Nord User Forum

[rmerritt]

I'm sure this has been covered, so please don't light me up too bad for asking this, but when I load a program or a sample, how can I know that I am hearing what that sound should be. Quite often, it appears there are other sounds or qualities of sound layered with it..for instance, calling up a particular string sample and playing a note...and it doesn't sound like a violin or whatever it should be.
I have read that this has to do with using the Init buttons, but that doesn't seem to work.
Also, can anyone tell me why sometimes when I load a sample the number display blinks and there is no sound.
Thanks for any help you are able to give, and, given I am not a gigging player, should I sell the Stage and purchase a less powerful board with basic pre-sets? I had a Kronos, but it seemed to difficult to make minor adjustments to the sound. For a recreational player, I feel I am out of my league...I just wanted the nest EP's and Hammonds I could get. Did I make a mistake?
Thanks everyone.
Randy (Grandpa)

[Johannes]

Hi Randy,
First of all, which version of the Stage do you have?? Classic, EX, 2 ?
As for blinking sample numbers, that indicates that the sample used is missing so no wonder it won't sound as expected.
As a first step, you could download the full factory preset from the Nord website and restore it so you are sure everything works and sounds like it is supposed to.
Second, Piano and Organ should anyway work pretty straight, just activated the section you like and play!

[bdodds]

I don't think you've made a mistake, you just need to learn how the various sections affect your sound. I'm assuming you got a Stage 2 because you're talking about samples. There will be features to the Stage 2 that you'll not really need too much of, but it's a fairly small portion of the total package, I don't think it's too much keyboard for a recreational player at all.

Since you seem to be source-instrument oriented, let's step through how to get a basic sound in each.

Quick setup:

Hit the "Live Mode" button, and pick one of the 5 Live programs to it's right
Working from the left side of the keyboard all the way across:
Turn off the rotary speaker section if it's on.
Turn off every section by pressing the "on/off" button under each section's volume knob in the upper left corner of each section if they are active (active sections will have a red line value for the voume, as well as 1, 2 or 3 green lights under the volume knob, in addition to other lights)
Turn off split mode if it's on, the split mode buttons are at the top right of the middle program section.
Turn off any effects sections that are active by pressing the "on/off" button at the bottom of each of the 4 effects sections.
Turn off reverb and compression.
You should now have a blank slate to work from. Let's try some basic sounds:

Piano:

Turn on the piano section, there should be three lights under the piano volume knob.
Use the 6-light (3 on each side) selection button to move through the different banks of pianos you have installed. There should be acoustic (grand and upright), electric (rhodes and wurlitzer), clavinet and possibly harpsichord loaded, depending on if anyone changed what's in your particular unit. This should get you going on the piano with the raw sounds.

Organ:

Similarly with everything off, turn on the Organ section. You can use the Organ Model button to rotate through B-3, Farfisa and Vox models. Move the drawbars (drawbuttons) up and down to change the drawbar settings, just like on a real organ.
Add some Leslie by turning on the Rotary speaker to the left of the Organ section. Make sure it's affecting the Organ section by checking to see if the red light above "Organ" is lit. Most buttons on the Stage do multiple things depending on how you hit them. In this case the Effects section on/off buttons also change which instrument they're affecting. Each effect can only affect one instrument at a time, instruments being Organ, Piano, or Synth. To change which section is being modified, double-tap the button quickly to choose the next section, or hold "Shift" and hit the on/off button. The double-tap method is handy for when buttons are far away from the shift button and you can't hit both with one hand, in case you want to make a change while you're playing.

Synth/Samples:

This is one of the more confusing sections, so don't feel too bad if you don't get it right away. We're dealing with two basic ideas, there's the sound source, and then there's the filters. Whereas an Organ is additive synthesis - you start with nothing and then add frequencies on top of each other to sculpt a tone, the synth is subtractive synthesis - you start with a sound of some kind and then you add filters to remove or enhance frequencies to make it interesting. The source of the initial sound can be a basic wave like a square or sawtooth, an FM wave source, some pre-programmed waveforms, and now in the Stage 2, samples. This is where it gets tricky. I'd say 9 times out of 10 you want to hear a sample just the way it is. You may want to add some basic effects outside of the Synth section, but you probably don't want to use the synth's filters. If you pick a random program with a synth and try to listen to samples, they probably will not sound good, because there is probably some synth filtering going on. So let's initialize the Synth section after we turn it on by hitting Shift and the "Sound Init" button to the right of the Synth volume knob. This resets the filters to wide open, and gives you a basic wave. Use the selection button to move it to SAMP, and now you're listening to the samples. Use the dial next to the number display in the Synth section to go through your samples, the name of the sample will show up in the LCD display. Touching just about any of the other synth section knobs will affect the filters that modify the sound and will probably not be desirable if you're listeining to straight samples. To use the rest of the synth section I recommend reading the manual for more information as it's fairly complex.

Effects:

We need some effects too, right? After you get bored with the stock sounds with no effects, add some reverb by turning the section on, turning the knob up and trying the different room models. If you're using an electric piano, try out some of the other effects like Tremolo or Chorus or Phase or a Wah of some kind. The two knobs at the top of the section modify some aspects of the effect, usually the frequency range it operates on and the amount of effect wet/dry mix. full clockwise will be extreme while full counter-clockwise will be nearly nonexistant. There are some variations on this but for the most part this is how they work. Make sure the effects are affecting the right section by making sure the red light under the on/off button is illuminated on the section you're expecting it to affect, i.e. PIano for a Rhodes sound, etc.

Good luck, please hit us with more questions if you have them. It's really a very intuitive board to use once you get your mind around how sound flows through it. And there are no dumb questions here, so fire away!

[rmerritt]

Thanks Johannes. It's a Stage 2 running v1.62.
I will do as
you suggest which sounds like starting over, which seems a wise idea.

[Hambone]

Thanks for the detailed primer. Just one more question, if I may. When playing piano or organ sounds from their respective preset banks, is there any way to display just the names of those chosen sounds on the screen, as opposed to whatever random program happened to be on when the piano or organ sound was selected? I see the piano or organ name for a few seconds right after choosing it, but then the screen always reverts back to a program name, even when that program is not currently being used. Is it nitpicky to want to see what your playing displayed on the screen rather than something else entirely? I must be missing something.
Thanks!

[RedLeo]

When playing piano or organ sounds from their respective preset banks, is there any way to display just the names of those chosen sounds on the screen, as opposed to whatever random program happened to be on when the piano or organ sound was selected? I see the piano or organ name for a few seconds right after choosing it, but then the screen always reverts back to a program name, even when that program is not currently being used. Is it nitpicky to want to see what your playing displayed on the screen rather than something else entirely? I must be missing something.
Thanks!

hi Hambone

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this, it will always revert to the current Program name. The reason for this is that the current Program is not something separate from the Piano. So what you're currently doing is selecting a different Piano "within" the current Program. A Program is the basic "unit of currency" that you work with.

What bdodds has done, if you have followed his guide, is to set you up with a "blank" Program, so you can play around with sounds easily, which should help you a lot. However, it is important to realise that you are still basically working "within" a Program all the time, which is why the Program name always shows up again on the display after a few seconds.

And as bdodds says, please keep firing questions at us until we've got you fixed up, it's what we're here for

[RedLeo]

Oops - didn't realise I wasn't replying to the original poster...

[Hambone]

Thank you