Nord User Forum

I am looking at buying a Nord Piano 3, to use it as piano and lower manual of my organ. The idea is to place the organ directly on top of the piano, to allow excessive jumping between the manuals. This works great with other (even weighted) keyboards, but the downside is that the piano control panel ends up covered by the organ.

In order to control some basic functions during a performance, such as switching sounds or adjusting overdrive, a solution could be connecting an external MIDI control surface with a few buttons and dials. Can this be done? Can the piano be reasonably managed at all, without the complete control panel? Any other advice?

Hej Jochen!

An old iPad with a MIDI Designer interface of exactly the parameters you need, clamped on a mike stand?
http://mididesigner.com/

/Vänligen
Michael in Scania

Hello Marlowes,

Thanks for the great hint about Midi Designer. I am sure there are lots of interesting Midi Control Surfaces out there.

At this point, my concern is more about buying or not the Nord Piano, given that my organ will prevent me from accessing the piano's control panel. Can the piano be properly used with only a few MIDI controllers? I'd really appreciate some advice from experienced users.

Jochen,

I think the question you want to ask yourself is, after looking over the Nord's front panel controls, which controls will you want to access? Are you going to load one piano program, set it and forget it, sticking with that one program and its settings all night long? Or perhaps you'd like to mess around with effects here and there, chorus, delay...? Make a list of any controls which you think you might wish to manipulate live during performance. This will give you an idea of what kind of controller you might need to have on hand to access those functions.

The NP3 is not yet released, so the manual is not yet available, but you can have a look at the NP2 manual to get a very good idea of what the NP3's midi functionality will be like. There is a Midi Controller Chart near the rear of the manual, listing all of the cc numbers assigned to the various front panel controls. This will help to guide your search for external midi controllers (pedals, software, etc.) which may conveniently fulfill these functions.

There are probably very few people out there who are playing their Nord Pianos while "flying blind" in the manner that you suggest, and people's definitions of the term "properly used" will vary widely. No one knows your musical needs better than you yourself. It's always great to hear intelligent opinions from qualified others, but nothing will be as meaningful as your own personal gauge.

Bless, Pablo

Hello Pablo,

I very much appreciate your comments. Probably, I'll use a small number of piano and electric piano sounds and a a small number of effects. Definitively, I'll have to dig into the controller chart and figure that out on my own.

Please just help me with the following reformulated question: Can any controller be overwritten, sound switched and effects adjusted without the need of accessing any of the local controllers or the display?

Hi Jochen,

You can lock the instrument in a closet (after wiring up audio and midi connections, and continue to have complete control of ALL parameters listed in the controller chart, along with accessing any program in the instrument. Generally speaking, the simplest way to do this will be to pre-author your short list of programs with desired "piano and electric piano sounds," each with their effects preset to desired settings, then simply transmit Program Change messages as needed during your performance. But if your remote controller has faders/knobs/pedals to which cc numbers can be assigned, you will always additionally have the ability to tweak any parameters on the fly without having to change programs.

Bless, Pablo

Pablo, your answer couldn't be any clearer. Thanks a lot!