Nord Piano 88 launches at NAMM 2010
| Posted in Music Technology
The Clavia Nord Piano 88 is the latest product launch to have been announced ahead of NAMM 2010, with the promise of taking keyboard players “one step closer to the ultimate stage piano”. Boasting 88 keys and a weighted hammer action plus a dedicated pedal that has been designed to emulate the three pedals found on an acoustic grand, the Piano 88 is already causing a stir a full week before the NAMM show starts.
The keyboard was originally referred to as simply the Nord Piano in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but the manufacturer has now revealed the full name as including ’88′ to reflect the number of keys. The name change may prove significant, having already sparked speculation that a 76 key version could follow later in the year. In the meantime however, players can bask in the myriad features offered by the full scale model, not least it’s relatively light weight of just 18kg, with no effect on the instrument’s build quality.
Arguably the key to the 88′s appeal however will be the amount of instruments it will be able to emulate. Among the pre-loaded samples will be several acoustic and electric pianos plus a number of harpsichords, but users can also pick their own sounds via free downloads from the Nordkeyboards.com website, effectively letting players turn the Nord Piano into their ideal stage keyboard. All of the sounds will be stored in a flash memory with a 512 MB capacity, and according to Clavia no loading time will be required to punch in a new sample library. Some of those sample libraries will also be able to use Nord’s new Resonance Ready function – a user-activated algorithm that adds modelled resonance to the chosen sound.
Also included is a three band equaliser with sweepable mid, while Clavia is promising that the piano’s complement of onboard effects is “just as detailed as the piano sounds themselves”. They include a tremolo, pan, an auto-wah, a phaser, a flanger, and a chorus. All of the effects have been modelled from vintage effects units. Adding yet more hours of play meanwhile will be the Nord Piano 88′s speaker models, which recreate the overdrive response of different amplifier and cabinet combinations. Users will be able to select their choice of speaker model from ‘Small’, ‘JC’ or ‘Twin’, then dial their choice of tube amplifier distortion using the Drive knob.
As for that new pedal, Clavia has modelled its performance so closely on an acoustic grand that the manufacturer claims pianists will be able to “play the pedals” just as they would on the real thing. It’s reportedly so effective that when the sustain pedal is used, it’s possible to hear pedal noise and dampers being lifted. We’ll let you know whether we can hear that when we give the Nord Piano 88 a full review.
About Barney Jameson
A contributor, editor and in some cases creator of more music and pro audio magazines than he cares to remember, Barney Jameson is a veteran of writing about gear, and a pretty keen singer songwriter to boot.
Having started his musical education reading old copies of the Melody Maker while riding the tube to University in the mid-nineties, Barney once sang in a band called Sugarstone, troubling record company chequebooks not quite enough to make it a career option. Instead, he achieved his goal of starting a music magazine of his own when he founded Playmusic in the early noughties. Later on, having exploited VIP access to as many festivals as possible, he wrote about the pro audio industry throughout Europe and the Middle East, travelling to far-flung destinations such as Dubai, Doha and Muscat (nice mountains).
As the latest addition to the DV247 team, Barney has big plans. But when he’s not plotting online domination of the musical instrument world, he keeps himself busy writing songs on a battered old acoustic guitar and playing them to audiences in his home town.
Tags: Nord Piano, Nord Piano 76, Piano 88