappointed about performance of new grand. Ok, I don't know how did it sound to audience - I only had one monitor; normally I have two to make it stereo - but to myself sound was little metallic, thin and lacking body. The last complaint has been common with earlier Nord piano sounds: sounds can sound realistic in good studio acoustics but on stage they lack body. Perhaps this is the reason why Rolands and Yamahas sound like they do. They aren't the most realistic in natural sense but they give a quite good compromise over playability, power and natural sound. In general I have feeling that the most realistic sound can maybe be the most difficult on stage.

Anyway I have been very satisfied with resent development of Clavia's piano palette: Lady D (Steinway) was the first easy-to-work-with-on-stage -piano. It certainly have this body which was lacking with its predecessors. Also, Grand Imperial (Bosendorfer) has been same class giving more brightness and power than Lady. Let's make further tests with new Bright Grand, if it finds its place on my stage setup. I know very well from past experiences that new pianos need time to play with to make a final judgement. That was case with Grand Imperial too; now it's my first choise piano on stage...

"Bright Grand" added to Nord Piano Library!

Clavia gave us again a nice surprise. They have released a freely downloadable brand new piano sound for Nord Piano, Nord Stage and Electro 3 owners: "Bright Grand" which is obviously sampled Yamaha S4 grand piano. New Grand comes in four sizes from small (44MB) to XL (196MB). I already ran a test with XL-version with my Nord Piano and I must say I am quite impressed. This piano sound is a very nice addition to Clavias new (5.3) high quality piano library which already had Steinway ("Lady D") and Bosendorfer ("Grand Imperial").


To sum it, "Bright Grand" is what it is supposed to be: a modern piano with very bright sound. Now Nord owners have three different options. Softest and perhaps most classical is the Lady D (Steinway). The most punchy and brightest one is obviously this new Bright Grand (Yamaha). Somewhere between those two is the Grand Imperial (Bosendorfer) which is also very bright.

If I had to say something critical about new Bright Grand, maybe it's about the sound you get with lowest velocities. I don't know about the original instrument, but in my opinion sound might be softer with low velocities. This tone color is the most problematic if you try to play soft chords. In other words piano is lacking some expressive power which you have with Lady D or with Grand Imperial. This is probably not that noticeable to rock piano players whose playing is mostly from mf to fff.

It would be nice to know more about the process how Clavia has made these instruments: how did they record different velocities and how much post processing is involved in final sound? Compared to Roland and Yamaha in my opinion Clavia has maybe the most natural (less processed) sound which makes it quite nice for recording purposes for example. Also, you might describe Clavia's sound as punchy, sharp, crisp and bright, which makes it easy to mix on stage and cut through mix. This is true about their E-pianos and organs as well.

Finaly I tried new grand with a MIDI track: check a new version of Tango Untitled (My Music). In fact new piano sound was so bright and "perfect" that I had to put some Logic effects (EQ, piano reflection reverb etc.) to to it to make it less perfect. In general it's very difficult to render MIDI piano tracks made with one piano with another piano and make it sound natural. Tango's piano track was originally made with Roland RD-700GX and I had difficulties to make it sound natural with my Nord Piano. Now it seems to me that Bright Grand can maybe catch the original feeling better than Lady D or Grand Imperial.