I recieved my Numa Piano yesterday. I have no logic reason for getting one other than a feeling that it's a very special DP. I don't even need an extra DP...But I guess it's ok to act from the heart once in a while.

Anyway, I was right! This is a special piano. The piano sounds are very good and have a long smooth decay that makes me relax when I play. Something I've been missing always in my DPs. I thought my RD300NX was as good as they get, but IMO the Numa Piano beats it.
I'm a pop/rock player so pedal stuff (other than sustain) doesn't mean that much to me, but this would be an even better dp if it had that. Especially the 'pedal noise' that I enjoy when playing my Roland...
I really thought the Numa Piano would be a gigging piano and that it would fall short when playing with headphones at home. Stoked that it's both! It sounds absolutely fantastic through my AKG 240s.

Thank you all for the many posts in this thread!

Welcome to Club White, Thomsurf! I'm glad that you're happy with the purchase - it's always nerve-wracking when you buy without the chance to try the instrument first.

I assume that you're running on the original sounds, and haven't updated yet. I still wish I could reload the original main piano as one of my sounds, as it's quite different from the updated one, and has a charm of its own.

Please do keep us posted as you get to know the Numa.

Thanks VP.
I assume that it's the original sounds I'm using. I don't think I will update these as the first preset is a killer piano except for the fact that the lower keys could be a bit louder, especially the second lowest 'g'. Anybody else experiencing this?

Congrats on the new purchase! I'm still really digging mine and am looking forward to seeing how far they (designers & programmers) take this unit. I must admit that it was nerve wracking before they got the instability issues worked out wondering whether or not it would lock up on a gig, but I'm pretty sure (hopefully anyway) that those days are behind us.
I really enjoy playing both the Numa piano & organ and am thrilled that there are finally keyboards on the market that sound great and don't break your back or your wallet.

Thanks Tom...
I had my first rehearsal yesterday with the band. I have NEVER experienced a DP that sounded that good in the mix. We're talking the worst circumstances here: Crappy PA and a guitarist that's way too loud ; Hooray for the Numa. It's cuts through and 'sings' in a way that makes it a joy to play. I'm happy.

I just wish that Studiologic/Fatar would support their customers. I have written three emails to Studiologic, and one direct to carlo.maffei@fatar.com and received not one reply.

I need to be able to revert to the original soundset/firmware, and have not discovered any way to do this. I have another small glitch with the latest firmware whereby the piano will occasionally play random notes with indefinite sustain. The original firmware seemed to be pretty solid by comparison with later offerings.

I have also tried American Music and Sound, as well as the supplier, but to no avail.

I really like both my Numa Piano and Organ, and think the concept is great. Why will Studiologic not support their gear? It seems that this pathetic unwillingness to communicate with their customers will damage them in the long run.

That's a shame to hear voxpops! I'm still really interested in the Numa Nero or, as discussed in another thread, just getting the TP40 Wood action and buying a PNO Midi strip and something to house the keys in to make a portable controller. It's to bad they wont respond and stand by their product.

This is one of my main concerns with Numa anything. Studiologic has a long history of buggy software and no support. So if it does what you need out of the box, great. But if you hit any glitches, don't expect any fixes or any help. I'm not saying that people shouldn't buy them, but it is an issue.

why not say people shouldn't buy them? customer service is a critical part of any business- we should NOT tolerate corporate arrogance or incompetence from those whose products we buy. That is plainly and simply the beauty of the free market, you vote with your wallet. if nobody buys Studiologic stuff- then somebody will wind up buying Studiologic the company and will fire the stiffs who create such an atmosphere.

Sounds like I should stick with the original firmware. Don't want to risk anything. I agree that non existing customer support is unacceptable and needs to be addressed, I guess some companies in some european countries tend to a different business 'culture' than what you Americans are used to.

I think, at least for the time being, it would be sensible to stick with the original firmware. I really liked the main AP and EP in the original, although the output levels were slightly mismatched between APs and EPs.

As for customer support, I know I don't speak or write Italian, but I'm of the opinion that all customer emails deserve the courtesy of a reply.

