Nord User Forum

[TrueTone500]

Hello to everyone here on the NF. I'm new to the forum - but I'm not new to using Nord gear. I recently purchased a Wave to handle all of my samples. First let me say that I'm absolutely IN LOVE with the Nord Wave! I want to add an arpeggiator option to it, and am wondering if there's a way to use a MIDI arpeggiator/sequencer to achieve this goal. I'm thinking about an old Oberheim Cyclone or MIDIPal, but would rather just use the sequencer function form say a DSI Evolver desktop unit. I'm reading so many varying reports in the Wave's MIDI clock IN/OUT capabilities, that it's getting difficult to decipher what it fact? I want to basically "borrow" the arpeggiator from another keyboard (or desktop) as a MIDI add-on component - but have the arpeggiated sounds come from the Wave itself. Like if you were to add a delay pedal into an effects loop.

It seems like as long as the Wave can accept MIDI clock data, it should work. Correct?

Question:
Will the Wave accept MIDI clock data? It's logical that the Wave wasn't designed to send MIDI clock data, since there's no arpeggiator there to begin with. Am I on the right track here?

[mjbrands]

I want to add an arpeggiator option to it, and am wondering if there's a way to use a MIDI arpeggiator/sequencer to achieve this goal. I'm thinking about an old Oberheim Cyclone or MIDIPal, but would rather just use the sequencer function form say a DSI Evolver desktop unit. I'm reading so many varying reports in the Wave's MIDI clock IN/OUT capabilities, that it's getting difficult to decipher what it fact? I want to basically "borrow" the arpeggiator from another keyboard (or desktop) as a MIDI add-on component - but have the arpeggiated sounds come from the Wave itself. Like if you were to add a delay pedal into an effects loop...

You can use the sequencer on an Evolver/Mopho/Tetra but it is fairly limited - see page 18 of the Evolver manual: http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/dow ... l_3.2a.pdf

The Evolver sounds awesome but unless you already have it, I wouldn't get it for the sequencer. I don't know the Oberheim sequencer you're referring to, but the MIDIpal might make an interesting combination. With the filtering that the MIDIpal can do, you can work around the lack of keyboard splits on the Wave, for example. I have a Mutable Instrument Shruthi (2 actually) and they're awesome. They share some functionality with the MIDIpal - I do hope creating sequences on the MIDIpal is more fun, because on the Shruthi it is fairly laborious. I certainly wouldn't want to tweak sequences in a 'live' situation.

The Sequentix Cirklon is a realy nice hardware sequencer with a lot of features and good hands-on control, but it is not cheap: http://sequentix.com/cirklon.htm

(you might want to skip to 0:34)


As for the Wave and incoming MIDI clocks and external arpeggiators: the Wave cannot sync its clock/LFOs to an external clock (which the Stage 2 can do), so it just disregards any incoming MIDI clock. If you have an external arpeggiator send the Wave notes, it'll happily play those. If you want to play on the Wave's keyboard and have an external arpeggiator mangle the notes you play, set Local Control to off and send MIDI from the Wave through the arpeggiator back into the Wave (you could see the arpeggiator as a filter).

An iPad with a MIDI interface can also nicely fit into a MIDI setup. I'm not exactly up-to-date with regard to the music apps available on the iPad, but I would think there are several decent sequencer apps and there's probably something that can do what you want. If you already have an iPad, that might be something to look into.

Edit: you could also using something like Ableton Live to do this kind of stuff.

[TrueTone500]

Thank you! This is exactly the information I was looking for. The MIDIPal looks like it may be the way to go. I know a guy who's selling an Oberheim Cyclone, but the price is a little higher than what I want to pay. I have Prophet 08 that's being delivered today, and I'm hoping that I can maybe use it's arp/sequencer for the same purposes.

[mjbrands]

Well, the sequencer may be a bit limited, but it is very tweakable and you have four of them (per voice I should add), so you can do some really neat stuff with them. I had a Poly Evolver and while I didn't care that much for the sequencer, there were some presets that did really impressive stuff with them. I never really took the time to figure out how those patches worked, but they seemed to 'chain' sequences of different lengths creating sequences of sounds that took quite before they repeated.

[TrueTone500]

I'm being told that any external controller with an arpeggiator will work. ?

[Rcmusic]

do you have an ipad or iphone?

[TrueTone500]

Yes I do. Are you thinking software arpeggiator?

The lack of split-key functionality is a major let-down, but that could be solved by a software upgrade from Clavia.

[mjbrands]

The lack of split-key functionality is a major let-down, but that could be solved by a software upgrade from Clavia.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Of course, only Clavia knows what Clavia will do, but it would highly surprise me if they would still come out with a software upgrade that introduces new features. I think they never intended the Wave to have split-key functionality.

I'm being told that any external controller with an arpeggiator will work. ?

Should work fine, but whether you can use it when playing on the keyboard of the Wave itself depends on how that external piece of equipment was implemented.