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Dangerous stuff that... at some point, a pencil inside the piano could do serious damage.

I keep my pencil on the table behind me when the piano is open. If you don't have anything else to put the pencil down, you might get a mechanical one, and teach your 9 y/o to clip the pencil to his shirt pocket or collar or whatever, when not in use.

Thanks JoBert! Today I updated the SW and the process worked well. But honestly I don't feel much difference. I am convinced now, this is THE BEST DIGITAL PIANO in the world. And I can say that with conviction, after owning an Avantgrand N2 for 10 years.

I don’t want to rain on your parade, but the best digital piano in the world is the N3X; granted, your Novus ain’t so bad.

Congrats rmnd and frosas! Glad it worked out.


I believe the N2 has exactly the same action as the N3X and shares a few features that are not on the N1X. It even has a soundboard resonator.

It seems doubtful frosas would prefer N3X over the NV10 given that they owned the N2 for over 10 years:

For me the most important factor is the action. N2 and N3X have the same action. But it is maybe a personal taste. So, for me, the NV10 is the best digital piano in the world. Like for my mother I was the more beautiful baby in the world.

Nah, I doubt that. The chance of damaging anything there on the key sticks is very low. And even if it happens, it won’t be anything that a piano technician couldn’t repair easily. I’m sure there have been thousands (if not millions) of pencils lost into pianos. The piano won’t explode, that’s for sure.

You guys, the N2 is a ten-year old lemon; I would appreciate it if you did not compare it with N3X.

Yes, they share the same action, but the similarities end there:

The N3X has newer CFX samples and VRM, and although these might seem like more o’ the same, they’re not; these two upgrades alone make the N2 and the N3X very different instruments; not to mention, the N3X’s amplification/speakers and form factor; hence the N3X is indeed the best digital piano on planet earth!

Truly, I think that it’s the amplification and form factor that gives the N3X an edge over the NV-10.

Now, once the NV-20 is released, things will change; and perhaps the N3X will be dethroned!

What about the N2 made it a “lemon”, exactly? Are you just using that term because you feel it’s outdated?

Back when the N2 and N3 were the only popular choices in this market segment, I honestly preferred the N2 over the N3 because the micro-grand’s speaker/amplifier system sounded unnatural and bloated compared to the real thing. Pity they don’t publish sales figures for individual models.

Yes!

And it’s not that it is outdated that bothers me, but more so the fact that Yamaha is selling the N2 as if it were not; and in the process charging more for the N2 than the N1X. This is despite the fact that the N1X is the better instrument, hands down!

Yes, that’s how much better the ‘sound engine’ in the N1X is, so it doesn’t matter that the N2 has more speakers because the N1X is more musical; it doesn’t matter if the N2 has ‘ivorite’ because this is incidental, and it most certainly doesn’t matter that the N2 ‘vibrates’ because this vibration is unnatural.

So unnatural, this vibration is, that Yamaha decided to tone it down significantly for the N3X, and honestly, the only reason they didn’t get completely rid of it (TRS) is because it still serves some form of marketing purpose, “it’s alive”; only it isn’t alive but rather a vibrating, unnatural thing.

Further on the AvantGrand ‘vibration’ (that’s how much I hate it), Yamaha has now mounted the transducers on the ‘cabinet’ for the new Clavinovas instead of under the keys (AvantGrand) because this is the more natural approach that follows on the principle that the keys do not vibrate in isolation, but rather as an extension of a phenomena that starts deep within the bowels of the instrument (cabinet).

IMHO!

All of these are personal opinions influenced by particular tastes. The N2 is actually a very good instrument which I enjoyed for 10 years. The sound over speakers was fine and I did like the TRS effect. Sound over headphones was poor. And in fact I prefer the NV10 over the N2, because for me the action has more relevance than other factors. For the matter of sound I also have Pianoteq and a pair of Neumann monitors. But the sound of the NV10 is actually a very good one.

Last year I tried an N1X and I found it excellent. The choice is very difficult between N1X and NV10. It depens on how do you prioritize the different attributes. I imagine that N3X is better than N1X and I am sure it is a very enjoyable instrument to play.

Admit it, you immediately felt that the N1X was better than the N2, admit it!

Rmnd, congrats to you as well!


Frosas, thanks for your thoughtful comparisons between these instruments, it's great to see more hands on experience between them. Hopefully your NV-10 will endure for the next decade as long as your N2 did

Thanks all. As for the N1X vs NV10, I don't think anyone can go wrong with either.