Ok. I guess having a Numa Piano without flaws was too good to be true.. My numa piano is acting wierd! When I play a note and let it ring out it begins to shiver like someone is adjusting the tuning. Voxpops and co. Any advice? Btw I'm still running the original software.

Gosh, that's a new one on me. Can you record and post a sample?

Suggestions:
1. Return the piano
2. Upgrade the sounds and exchange one software glitch for another (you never know, you might like the new one better )
3. Contact Studiologic and see if you can get one of their robo-zombies to actually communicate with you (good luck!)

Thomsurf, I'm sorry you're having the issue. As you can see from the above, there's not a whole lot that I can recommend, although it would be interesting to hear the problem. If you do manage to get anything done about it, please do let us know.

Thomsurf, one other thing occurs to me. Could you have inadvertently left one of the effects on, which is now affecting the piano?

I'm finally getting a chance to play around with a Numa Piano. I'm liking it more than I expected, though I'm not sure it would displace anything I have. Maybe someone here can answer some questions I have, though...

Question 1: It shows system version 109. Is that original firmware, or updated firmware?

Question 2: From the manual, it looks like you can create 50 presets that store:
-----
Sound(s)
Pedal-assigns
Layer
Effect(s) - Mix / Amount
Split
Effect assign(s)
Split/Layer-Balance
Free Wheel
Split point
Velocity curve
Octave Upper / Lower
Fixed Velocity value
-----

Conspicuously missing from the list... can you actually not save MIDI Program Change, Bank LSB, Bank MSB, Channel and Octave along with your preset? That must be a mistake, there would be almost no reason to provide the ability to enter that data if it couldn't be saved in a preset, right?

Thanks for your concern, Voxpops.
I've tried factory reset and checked everything else I could possibly think off, including the effects. Nothing seems to solve this... I'm not set up at the moment to do any recording but will figure something out if I can't get rid of this bug.
I'm going to try and download the latest firmware this weekend which kind of bugs me since I like the original piano 1 patch so much. I've found this page but I'm unsure what to download. All three?

I believe that's original firmware/sounds. I'm running 1.19 at the moment (which is the updated stuff).

Yes it can be saved in a preset - at least I know that program change number and channel number can be saved. You can use that to work around the problem of the board changing the program number via MIDI every time you switch internal presets.

Download all three, but you could try using just the data stored in the Sound Bank Pack. However, that introduced the "mute all" bug that was my initial problem with the update. Otherwise, replace the slightly earlier panel/DSP versions with the later ones that are contained in the separate folders. Be sure to follow the sequence set out in the software update info when using the uploader.

yes, it's a real bummer that they haven't at least allowed access to the original number 1 piano, as it has a unique quality that's very appealing.

To all those that are having software/firmware problems, and/or would like Studiologic to allow access to both original and updated sounds, please do email Studiologic:
info@studiologic-music.com
and
carlo.maffei@fatar.com

The more that they receive input, the more likely they will be to act eventually. Maybe.

My profound fear is that a company with super buggy firmware compounded with nonexistent customer support will release a highly portable, fantastic sounding, unlooped DP with terrific keys.

The Studiologic/Fatar team clearly have some great ideas, and they come close to realizing fantastic products, but somehow the system seems broken. The web is littered with tales of woe when using their products. Time for a Japanese (or Swedish) company to buy them out. General Music (GEM - another Italian enterprise) was a similar story. Lets hope the newly revived Crumar brand doesn't suffer the same fate.

That's good, and what I expected. But something that seems really dumb to me is that--unless I'm missing something--you can't use the 12 voice select buttons to choose presets. So if you want to go from your own custom patch #1 to custom patch #9, you have to hit/hold the "Patch Up" button until it scrolls form 1 to 9. That's not very live performance friendly! They should have had a mode where those voice buttons function as ten-key keypad, or where you could change the "bank" and those 12 buttons could be used for your sounds 1-12, 13-24, 25-36 and 37-48. Maybe something invoked by holding the on/off button on that panel, which now just does the useless function of starting the demo song playing. Without being able to quickly change to any other stored patch with just a button press or two, it's not nearly as functional as a MIDI controller as it should have been.

