Nord Announces Piano – Debut Set For NAMM 2010
Nord has announced the Piano, a dedicated stage piano with 88 keys and a weighted hammer action. It is designed with the performing musician in mind and very lightweight at approx. 18 kg (39.6 lbs), without compromising build quality, sound quality or means of expression. As all the other Nord units, it is designed with a firm focus on extremely fast response and accessibility of every important function from the panel.
There are plenty of memory locations in a bank/program configuration to provide you with a quick access from the panel, to your favorite sounds. You can quickly adjust the velocity response to suit your playing style with a dedicated control on the panel. A Key Transpose setting are equally adjustable, by either saving a transpose setting to your program or by setting a transposition value in real time from the panel.
The Nord Piano comes equipped with several acoustic and electric pianos and harpsichords. Other pianos are available as free downloads from the Nordkeyboards.com website. The sounds are stored in a Flash memory with a 512 MB capacity. This allows you to replace every piano if you wish and the sounds are kept intact in the memory even when the unit is turned off, no loading time is necessary. As always with Nord downloads, the sounds are available for free and easily exchanged by using the Nord Sound Manager application, which runs on Mac OSX, Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 computers. The Nord Sound Manager allows you to quickly organize your programs according to your needs and allows you to create backups of the entire content in your Nord Piano.
String Resonance
Using the Nord Resonance Ready pianos (e.g. the R-labeled Grand’s and Upright’s), you can activate the Resonance feature on the panel, which will add this wonderful acoustic phenomenon to the Nord sound. The Nord crew has gone to great lengths to ensure an accurate reproduction of the acoustic resonance, using the actual sound of the source instrument in an extremely realistic way.
Nord Piano Pedal with extended functionality
The Nord Piano can use the new Nord Piano pedal, providing the functionality of all the three pedals found on an acoustic grand piano. The Nord Piano pedal functionality have been closely modeled to allow you to “play the pedal” in the same fashion as on an acoustic grand. The soft pedal (also known as the una corda) makes the sound significantly softer. The sostenuto pedal in the middle provides the latching sustain functionality that sustains only held notes, when activated. When you activate the sustain pedal, you can hear pedal noise and the dampers being lifted from the strings. The force with which you operate the pedal will influence the levels of the components and you can even add percussive sounds from the mechanism by just striking the pedal itself. With the Nord Piano pedal (or a continuous sustain pedal from another manufacturer) you can also use half-pedaling and other techniques like “catching” released keys with the pedal, a unique feature on the Nord Piano.
Effects, EQ and Amps
Dial in your preferred sound with the effects and the powerful three-band equalizer with sweep-able mid, and save the settings with a quick double tap on the Store button. The effects in the Nord Piano are just as detailed as the piano sounds them selves. The tremolo adds that perfect vibe, the pan sweeps across the stereo panorama, and the auto-wah brings out the funk in you, like never before. Other available effects include a phaser, a screaming flanger and a lush chorus. These modulation effects are modeled from a couple of highly desirable vintage effects.
The Nord Piano Speaker models faithfully reproduces the overdrive response of different amplifier/cabinet combinations, lending your sound that authentic feel. Select the desired speaker model – Small, JC or Twin – and use the Drive knob to add powerful tube amplifier distortion to your piano sound. Even the slightest amount will make a big difference to the sonic character.
Features:
» 88 keys, weighted hammer action
» 6 selectable categories of pianos – Grand, Upright, EP Tines, EP Reeds, Clavinet & Harpsichord. Each category can contain several different types. Stereo pianos can be played back in mono
» 512 MB is available for the pianos
» Each and every piano in the Nord Piano is exchangeable by the user. New models can be uploaded to the Nord Piano using the Nord Sound Manager application
— Effects Section
» Effect 1 – pan, tremolo, auto-wah, three selectable depths for the pan and tremolo, rate controlled with the Effect 1 Rate knob
» Effect 2 – phaser, flanger and chorus, three selectable depths, rate controlled with the Effect 2 Rate knob
» Comp/Amp – three amp/speaker simulations and a compressor, drive/compression amount controlled with the Drive knob
» Reverb with six algorithms – Room 1 & 2, Stage 1 & 2, Hall 1& 2, Dry/Wet control
» Three band EQ, with sweepable mid. +/- 15 dB gain/attenuation
Connections:
» 2 Audio outputs L & R – ¼”, 6,35 mm jacks, unbalanced
» 1 Monitor input – 1/8″, 3,5 mm stereo jack
» 1 Headphone output – ¼”, 6,35 mm stereo jack
» 1 Piano pedal input – ¼”, 6,35 mm jack
» 1 Aux Switch pedal input – ¼”, 6,35 mm jack
» MIDI In, MIDI Out – 5 pin DIN connectors
» USB – type B connector
» IEC320 C7 power connector
No Pricing or availability has been announced. More information on the Nord Piano.
