Nord User Forum

[mr_jdd]

I have an Electro 4D 61.
I suppose if I had a different Electro with virtual drawbars, I would load a patch, and the LEDs on the drawbar control would display the settings.
But of course on the 4D you can't do this. So I'm stumped trying to discover what drawbar settings are used in a particular patch.
Does anyone have a good way to do this?

Thanks,
JD

[stiiiiiiive]

Unfortunately not, I’m affraid.
I play a NE4D as well and used to play a NE3-73, and when I switched, I was surprise there was no way to do so.
There is just a LED -I don’t remember which one- that goes lit when the whole drawbar set is compliant to what’s in memory. I find that not very useful; a drawbar based indication should have been more handy (*).

I don’t want to do this very often I’ve managed to do with my ears as follows:
Load a preset, move the first drawbar and listen the result on the sound. If it removes a little something, move it up until you get the same impression as just before the move. If not sure, just reload the preset et do it again. I’m quite sure you’ll be able to reach the right value in a couple of iteration.
Then, do it for each drawbar.
Seems a bit tedious… and it is if you mean to do this all the time. I think the whole process takes about 20-30 seconds. That’s why I’m doing things only by ear now, trying not to stay attached to some exact match with the memory, trying to reach the right feeling at that moment.

(*) I’m not used to doing that but think I sent a mail to Clavia once to suggest another implementation for that functionality, inspired by the Tech21 TriAC amp sim. On this pedal, you have three footswitches for three memorized settings, but only one set of potentiometers, no motors. When a setting is recalled, the LED in front of the footswitch lits bright. When you move a pot, it starts to blink; the closer you get to the memorized setting for that parameter, the faster it blinks. When you reach the right value, the LED stop blinking and goes dimmed. At that point, you know that setting is compliant with what’s in memory, but others may have been changed. Double clicking the footswitch stores the new setting, voilà. Really, really intuitive.
On the drawbars equipped NEs, instead of having the LED going lit when all drawbars are ok, it would go lit for the last moved one only. Hence making easier to get back to a given set up.

[JXrays]

Hi JD - do you have a computer or tablet device (Android, iPad) which you can connect the 4D to via USB?

I haven't found any examples from a quick web search, but with so many DAW programs and apps around, there must be some way to see the drawbar settings based on the control change messages sent if you just move each one back and foward one notch?

Good luck - hopefully some other 4D players have looked into this also.

[mr_jdd]

Yes, that sounds like a good start. I could connect the Electro to something that will display MIDI data, and then select "Send CC" from the MIDI menu. The upper drawbars are CCs 70-78 and the lower drawbars are CCs 16-24.

[DanielD71]

Could we use the shift button + drawbar to see what is the affected value like we could do with knobs, etc ?
Regards

Update : just saw the screen of the electro 4 61...so I understand now the issue.

[mr_jdd]

I had better correct my last post!
The UPPER drawbars are CCs 16-24 on the Electro's main midi channel.
The LOWER drawbars are CCs 70-78 on the Electro's lower split midi channel.

I'm sure not many other people have both an Electro and a G2, but I solved the problem by building a little G2 patch that uses 18 MIDI control automation modules assigned to the front panel knobs. I will post it over on electro-music.