Anyway, I did get to spend some more time with it today. I found the action a little on the heavy/sluggish side for my taste. I'd say heavier than a Casio PX3, not as heavy as a Yamaha CP33/P155. The keys themselves have a nice texture. The piano sound is pretty nice, on the warm side, with a pretty natural decay after the initial attack, and decent dynamics. The Rhodes sound is excellent. The upright bass is fine but the "electric" bass is disappointing. The percussive organ is inauthentic with percussion on every key strike, but it's not bad sounding, and at least there's another patch without percussion too. Kind of nice to hear some "leakage" in it. The leslie effect doesn't duplicate the effect of the top and bottom rotors changing speed at different rates, but apart from that, it's not bad for what it is. I was disappointed to see that, with splits, there does not appear to be a way to pan the two sounds so that one comes out the left and the other comes out the right, something which I have found handy on other boards. The direct, obvious, simple kind of Nord-like button and knob arrangement for all functions is very nice.

anotherscott, the only help the up-down buttons give you is to jump in increments of ten, if you keep them depressed. That is still hit-and-miss, but better than nothing.

Yes, that number-1 piano sound is the one I'm longing to go back to. The upgraded one is not as warmly intimate.

Interesting that the character of the piano sound changed that much with the update. What about the EPs, did they change too? I really like both EPs. They have this odd HF artifact when you really lay into them, but if you just turn the treble down to about 9:00, I think that fixes them nicely.

The updated main piano is bigger, bolder, maybe mic'd more distantly (not sure). It seems to be a completely new sample.

The EPs did change, but not so notably. The new Rhodes has a more even dynamic response. I actually quite liked the spikiness of the old one - you could make individual notes stand out more easily. What I didn't like was that the EPs were at a significantly lower volume relative to the APs in the old sound set - that's changed for the better. The new Clav is much better - faster response, funkier. The effects have also improved. Organs are a little different, but I don't use much beyond pianos and clav on this board.

I agree about the high frequency issue on EPs, but I actually don't mind some impurity in my EP sound. I do, however, dial down the treble.

Today I did the firmware updates. It took a while to figure out since I couldn't get it to work on my Mac, but it worked out when I switched to a PC. I'm now running version 1.19 and the sounds are updated to the latest sound pack. Unfortunately it didn't solve my problem with the shivering notes I mentioned in an earlier post. I did a recording and uploaded it to Soundcloud. Please take a close listen and give a bit of feedback. It's driving me nuts!
Numa Piano Notes

thomsurf...yes I can hear really hear that, you describe it correctly - like it's being detuned ever so slightly, with harmonics coming in and out.

Sorry to go off-topic a moment but I have a question for you as a previous owner of a Roland 300NX. I have the FP4-F, which I enjoy because it's light enough to haul around and the piano sound is good enough to also work at home, playing classical stuff.

Do you think the Numa piano stands up to solo work ie Chopin, Mozart etc? Do you find the lack of speakers a pain? How does the action compare to the Ivory Feel-G of the Rolands shared by the 300NX and FP4-F?

Depending on this I might consider selling the FP4-F and pulling the trigger on the Numa, the saving is not insignificant.

I can definitely hear that, kind of a quivering or fluttering of the pitch.

It could be:
1. the samples got uploaded slightly jumbled,
2. an interrupt is repeatedly hitting the processor and consuming too much real-time,
3. an unstable crystal oscillator,
4. the pitch wheel is unstable,
5. a software bug of some type,
6. etc.

Have you tried playing with the pitch wheel to see if holding it at one extreme or the other fixes the fluttering? Or moving the mod wheel to a different position?

Sounds good to me overall - sounds like the unisons are a bit out, which I like. ;^) The note at time 0:50 does sound a bit wonky though.

Some of what we're hearing there could be the crossfade between the attack and the looped portion. I can't really identify the loops themselves though - i.e - I'm having trouble picking the "period" of the loop, so I'm not 100% sure there is looping, just going by ear. However, I do hear an artifact that sounds like a crossfade.

Greg.

thomsurf, are you sure all of the effects were off when you recorded?

I am surprised to admit I'm not unnerved by the shivering I hear in your clip, I almost sorta like it. There is something natural and unprocessed about the Numa piano sound that makes one forgive imperfections (speaking only for myself of course).