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Hi all,

By way of introduction:

- I own a Yamaha C3 that sits in my living room. I love it but as you can imagine it's pretty loud and - out of respect for people who live with me - I can't imagine using it - sometimes several hours a day especially during weekends - working my technique, learning new pieces or working on compositions.
- In parallel I have a homestudio in the basement with a decent midi keyboard (Roland A88-mkII), good active monitors (Mackie HR824Mk2) and nice headphones, all driven by Pianoteq. This looks like a nice solution in order to practice without disturbing people, but it has several drawbacks: 1/ the A88-mkII action is pretty good (Ivory Feel G) but not actually comparable to the C3's 2/ Using headphones is ok but I'd like to also actually get the spatial feeling of playing an acoustic piano, which I was never able to achieve with the monitors. Maybe I should try harder on placing the monitors differently, using more of them etc but I'd maybe rather go for a spatial solution already designed by specialists such as Yamaha 3/ It's a bit related to my previous point but I believe that I currently miss as well the feeling of vibrations that is supposed to be provided by the N3X TRS system

So I got to the conclusion that since I have some spare space in my Homestudio I could try and source a used N3X with the following benefits:
- actual grand piano action
- spatial sound but with the capability to control loudness. And even if played loud the sound will probably propagate less widely in the house than the C3's
- TRS vibrations

I however see some cons as well:
- the cost, of course
- the embarked piano sounds that are sample-based and I'm not sure I'll find there what I love about Pianoteq, i.e. the feeling of being connected to the way the sound is generated

As regards the embarked piano sounds/feeling when playing them, I should probably just try and test for myself but there is currently no N3X available in any piano store in my surrounding area (in France). And the only used ones are located hundreds of miles away from where I live and I would like to be able to make up my mind on potential solutions before I get there for a test.

This said, I have 2 questions:

- Do you actually believe that the case I described makes sense as a rationale for getting a N3X? I also considered the Yamaha transacoustic solution but selling my C3 for getting a C3X transacoustic would be way more expensive overall than just getting a used N3X.
- I understand that some of you use a combination of N3X and Pianoteq but how do you actually proceed? I get that the USB link on N1X is ideal but what about the N3X link with Pianoteq? Am I expected to use the line-in input on the N3X? If so, are the N3X internal speakers actually fed the right way with Pianoteq's sound? Should I rather try and "hack" the N3X using an audio card in my Mac to directly feed the numerous N3X amplifiers with Pianoteq multi-channel signal?


Thanks a lot in advance for sharing your experience
Best
Alex

I can't answer your first question; that is pure personal preference. If it were me I'd get a transacoustic

Second question - Dealing with audio on the N3x is fairly easy although you may need to teak the audio out from the Mac to get the sound you like. There are a few options here:

1) USB cable to mac for midi, mini stereo jack cable out from Mac to Aux in on the piano, disable the piano on board tone generator.

2) Midi port out to convert to connect to Mac, mini stereo jack cable out from Mac to Aux in on the piano, disable the piano on board tone generator

3) Yamaha BT Midi adapter plugged into midi jacks on the N3x, Mac receives midi data via bluetooth (using that adapter as the N3x doesn't have built in bluetooth), mini stereo jack cable out from Mac to Aux in on the piano, diable the piano on board tone generator.

Yamaha labels their C positions a bit differently than normal which can create confusion if you're not prepared - middle C for their instruction purposes is C3, the lowest C is C0; disabling the tone generator is the function button + C6 per the manual (so if you're used to middle C being C4, it would be function+c7).

I've done it before both using the the USB cable for MIDI and the Yamaha Midi Bluetooth adapter (MD-BT01) and it works fine.

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I'll indeed need to find the simplest/most reliable way to send midi data to the Mac, probably USB or MIDI cable.

As regards the audio input, I understand from the N3X manual that "The sound via the [AUX IN] jack is output only from the right and left speakers, and not from the center and rear speakers." which means the piano will not attempt to "spatialize" the input from Pianoteq. This would leave me with a tradeoff between either spatialized internal sounds or Pianoteq with stereo amplification only, which is a bit of a shame given the number of amplifiers/speakers built in the N3X. Hence my (silly) idea to try and hack the N3X's hardware to send multi channel audio directly to the N3X amplifiers without going through the aux in.

Anyone already tried this path/"hack" or something else to benefit from Pianoteq sound + spatial amplification on the N3X?

Thanks
Alex

Many pianos can benefit by using Pianoteq in place of the built-in sounds.

But the N3X is a superb piano on its own. Even more so with phones in binaural mode.
Connecting an N3X to Pianoteq is like preparing fine French pastry in a deep fryer. Ugh!

Hi,

After several month using my N3X I do confirm that it indeed sounds superb and I never felt the need to use Pianoteq in place of the built-in sounds. I'm very happy with it.

Thanks!
Alex