Nord User Forum

[zahush76]

Hi!
NL4r owner here.
Looked in the manual and got confused.
In performance mode i get the 4 slots concept.
But in single/"regular" mode i don't get it. On the one hand the manual says you can use slots B, C and D
by having them reference to other presets, so that you could quickly switch between 4 sounds/presets.
That way you could have your main preset on slot A - and other alternatives on the other 3 slots that you can
switch between on the fly.
In practice i see that when i choose which presets to put on slots B, C & D - it "takes over" and is the same
for all 400 presets. I thought that for each preset of the 400, you could set different slots. But B, C & D stay the same
even if i go for another preset on another bank.

So, am i doing something wrong? Or are they meant to be just 3 "quick recall" presets no matter on which preset you are?

[pablomastodon]

There is a difference between the way the keyed version and the racked version work. On the keyed version, slots are enabled/disabled by simply hitting the respective Slot Button. The racked version does not follow this behavior. On the racked version, all slots will always be active on their respectively assigned midi channels.

Two other things which are important to understand:

1) when not in Performance Mode, the instrument is basically four synths in one; each slot is an independent synth

2) when in Performance Mode, the (up to) four programs are physically contained within the Performance data. That is, suppose you have a favorite super saw synth stored to program location 3:14. When you load that program into a performance, the performance takes a snapshot of that program and stores it independently. Thus, it is possible to further edit the 3:14 program without altering the content of the performance, and similarly possible to edit those parameters within the performance without altering the content of the original program.

Bless, Pablo

[zahush76]

Two other things which are important to understand:

1) when not in Performance Mode, the instrument is basically four synths in one; each slot is an independent synth

I know. The problem is that i thought that these are 4 independent synth indeed, and that for each preset when not in performance mode - i can have different presets on each slot, which i can take ("snapshot") from anywhere from the 400 single presets. It turns out that only slot A is different for each preset - while slots B, C & D are the same on all presets in single mode. I thought it's possible to have different ones for each preset.

[pablomastodon]

You continue to misunderstand...firstly let's use the word "program" since that's what the midi spec sez (personally I prefer "patch" and to not be a conformist, but in the interest of accurate worldwide communication across many different languages...)

When in Performance Mode, moving from one Performance to another will generally change the contents of all four slots simultaneously. A Performance contains (up to) four programs at once.

When in Program Mode, each Slot is completely independent. Changing programs on one slot will have no effect on the contents of the other slots. If you want programs to change in all four slots simultaneously, you must either 1) be in Performance Mode, or 2) send four Program Change messages at once.

From the front panel of your synth you can change the program content of any slot by simply dialing it in. If you are changing programs from an external source by using program change messages, you MUST ensure that your midi channel settings on your four slots are unique. If all four slots are set to the same midi channel, then sending one Program Change message on that channel will cause the same program to be loaded to each of the four slots and it will appear that they are not independent. They ARE independent, but need to be set to independent midi channels to behave that way.

Bless, Pablo

[zahush76]

You continue to misunderstand...firstly let's use the word "program" since that's what the midi spec sez (personally I prefer "patch" and to not be a conformist, but in the interest of accurate worldwide communication across many different languages...)

When in Performance Mode, moving from one Performance to another will generally change the contents of all four slots simultaneously. A Performance contains (up to) four programs at once.

When in Program Mode, each Slot is completely independent. Changing programs on one slot will have no effect on the contents of the other slots. If you want programs to change in all four slots simultaneously, you must either 1) be in Performance Mode, or 2) send four Program Change messages at once.

From the front panel of your synth you can change the program content of any slot by simply dialing it in. If you are changing programs from an external source by using program change messages, you MUST ensure that your midi channel settings on your four slots are unique. If all four slots are set to the same midi channel, then sending one Program Change message on that channel will cause the same program to be loaded to each of the four slots and it will appear that they are not independent. They ARE independent, but need to be set to independent midi channels to behave that way.

Bless, Pablo

So in program mode you can't use the 3 slots as quick access buttons to different patches. Sort of quick "favorites". I guess i was wrong. Which makes the point of the slots in program mode a bit unclear to me.

[pablomastodon]

You CAN use it that way if you have the KEYED version of the instrument, but the rack unit works differently by design. I believe that the thinking behind this is that folks who buy rack units will very likely have those rack units placed somewhere outside of an arm's reach and therefore want to primarily control things via midi and not by pushing slot buttons on the front panel.

Bless, Pablo

[zahush76]

You CAN use it that way if you have the KEYED version of the instrument, but the rack unit works differently by design.

Well then, if they would have bothered writing that little detail in the manual, they could have saved me a lot of valuable time trying to figure this out for nothing.

[curvebender]

Or, you could have just thanked Pablo for taking HIS valuable time to figure it out for you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jfenton]

When it comes to midi behavior, no matter how much I read a manual, I always find little "surprises" when working with a given instrument. Nord's midi documentation is pretty sparse (however more intuitive) than most.


IMO, I think every knob, button, slider etc on any instrument, should have a way of to control the same function via MIDI with the possible exception of setting up midi config itself.

I haven't found one yet that does.

And yes, I agree. Pablo is the messenger not the designer so don't shoot the messenger. I've always found his advise quite helpful!

[zahush76]

I'm not shooting the messenger. I advise you to read my post again.