Nord User Forum

[turnstyle]

Hi all,

I gather some of the knobs on the Stage 2 are endless encoders, whereas others are pots.

So, as one tinkers on the board, the endless encoders will automatically be "rotated" to the correct position -- but the pots wind up in a sort of "ignore me" state until they are nudged, and then they jump to wherever the knob happens to be.

Is there a logic to how the Stage is using endless encoders vs. pots? It almost seems to me they should all be endless encoders (with those nifty rotary LEDs).

Curious to know if you find the current mix to make sense in practice.

Thanks...

[anotherscott]

It almost seems to me they should all be endless encoders (with those nifty rotary LEDs).

That would be ideal, but it would be a lot more expensive. So I think Nord restricted them to the functions they felt would be most useful.

[turnstyle]

A few more encoders would that much more expensive vs. pots?

Out of curiosity, do you now find the current encoder vs. pot arrangement "logical/intuitive"?

[mjbrands]

The LED rings around the encoders are fairly expensive (the Nord Lead 3 had loads of them), but the encoders themselves are often cheaper than pots. I think that in most cases Nord chose to use pots for knobs that controlled a fixed parameter with a limited range, such as filter cut-off. Especially knobs which select stuff (samples, shape, etc.) use encoders.

With a pot you can feel when you've reached the minimum or maximum value (it won't rotate any further), while with an encoder this is not possible. Several synth manufacturers had problems with encoders, where they would start jumping around after a while; Dave Smith Instruments is one that comes to mind. Because of this, pots are generally regarded to be of higher quality (and a 'premium' instrument like an Access Virus is loaded with them).

Personally I find encoders more logical, since they're always relative to the current value of whatever you're changing. However, I find the feel (physical) of pots nicer, turning pots is more satisfying than encoders :-p

[Gustavo]

Hi,

I would love to have more leds in my unit, but as said, it would be more expensive.

Yet I think that some things ought to have pots instead of encoders, so you know you maxed out. But I think they are not correctly implemented. Instead of jumping to the value, they should have an acceleration rate so the change is not so abrupt. Maybe it just does not have that kind of processing power, but since it is geared towards the live musician I think this should´ve been a must. That and gapless changes of patches.

[anotherscott]

pots are generally regarded to be of higher quality

I think in an *analog* system, pots have the advantage that you are directly controlling the circuitry. In a digital system, whether you use a pot or an encoder, you're not directly manipulating a circuit, you're sending a digital instruction to the processor.

[bdodds]

Two ways I've seen folks code pots have been the "pass-thru" method used by some Korgs and the Moog Little Phatty where you have to turn the knob past the value it's set to before it registers any change, but this almost requires the ring of LEDs to show you where it's currently positioned. The other way is what the Little Phatty also does, which is to scale the movement to the pot, so if for example your pot is pointing straight up 12 o'clock but the value is at the extreme clockwise position, turning the knob counter-clockwise will result in the value sweeping from far right to far left in half the space (12 o'clock to 7 o'clock, while the value goes from 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock). This is obviously more noticable when your knob starts in a position far away from the current value, but is an interesting take on the problem.

I think part of the reason Nord did what they did was to give you rotary encoder access to values that you're likely to tweak often and would need that seamless access, like volume or oscillator shape, cutoff frequency, or effects depths/mix. The encoders are physically bigger and would probably pose a design issue with the face and potentially the circuit board. Not impossible, but a tradeoff made in the design phase.

I have a Yamaha CS6R with the rotary encoders and the one that is used the most for data entry or program selection, etc. is dirty or malfunctioning in such a way that values jump all over the place, and it's quite annoying. I had it happen with the encoder on the face of a DBX Quantum II also. Encoders definitely really cause problems when they malfunction. Hopefully the Nord ones won't ever malfunction.

[turnstyle]

I do understand about a pot physically hitting the end of its range -- but with the rotary LEDs, that does a pretty good job of letting you know where you are.

I gather the sorts of problems DSI had with that earlier batch of encoders aren't also problems with the Nords?

[mjbrands]

I gather the sorts of problems DSI had with that earlier batch of encoders aren't also problems with the Nords?

The problems DSI had was that oxidation would occur inside the encoders, leading to the jumpiness. It could be treated successfully (for example, with DeoxIT) but would slowly come back, requiring more treatment. They later switched to different encoders (probably more expensive ones) that weren't impacted as much (but did suffer a bit from it).

My DSI Poly Evolver Keyboard had it very badly (but I switched the boards to ones with newer encoders, fixing it), my Waldorf Blofeld had it, my $1000 coffeemaker has it, etc.

There are roughly two types of these rotary encoders: mechanical and optical. The optical encoders (as used in the scrollwheel of a mouse, for example) do not suffer from this 'jumpiness' problem. For some reason detented (the ones that click when you rotate them) ones aren't impacted by this problem I think (I don't think they're of the optical type, but I might be wrong). I think Nord mostly uses the detented rotary encoders.

[bdodds]

I don't think I've ever used a detented encoder on a Nord, though the ones that give me all sorts of trouble on my Yamaha and DBX are detented.