Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Best PIANO sound -- Nord Piano 2 or Roland V-Piano

I've been experimenting. I'm using Mocha VNC right now, and will try (Real) VNC Viewer soon. It really boils down to personal preference on how you like to make mouse movements and move around the Mac desktop on the iPad touchscreen. There are so many VNC iPad apps for controlling a Mac its almost ridiculous. I don't how to pick the "best" but I only want to use one that is pure VNC and works with the Mac built-in VNC Screen Sharing, i.e. not one that requires a proprietary server program to be loaded on the Mac.

BTW, I'm currently using an iMac for my pianos, but it's 2 years old so I'll be giving it to my grand-daughters and switching to the Mac Mini/iPad. I currently do all the piano iMac setup using VNC Screen Sharing from the Mac Pro in my den anyway and seldom use the keyboard sitting next to the iMac and only use its mouse to control the piano programs while I'm playing.

Thanks for sharing that. There is an unreasonable profusion of these VNC apps floating around.

The combination of Mini/iPad/software piano with the right keyboard is extremely appealing. I'm pretty certain that's the direction I want to go next. Looking forward to NAMM for some good news about MIDI controllers.

Regards,

B.

Few points:
1) What's most important for you? Do you want a playing experience more similar to playing a grand piano, or, do you really like a particular sound? Sound is very subjective. I've grown up with the Yamaha sound and picked the Tyros 5 grand piano in a blind test in comparison to Nord Stage 2, which was quite a surprise to me. Blind test: Nord vs. Korg vs. Roland vs. Yamaha piano sounds

2) For best comparison, you'll need to wear expensive headphones. As even top quality headphones vary in how they suit an instrument like the v-piano/AvantGrand/Nord P2 etc, that might take a bit of research.

3) Playing around with digital EQ's, DSPs, and other effects parameters is a great way to improve the sound to match your taste.

4) The basic v-piano out of the box isn't tweaked. By changing the parameters to remove the perfection (how each note is exactly perfect, homogeneous), you can vastly improve the sound. However, if you don't like the quality of the sound, tweaking won't make a difference. It is difficult to go to a music store and tweak a v-piano; however, some people have posted their alterations online, for instance: v-piano tweaking .

5) What are you going to do with the stage piano you buy? Are you gigging or just playing at home? If it's a home piano, you could also try the Kawai MP11, that has a nice action and can be tweaked to sound pretty competitive with the Nord.

Leaving the cost out of the equation, first ask yourself what you want, what's important to you? Is it action, dynamic response, or sound? You could always buy a second hand v-piano if you decide you like it. I actually like the sound of the V-piano, but am not too keen on the Supernatural Roland grand piano sound. The Nord samples are good and the action reasonable (not great, but ok). What's cool about the Nord is the layout of the nobs (for live performance) and effects you can apply. I had good fun for about 40 minutes playing with the Nord's effects at the store. A V-piano is more fun to play as a piano, more involving, but needs to be set up well to appreciate. Also, the V is a bit of a beast to carry around.

zombie thread. Interesting what OP finally did?

This is an intriguing comment because, first, this is a thread about two digital pianos, not involving VSTs at all. And, second, because in your footer note, you claim to have an M-Audio controller and Ableton, a very complex and advanced virtual studio itself.

Whereas there are lots of people on this forum running VSTs with a basic Yamaha or Casio DP and Galaxy Vintage D or Pianoteq, say, in the computer - I'm not sure they count themselves as 'tech wizards'.

Maybe 5-10 years ago, however I don't believe this is the case today.

Most modern computers are powerful enough to run virtual piano software out of the box (using ASIO4All for lower latency under Windows), while controllers can be connected with a single USB cable - it's very much plug & play.

Cheers,
James
x

Just to be clear, I think the Nord piano doesn't have aftertouch, but the Nord stage 2 does. Also, I don't know if mine is typical, but my nord stage 2 requires an ungodly amount of force to get the aftertouch to activate. It's very unpleasant to use, not comfortable at all.

You might want to consider the Kurzweil Forte if you're looking at boards in this price range. Blows them both away imho.
(I'm biased, I worked on the Forte.)

Here's the review from Keyboard Mag:
http://www.keyboardmag.com/combo---do-all/1191/kurzweil-forte-reviewed/49389

Audio demos:
http://kurzweil.com/product/forte/audio/