Nord User Forum

[Knuckles]

Well I just received my new Stage 3 tonight. Excited! Opened it up and proceede do navigate around the board. I bit tedious for me given my Roland Fantom and Korg Kronos background. Not complaining.......just need time. The program sounds on it are really good. I just don't know what I am doing yet even though I pre read the manual and YOU Tube Tutorials. Proceeded to make the mistake of going thru every program sound....Trying to see the "big Picture" .

Loaded the the Nord Sound Manager; connected the unit and proceeded to look at the program files and create a back up (upload from the board). Creating the backup on my MAC was a bit slow.

I noticed that I have 50 banks of sounds originally loaded from A1 through F50. Banks G and H had empty programs with 50 program spaces each. My questions follow.

1. I know I can replace sounds in banks A1 -through F50 with other sounds that can be downloaded and added. . I went to the NORD site to look at Stage 3 new sounds. On the NORD site they are listed by categories, ie organ, wind, brass etc. Is the NS3 board also separated by Categories of sounds? or are they just lumped together sequencially by bank and program number? Into the basic engines for organ, Piano and Syn sections.

2. How do you determine how much space you have on your board to load these additional sounds? I assume that these selected programs will get assigned as a program to Banks G and H unless you are going to overwrite onto a preloaded program sound in banks A-F.

3. I plan on using the Nord stage 3 by splitting and layering the keyboards for fat sounds ( combinations of organ, piano types, strings and brass and woodwinds. Does anyone have recommendations on specific NS3 layered sounds that have been developed by NORD on their sound page? That will definitely save me some time.

4. My NS3 has version 1.24 installed . I have been thankfully/ previously counseled here in this relative to upgrading the unit to 1.28. I will definitely do that when I get more familiar with the board. Still concerned with the bug (if one existes) using a connected volume pedal Yamaha to control overall volume through the control pedal. I will likely try the control pedal in OS 1.24 to see if it works prior to upgrading to decide what I will use. Figure my workaround for live volume control performance is an Ernie Ball stereo volume petal until Nord address the problem.

POSITIVES. The immediate difference between NS3 and other keyboards is that I can adjust most things on the "fly". I like this. I will like it more when I know more about what I am doing.

Any help or recommendations with any of the above would be extremely helpful.
I bought the NS3 as a replacement for my Korg Triton Extreme 61. I use a KRONOS 88 as my primary controller board and now have this NS# waterfall board to play killer organ, piano and syn sounds. It's a matter of developing NS3 program sounds that are distinctly different from KRONOS sounds but will blend with those patches for the genre and music that I am covering. POP, Country, Trop Rock, Standards, Classic Rock.

While this final point may seem shallow, I really like the NS3 color red but prefer to keep that red color with the keyboard and not my face and Knuckles.

Best to All

[baekgaard]

Just a quick initial reply here: What you (apparently) refer to on Nords page are samples, that form the basis of the sounds coming out of the Piano and (some of) the Synth settings. What you store in your banks A:01 to H:50 are programs. Programs are all the settings on your Nord for all the instruments in both panels and all of the 3 different instruments in each bank. Samples and programs are not the same thing, and I don't think you find (m)any programs apart from the banks of factory settings on Nords homepage (with one exception: Synth samples in the 3.0 format has some Synth settings stored also that can be loaded into the Synth section, but not directly into a program bank).

Samples are loaded into the Nord via the Sound Manager on your computer. It gives you an overview of how much memory you have left in your Piano and Samples banks.

The volume bug is for real in 1.28, but there are many ways working around that bug, as described elsewhere, and it will likely be fixed in an upcoming release. Nord has been good in shipping a steady stream of releases with bug fixes. So unless you have a very specific use for the volume pedal (not to be confused with the conventional use of a pedal to control the organ; use swell for that), just upgrade.

[cphollis]

As above, programs are not samples and vice-versa.

From the Nord web page, you could download an Exotic Flute sample into sample memory, then use one of the program slots A1-H50 to create a nice sound: add effects, shape the envelope, maybe layer it with an acoustic piano, etc.

Nord has created all sorts of nifty programs. They're already loaded onto your board. Nord doesn't publish additional ones, although over time you should see user-created programs on this site.

Creating entirely new programs is relatively quick on the Nord Stage 3. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

The Nord Sound Manager will tell you how much sample memory you have. Piano sample memory and conventional sample memory are not the same thing.

If you are using an external weighted controller, check out the "Dual Kb" function, pretty slick for me.

Can't speak to the volume pedal thing, I'm pretty sure it'll be fixed before long.

[Knuckles]

thanks for the response. Very Helpful. I started creating new programs by tweaking factory loaded programs. I then saved to open program slots on G and H Banks. I basically used a factory loaded program.........then changed the sounds combinations and then saved to an open program slot G. Have a killer B3 and Soul horns program....sounds really great.

