Nord User Forum

[sintheticstudios]

Has anyone used these 2 in conjunction with each other?

Id like to do 2 things:

1.) Midi sync up the Nord Lead to Live via Midi Clock so that the Arp's on the Nord Lead are synced to the BPM/Tempo of Live.

2.) Also, alternatively, i'd also like to know, if i drew in midi notes in the piano roll on a Midi track (essentially creating my own arpeggiator, in a sense), how to utilize the sounds/patches on the Nord Lead 1 with the notes i drew in.

Hopefully all that makes sense and someone has an answer.

Thanks in advance!

-Shane

[mjbrands]

Hi Shane and welcome to the forum.

1.) Midi sync up the Nord Lead to Live via Midi Clock so that the Arp's on the Nord Lead are synced to the BPM/Tempo of Live.

The general setup is on the Nord is described on page 61 of the manual. Page 69 also gives more in-depth instructions on setting up your Lead for use with a sequencer.

To set up Ableton, you need to set up MIDI clock output to the correct interface. Open up Ableton's settings dialog and make sure the Sync option is enabled for MIDI output to the interface you're using.



If you wanted to sync Ableton to a MIDI clock (perhaps coming from the Lead), you'd enable the Sync option in the input section instead.

If you've set this up and start playback, you should notice a blinking clock indicator at the top-left of the Ableton window.



If the bottom rectangle next to EXT (yellow here) blinks, it indicates an outgoing MIDI clock. For an incoming clock, the one above that would blink. In this case it is sending a 125 BPM clock.

2.) Also, alternatively, i'd also like to know, if i drew in midi notes in the piano roll on a Midi track (essentially creating my own arpeggiator, in a sense), how to utilize the sounds/patches on the Nord Lead 1 with the notes i drew in.

The image below shows a sample MIDI clip:



The arrow points at the location where you can set the program that should be used for that clip. When that clip starts playing, it sends a program change message for that program (and possibly the bank if you've set that up). As far as I could tell the original Lead only supports 110 programs, but on synths supporting a lot more (like the Nord Wave which has 1024 programs, 8 banks of 128) you'd use both the program and bank fields.

Edit: lots of typos

[sintheticstudios]

wow! thats EXTREMELY informative!! Thank you SOOO much!!

kudos!

-Shane

[mjbrands]

No problem.

[cosmodrome]

Two more things to mention: There's a lomger section in the manual for the Lead, about how to address Percussion instruments and Performances via MIDI. It's worth reading, as there are some pitfalls. Also, it turned out useful for me, to split Lives input channels in Mono1+Mono2 when using layers, or multiple instruments, so you have instruments cleanly separated in the mix. For that purpose you can define multiple tracks as above, each one with an external instrument in it and set them to different MIDI and input channels. Separating layered instruments is similar, just with only one MIDI channel. It's definitely useful, even with unisiono monotumbral sounds, because the native L/R channel distribution of the Lead will cause you all sorts of -literal- headache if you record some tracks and want to mix it down later. A "utility" plugin in each of the tracks won't hurt and might come handy, too.
Also you should be aware that Live does not handle SysEx data - so you have to save and restore Performance setting either on board of the Lead or with some extra software tool. I'd definitely recommend MidiOx, because it is free, well-probed and it has a MIDI-monitor to see what's going wrong if anything does not work as expected.

[mjbrands]

Also you should be aware that Live does not handle SysEx data - so you have to save and restore Performance setting either on board of the Lead or with some extra software tool. I'd definitely recommend MidiOx, because it is free, well-probed and it has a MIDI-monitor to see what's going wrong if anything does not work as expected.

Two excellent points. The fact Ableton can't handle SysEx was a bummer for me, because storing the patches in the song itself makes archiving stuff so much easier.

[sintheticstudios]

i actually found a different approach:

-Hold Shift and hit Midi Ch on the Nord. Make sure its on 1. Hit Shift again.
-In Live, on the Midi track, toss on an External Instrument plugin, set the Midi to 1 and the Audio From to 1.

Bam! Done!

But this is only if i "drew" in midi notes in Live then hit play.

I still cant get the Nord to sync up to the BPM of Live....grrrrr

-Sin