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Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby pimdevente » 08 Jan 2013, 17:26

Hi guys,

for a while now, my Nord Wave's pitch bender has not been functioning properly. For example, when I pitch a note up and then release the stick, the sound doesn't return to the previous note but detunes and is still a little pitched up. This is very annoying, since fe my brass is detuned throughout the entire song. Sometimes aI have to wiggle the PBS a bit to tune the sound back to normal, but if that doesn't work, I have to reboot the whole thing.

Any advice? Tweaking the screws? (I don't even know how to open a Wave..)

cheers!
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Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes


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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby Darren » 08 Jan 2013, 21:16

It might help to know what firmware you are running and when you updated it.
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby Mr_-G- » 08 Jan 2013, 21:22

Sorry that I haven't got a solution, but I noted that there have been a few dodgy pitch stick stories. I guess that the sensor/transducer breaks eventually.?
It would be good to know if it is possible to use an alternative sensor/transducer or some spring loaded device instead.

Also, does anybody know if the part is exactly the same in the NW and the NS2? I am asking because the NS2 only goes up and down 2 semitones and would be quite interested in being able to increase that range (I guess that this is done in the firmware rather than a hardware difference, but I thought I would ask anyway).
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby mjbrands » 08 Jan 2013, 22:22

Hi Pim,

Isn't that the one I sold you? I picked you up from the train station. Might also have been someone else - I'm getting old. :-p

Do you happen to have a MIDI interface? Using that it would be easy to see if it really is the pitchstick that is causing this.

What puzzles me a bit: you say that when it keeps 'sticking', you can get it to go away if you reboot it? That's a bit strange; if it is the pitchstick, I'd expect it to have exactly the same issue after a reset.
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby Darren » 08 Jan 2013, 22:37

Is the 'value' of the pitch stick read at sound initialisation then?
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby pimdevente » 09 Jan 2013, 00:20

Hey mjbrands,

Yep, that's me. I do have a MIDI interface and I run OSX. Do you have any solutions then?

And Darren, I don't think I can tell. All I know is, rebooting sometimes is a solution but otherwise I have to wiggle the thing. I'm still not sure though about all of this.
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby mjbrands » 09 Jan 2013, 06:13

pimdevente wrote:I do have a MIDI interface and I run OSX. Do you have any solutions then?

Well, if you could use a utility to show the MIDI data coming from your Nord, you could see what's being generated for the pitch bender. When in rest it should always return to roughly the same value; it might move around a bit, but probably not much. Pitch bend is a 14-bit MIDI value, so has a range from 0 to 16383 - in rest it should be roughly in the middle, so just under 8200.

On Windows you could use MIDI-OX and on a Mac you could use MIDI Monitor. If you have both, you might want to do it on the Mac; MIDI Monitor is a bit simpler than MIDI-OX.

If you see the pitch bender do strange stuff, like initially settle around 8200 in rest, but go up (or down) to quite different values in rest after a while (9000-10000 for example) you definitely have issues with the pitch stick. I'm pretty sure there's no way to fix it, but it can be replaced. The 'sensor' in there consists if a metal strip that gets bend; when it does so, it changes (I think) resistance and that's what gets transformed into the pitch bend values. If you really hammer the pitch stick, it might get damaged a bit; do this enough times and it might go bad. In any case, they do wear out after quite a bit of use, but I have no idea how quickly they'd do that. I would guess that on most Nords the pitch stick never gets replaced during their lifetime.

Btw. I think Darren meant that when the Wave starts up, it measures the current (electrical) value of the pitch stick and assigns the 'middle pitch bend' value to it (8192). If it does that (and it does sound like a smart thing to do), that would mean it gets initialized at startup.
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby pablomastodon » 10 Jan 2013, 16:58

Those parts are subject to wear and tear and eventual failure. To my knowledge there is no fix other than replacement. You national distributor should be able to provide info on obtaining the part, which will require soldering directly to the panelboard. This is a job best left to professionals.

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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby ChriChri » 04 Feb 2013, 16:45

Hello pimdevente,

My NORD WAVE has always worked very well ...
but since a few weeks, I have the same issue : pitch is quite wrong while pitching, and when I release the stick, it seems to come to its initial place (middle), but the sound is out of tune !
but I have noticed that after rebooting the keyboard, the problem is solved ...

I don't know if it is because of the winter (cold temperature + mist when opening the keyboard case) ? ... or because of touching the pitch while starting the keyboard ?...

So, it isn't annoying me anymore ... I just reboot the keyboard ... While in a gig, just start the keyboard early before playing !

I hope it helps !... you may not have to replace the stick ! ;)
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Re: Pitch Bending stick 'sticks' and detunes

Postby Cliffy » 14 Oct 2013, 15:03

Hello folks.
Nord Wave.

I have the sticky pitch stick problem too.

The Wave was bought new two years ago and never gigged, studio use only, so I can't accept the wear and tear theory, I'm surrounded by 30 year old gear and I've never had a problem with a pitch wheel, only this stick.

I'm not buying a new stick unit, I bought the synth and I like it a lot, but it's bits shouldn't need replacing after a couple of years of sitting in the studio.

Has anyone been offered a solution? I've written to Tech support three times... no reply.

Cheers!
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