From tonysounds@yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 21:29:27 2007
Subject:Re: Nord Stage experiences - Help me evaluate

Yeah, and no.

The Yeah: The recordings sound much better than my monitoring of the piano while playing; and of course since it's in context with the rest of the music, there's a lot more latitude (unlike when i'm monitoring it, where what the player would be hearing would be more upfront).

The No: It's not that I'm into bright mega stage piano sounds. In fact, my go to piano is the Natural Grand in the Motif, which is a general midi program, and is duller than the popular presets like Power Grand, etc.

The real problem with the Stage piano, to me, is this: it has a very hollow midrange with a very fast decay that leaves the piano with no body. (Unlike a real piano.) It just has no girth. I watched some rocking country band open up for us at a festival back in August, and the keyboardist used a Stage through a couple Barbettas. I stood by the mixer, and frankly, while it was okay, the Stage was hardly killing. After about 20 minutes, I walked back by the keyboardist to listen to his perspective with the Barbettas, and it just was not getting it for me.

I spent about an hour at a Guitar Center Saturday (and no one was there!) and played it through a few different keyboard amps, in mono and stereo, and frankly, it bugs me even more. I find the pianos share some samples with the Wurli (layers maybe?) and have this strange overtone. I'm guessing, but that's what it sounds like.

This is a strange beast. And even Keyboard magazine, which really tends to err on the side of its advertisers, had a hard time giving this a thumbs up. Read the review: "quirky" was the word used for the pianos.

It sounds gorgeous through headphones, and I bet will record very nicely, but through an amp, whether a keyboard amp, or nice EAW monitors, I can't connect with this thing, to the point where it just inhibits and affects my playing.

I know my reactions aren't status quo, but I believe they need to do some work on this instrument.

T


Dave Bradley wrote:
The problem people report with the acoustic pianos "cutting" is clearly a
stage hearing issue. Even Tony admits that when he hears back a recording of
the gig, the piano sounds fantastic. We seem to have grown addicted to
bright mega in your face stage piano sounds, while a real piano sounds
nothing like that.

Are your speakers well elevated, or shooting up at you from the floor? Have
you considered a BBE to enliven the high end of the piano without destroying
the sound with treble EQ?

Moe