NOTE: This Ableton Live Pack will most likely NOT work out of the box. You'll need to do some reconfiguring. You will be expected to know how to hook your Nord Drum 2 up to your MIDI interface and how to configure Ableton Live's MIDI settings.
Installation
1) Download the ZIP file attached to this post and extract it to your local disk.
2) Start Ableton Live.
3) Double click on the ALP file or select "Install Pack" from the File menu in Ableton Live and find it on your disk.
4) In each of the 7 MIDI tracks there are External Instruments, reconfigure each of these for your particular MIDI interface device and ports. I kept the MIDI channels standard so unless you changed them on your Nord Drum 2 there should be nothing to do here.
5) Read the notes on the Drum Rack I created below, you may need to reconfigure the Drum Rack to match your Nord Drum 2's settings.
6) Make some music.
I'm going to explain a couple things just so you're aware of how it works and what the issues are.
Here's what the session view looks like:
I'll just go from left to right:
NordDrum: This is just a grouping of all the tracks
ND-M-Global: MIDI track with my own Drum Rack made for the Nord Drum 2, sends to the global MIDI channel 10.
ND-M-1: MIDI track that sends to Channel 1 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 1)
ND-M-2: MIDI track that sends to Channel 2 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 2)
ND-M-3: MIDI track that sends to Channel 3 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 3)
ND-M-4: MIDI track that sends to Channel 4 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 4)
ND-M-5: MIDI track that sends to Channel 5 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 5)
ND-M-6: MIDI track that sends to Channel 6 on the Nord Drum 2 (MIDI channel 6)
ND-A: Audio track for receiving a stereo signal from the Nord Drum 2
ND-A-Left: Audio track for receiving a mono signal from the left channel of the Nord Drum 2
ND-A-Right: Audio track for receiving a mono signal from the right channel of the Nord Drum 2
You can use as many or as few of these as you want, I went for the "kitchen sink" approach. For most purposes, only ND-M-Global and ND-A are required for sending MIDI to and recording from the Nord Drum 2.
ND-M-1 through 6 are for sending MIDI note or CC data to individual channels on the Nord Drum 2. You can use this to play a channel melodically (though monophonic). You can also use it to change the sound over time using MIDI CC. Refer to the Nord Drum 2 manual to find the table of CC# to parameters, it's all in there.
ND-A-Left and ND-A-Right are handy if you want to treat the outputs on the Nord Drum 2 as two mono outputs. That way you can have different effects chains for both. Then on the Nord Drum 2 you change the Pan setting on each Channel to be either 20.0 or 0.20. Don't think of this as "stereo", think of it as two mono outputs. You could for example make a nice bass sound on Channel 6, pan it to the right, pan the other Channels left, then in Ableton put a reverb or an amp or anything else on the right channel to give the bass sound some extra presence or to EQ it, whatever you want to do.
Below is the Drum Rack I created:
Have a look at the Chain list on the Drum Rack. I set the Play parameters for each drum in the rack to correspond to the MIDI notes I set up on the Nord Drum 2.
NOTE: I changed the MIDI notes on my Nord Drum 2 to more closely align with the General MIDI spec for drum machines. If I remember correctly, the default setup for the Nord Drum 2 had the notes an octave higher.
Here's what I set all the notes to on my Nord Drum 2 and in Ableton Live:
1: 36/C1
2: 38/D1
3: 40/E1
4: 41/F1
5: 43/G1
6: 45/A1
Please refer to your Nord Drum 2 manual on how to view and change which MIDI notes are assigned to which Channel.
Hopefully this is useful to you all. LMK if you have any questions about this pack. However, if you're unfamiliar with Ableton Live I strongly suggest you read the User Manual or make use of the thousands of Ableton Live videos on YouTube to get yourself up to speed.
Share and Enjoy.
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