Last couple of days I've been tinkering with the native sound in piano mode a bit, any specific settings you are using or tips you might have? Currently I'm mostly using classic, voicing on bright 1 and no damper or fall back noise

Yep, no fallback noise at all (the mechanical action already has it) and very low damper noise for me.

I also only use classical and romantic, most of the other characters have done kind of sound embedded in the key release that distracts me.

I find that Wall EQ and most of the headphone settings aren't useful either.

I've got a pretty sweet Pianoteq setup on the Novus using the Favorite system.

Until now, I had my Novus voice on a Favorite and Pianoteq on a different Favorite. This is achieved by using different MIDI channels for each Favorite.

Pianoteq was controlled wirelessly via touch on iPad. So what was missing? Keyboard shortcuts à la N1X... now on the Novus!

Pianoteq has extensive support for shortcuts via MIDI. Folks like David Lai use a separate controller such as the KORG nanoKONTROL2 to control VIs. I briefly considered a separate bluetooth MIDI controller but I figured it would not be a real improvement over doing it with iPad... it's a separate device to manage.

The Novus can actually send Program Change messages, but you would have to fiddle with the menu to accomplish this -- using the iPad would still be much easier.

It would have been nice if key combos or MIDI sequences could be supported, so for example if the sostenuto pedal could be used as a "modifier" -- Pedal+Key would result in Pianoteq invoking a shortcut.

The solution ended up being the Favorite system!

This time I created a new "Control" Favorite for Pianoteq, but one that only transmits on Channel 3... now I have 88 keys and 3 pedals to control Pianoteq as I wish.

Of course, I still have a full live view of Pianoteq with the iPad, but that's optional except for more complex changes.

My preferred presets are mapped to the white keys in the Middle-C octave... and the MIDI sequencer controls are mapped to the black keys. Pianoteq records everything forever, so it's fantastic being able to play back my latest recording on the spot!

This feels like some pretty fancy interaction between the Novus and Pianoteq. It has all come together so nicely, it's almost a magical thing.

Okay, the Novus is really, really good; there, I said it!

But I’m still calling for a boycott on the N2; this is unless you can get it for the right price which should be about half whatever the N1X is going for, so no more than $4,000.

So walk into that dealer with confidence and let them have it:

“I don’t care about ivorite, TRS, or the aging CFIII, 4K is all you get from me!”


Why, you ask? Well, because outdated tech is sold at ‘clearance’ prices, and if Yamaha wants top dollar then they should release a top -N2X- instrument; otherwise, screw Yamaha & Associates (thanks for the P-515, though; and please don’t increase the price for it simply because we’re ‘picking’ on you, Yamaha, for you see, it’s not personal!).

Now, for those already owning an N2, that’s fine; but I strongly recommend you sell it on Craigslist to some unsuspecting sucker, “it vibrates!”, and then go on to your nearest dealer and get yourself an N1X, or perhaps even a Novus NV5/10!

Seems you stole my brain or something.

I've been working on exactly the same thing.

We "invented" the same setup (with the difference that you run PT on Linux + VNC, and I run it on Windows + RDP), and now we're basically inventing the same control system. I came to it because the Rucker's Harpsichord has this built in: when using the three lowest nodes, it switches registers: lower, upper, both. (There's no sound in the lowest octave in this harpsichord, if you use it in 'authentic mode'; you can extend it by using "extended mode", but then the register switch obviously doesn't work anymore.)

I've also been contacted by the repair center... we're trying to find a date for a technician to come and regulate the keys on the NV-10 that aren't working as well as the rest. After that, I only need to have new prescription glasses, because the NV-10's music desk is farther away than the one on the LX-17, so the sheet music/iPad is blurry now.

Almost there...

Back before COVID, I had a lot of time on common/practice pianos. One time I dropped a pen behind the fallboard and when I took the board off to retrieve it, I found in addition to the pen, a pencel, a couple of post it notes, a gum wrapper, and an ipod! Since then, I have to admit I've occasionally checked to see if there's anything else interesting that gets dropped into these things

With that said, there are not a lot of places for these objects to go. The motion of the keys behind the fallboard is extremely slight, they barely move or wobble at all. It's not like they're bouncing around back there and leaping into the action mechanism. I think most of the time, pencils and pens just get lost and sit back there unnoticed for months/years until the next time the tuner comes around.

That happened to me, too. But in addition to a pencil I found the long-lost corpse of Jimmy Hoffa.

OK, now that is new :-)

Are there some aspects of grand piano design that takes into consideration that items could accidentally fall into the body? You have explained why it's not a big deal. I'm wondering if piano makers, original designers had been thinking of this when they design & build.