But what if I wanted to create a new program on the NS3 instrument from scratch ( creating my own sound combinations) then saving to an open bank slot? How do I find and do a deep dive from the various NS3 sounds from the NS3 program section of the instrument.


I started reviewing and working with the NORD sound Manager and became more familiar with the tab sections of the various sounds. Pretty cool. I can view all of the sounds, available space, programs, samples using the NORD Sound Manager. I am likely to delete some of the harpicord sounds because I won't use those. Given I play in a Trop Rock band, POP band and Rock band, I will probably load more of the mallet percussive sounds........

again any advice or help greatly appreciated. Feel like everyday, I am discovering the power of the NORD.
Best
K

[cphollis]

If I were you, I'd spend 30-60 minutes each day working through the manual. Try each thing out on your instrument. It'll come, and it will definitely get easier each time.

[anotherscott]

But what if I wanted to create a new program on the NS3 instrument from scratch ( creating my own sound combinations) then saving to an open bank slot? How do I find and do a deep dive from the various NS3 sounds from the NS3 program section of the instrument.

Since you're coming from a Kronos/Triton background, I'll repeat what I said in another thread, which may help: try looking at Nord's "Synth Presets" as the equivalent of Korg Programs (for all sounds other than pianos and organs, which have their own sections), and look at Nord's "Programs" as the equivalent of Korg's Combis (a Nord Program can be any split/layered combination of up to two Synth sounds, two piano sounds, two organ sounds, and two external sounds). And just as it's possible for a Korg Combi to consist of nothing but a single Program, a Nord Program can also consist of nothing but a single piano/organ/synth sound, if that's all you need it to have.

To program something from scratch (for anything but something based on a piano or organ sound), start with just the Synth and use the SOUND INIT function to initialize it to a clean starting point. Then you can combine up to two such sounds (plus up to two piano sounds and two organ sounds if desired) into a Program that you will save in an open bank slot. Or if all you need is the one synth sound, you don't have to combine it with anything, you can make just that one sound a Program.

[Knuckles]

Another scott.. thanks........that really gives me an insight into the NS3 workings in Kronos style language. Very helpful in setting up the Nord programs ie Kronos Combis. Big undertaking as most of my Kronos Combi patches are really song defined and named accordingly. Now I need to match and or differentiate the Kronos Combi patches with the NORD and name the same. NORD has the song feature which will help.

again, thanks
K

[baekgaard]

By the way, programming the Nord is very fast and easy (once you get the hang of it). I played a live session tonight, and due to the room acoustics, I decided to change some of the sounds "on the fly". So I actually tweaked a couple of programs while playing, and saved some also (copying to the live programs) and it worked well; I don't think anyone noticed (apart from the improved overall sound that 'fixed' or compensated for acoustic deficiencies of the room).

[analogika]

Yeah, having worked with a Kronos for a year, I’m sooo happy when I create new programs during rehearsals or even on stage: at one gig a few weeks ago, I was playing a Rhodes and decided I needed some supporting organ in the chorus, so *while playing*, I switched on the organ, set up Leslie and drawbars, gave it some delay, added sustain pedal support, and layered it with the piano. Come next chorus, I push up the volume pedal and the band looks at me like “woah”. Saved the patch for next time.

Or at rehearsal, where I started off “Don’t Stop Believing” with a kick-ass, but dry CP70. By the time we were done rehearsing that song, I had a complete set up with chorus and EQ on the piano and a pedal-fadable Oberheim synth layered across the upper half of the piano sound for the verse.

[danrv]

Since you're coming from a Kronos/Triton background, I'll repeat what I said in another thread, which may help: try looking at Nord's "Synth Presets" as the equivalent of Korg Programs (for all sounds other than pianos and organs, which have their own sections), and look at Nord's "Programs" as the equivalent of Korg's Combis (a Nord Program can be any split/layered combination of up to two Synth sounds, two piano sounds, two organ sounds, and two external sounds). And just as it's possible for a Korg Combi to consist of nothing but a single Program, a Nord Program can also consist of nothing but a single piano/organ/synth sound, if that's all you need it to have.

To program something from scratch (for anything but something based on a piano or organ sound), start with just the Synth and use the SOUND INIT function to initialize it to a clean starting point. Then you can combine up to two such sounds (plus up to two piano sounds and two organ sounds if desired) into a Program that you will save in an open bank slot. Or if all you need is the one synth sound, you don't have to combine it with anything, you can make just that one sound a Program.

Yes, this is a very good explanation of how Nord programming and layout compares to Korg.
My keyboard arrangement is the other way round with Stage 2 HA76 lower/main and Triton Extreme 61 as the top board.
I’m starting to get the hang of setting up programs on the Nord but do occasionally have to refer to the manual.
Just need to spend more time on it but I can see that editing can be quick with everything easily accessible.