Nord User Forum

[anotherscott]

I will say that I think the small Nord knob is much easier to manipulate quickly than the large jog-wheel style of the Kurzweil (and Roland VR09), and Nord has programmed it well so that it responds naturally to different velocities.

Still, I like to have super-quick access to a handful of my most used sounds. So I've set up a Set List "song" in location 1 called "Pno Rhd Wrl B3" which gives me 4 buttons for (surprise!) piano, rhodes, wurli, and B3; and then one "knob click" away, "song" #2 ("Hps Clv Vb Str") gives me harpsichord, clav, vibes, and strings. So that's 8 sounds pretty much immediately available, either with just a button press, or with a quick knob-click and a button press. The display above the buttons always reminds me whether I'm on song 1 or 2 and tells me what sounds are currently assigned to the four buttons. I think this arrangement will work well for its intended use. I'll still set up some other auxiliary song locations for secondary sounds and song-specific patches, and I'll probably want to create some different sets for alternate uses of the board (i.e. when I may play with a different group, or when I use it as a top-board vs. a bottom-board of a pair, etc.), but a lot of the time, I think the ability to get to these "bread and butter" sounds this efficiently will be helpful.

[10jed]

Thanks for all the replies - much appreciated. Finally received and unboxed my 5D today and started fiddling with it.

One immediate question (where the manual comes up short), is I will for now play through a single speaker. There appears to be a Mono setting, but the buttons near it don't toggle it on. How to I globally set the unit to Mono so I'm not losing something by using a single speaker cable?

[10jed]

Also, can someone please identify a stock program to recommend which gives a good Fender Rhodes emulation? Thanks!

[anotherscott]

One immediate question (where the manual comes up short), is I will for now play through a single speaker. There appears to be a Mono setting, but the buttons near it don't toggle it on. How to I globally set the unit to Mono so I'm not losing something by using a single speaker cable?

There is no global mono mode per se.

The Mono button is only for the pianos, so you have to have Piano assigned somewhere (either Upper or Lower) in order to get that button to illuminate (and then it only affects the piano sound).

In the System menu, you can select OUTPUT ROUTING MODE and that will create two separate Mono outputs, one for the Upper sound and one for the Lower sound. So in a way, that's a Mono mode, if you're playing only one sound at a time (i.e. using only Upper or only Lower).

Otherwise, you could take the L and R outputs (with or without changing OUTPUT ROUTING MODE) and put them into two channels of your amp (or mixer, panned together) and that would also combine them to mono.

Or you could just plug in one of the two output jacks and ignore the other one, which usually works fine. Organ and most sampled sounds are mono anyway. Piano isn't, but the Mono button takes care of that. Most of the "stereo" of the board comes from the effects, and in general, a stereo effect that is somehow processed into mono is not necessarily superior to leaving it in stereo and just using one side of it. Probably the only effects that really suffer are ones that specifically depend on positioning, like auto-pan, but that suffers no matter how you turn it into mono. If you use one channel, the sound will come and go. If you combine the two channels into one, it will basically sound like there's no effect at all. Which is worse? It's kind of academic. Just don't use the pan effect if you're playing in mono.

ETA: p.s. - the rotary effect on the organ sounds just fine using just one side. I'm not sure if it would sound better or worse or just different if you took the two sides and merged them...

[anotherscott]

Also, can someone please identify a stock program to recommend which gives a good Fender Rhodes emulation? Thanks!

The fact that no one agrees on what the best Fender Rhodes sound is is one reason the E5D ships with seven entirely different sampled Rhodes pianos.

The best thing is to just enable the Piano section (on either Upper or Lower, enabling nothing on the other), hit the top button in that section (category select) until EP1 is illuminated. Then the next button down will let you select the model, you can go through all the different basic Rhodes sounds just by hitting that button (the category also includes a handful of other EPs, like Wurlis, but most of them--the first seven, as shipped--are Rhodes). Just to hear them all straight to start, you probably want to make sure any effects and EQ are off.