Nord User Forum

[duakeys]

Hi all,
Has anyone had this problem? How can I fix it?
I am getting NO SOUND at all from anything in the Piano Engine side of things (No Clavs. No Elec. Piano or Any pianos and No Samples). However I am getting sound from the organ sound (the 3 Organs).

I have a Nord Electro 3 and I checked the output selection to make sure I have both engines coming out of the same output.

Please help! I have 3 gigs this weekend and I need to figure something out. The only thing I can think at this point is to reset the whole thing and see what happens..

Any suggestions? Thank you very much!

[azwel]

maybe load in your most recent backup....hopefully you have one thats recent

[pterm]

disconnect everything but power
check if pianos working on headphones. If yes, the engine is working, so the problem is output routing or connections. If not, check gain, master output levels, piano/sample selection validity.

Re-connect amplification to L/mono output only. Make sure the jack is TR (unbalanced - 2 conductor) not TRS (not stereo/3 conductor). Try pianos again.

Double check system menu setting for output selection. Toggle through the output options (you want "ST" setting).

Good luck! I hope you find the issue quickly.

Hopefully this helps you find the pianos.

[duakeys]

I am very happy to say I left the message for tech support and I received an email with a phone number to call a few minutes later. I did call and he troubleshot the problem. It has to do with the Control Pedal output. When I went to page 10 (I think) and disabled the control pedal for the piano and samples (Option O) the piano and samples worked perfectly. But the organ stayed with a lower volume.
But now at least I know what it is and I need to get hold of the man himself here in NOLA to get in there and fix the issue. Hopefully it won't take too long. It is a busy season here for every musician and etc.
Thank you for your replies.

[pablomastodon]

Yes, with Control Pedal Mode set to P there were no pianos, no samples, and weak organs. Changing this to O resulted in getting the pianos and samples back. Setting this finally to S resulted in getting pianos, but no samples, and still weak organs. Note that there was no control pedal connected to the instrument.

Either there is physical damage to the control pedal receptacle (commonly caused by stepping on a cable or bumping into the protruding plug), possibly shorting out two terminals, causing the instrument to think that a pedal is connected and is in the heel down position, or there is some fault in the circuitry having the same effect.

Reloading old backup files or restoring to factory load will never cure this kind of problem. Pterm was correct that the first place to look would be audio output routing, and to test headphone output, but those checked okay, so we had to dig deeper...

NOLA Organ Doc will hopefully be coming to the rescue -- that's New Orleans, Louisiana, for our international members! Please let us know how this goes, Eduardo!

[jhgroenjes]

What was the resolution to this? My Nord electro 4 is very similar issues, except that changing the Control Pedal Mode is not having any effect. I simply lost audio on EP1, EP2, Clav/HPS and (interestingly) the Organ bank too. If you turn up the volume all the way, you can hear faint audio. Interestingly, everything seems "normal" as soon as you turn on One Effect, but not Effect 1. If you're on EP1 and sselect any of the effects 2-4, you get normal strong audio, with that selected effect(s). It's only when the effects are all off you have no audio on the banks mentioned. Samples and Pianos and Upright banks work just fine all the time.

[PScooter63]

jhgroenjes, what make/model of pedal are you using?

I use pedals with a recessed trim adjustment (potentiometer) on the side of the housing. Great for compatibility, but occasionally while setting up for a gig I'll accidentally knock a knob off its setting (and spend a few perplexed moments sussing it out).

[pablomastodon]

Jason fails to mention: 1) this behavior persists even when no pedal connected, and 2) he's using headphones.

This is routinely caused by substandard 1/8"-1/4" adapters on the headphones. On of the two channels is shorting against the ground, resulting in severe phase cancellation and loss of signal. The fact that turning up the WET mix of an effect results in increased volume is basically 100% proof that this is what's causing this issue in this instance.

Bless, Pablo

[cphollis]

Same thing happened to me, and it took a while to figure it out. Lots of bad headphone adapters out there it seems.

[pablomastodon]

whoa -- I sit corrected -- apparently I was partly correct: it is phase cancellation caused by a short in the headphone circuit path, but Jason reports that this is not occurring with the headphones, cables or adapters in his case, but with the headphone jack on the Nord. My response:

Hmmm...a rarity indeed, but not completely unheard of. My first step would be to try cleaning the jack. I used to think that those burnishing devices which cost $40-50 were a silly marketing ploy to remove dollars from one's pocket, but have come to feel differently about that over the years. I do recall one specific case in the forum involving someone who was experiencing intermittently bad audio output from one of the mains on a relatively new instrument and ultimately found that the jack was fouled with detritus from the old and decaying foam lining of the flight case he was using.

Failing positive result there, I would open it up and examine it. It can happen that the metal tangs inside there can become bent or otherwise affected. Nothing like visual inspection. Those are industry standard, US brand Switchcraft parts, available on the open market for minimal cost. They have removable grey plastic inspection covers on them, so it's real easy to get a good look. Those same inspection covers are embossed with the Switchcraft part number to make ordering easy, if that becomes necessary.

I consider my soldering skills to be middling/borderline, and this is a job which does not scare me. They are soldered to the mainboard. Given that the replacement cost of a mainboard is many hundreds of dollars, and that I only attempt this once every other year or so, I keep a few trash PCBs around, picked from the alley behind a local repair shop, and take a couple practice runs on one of those before attempting to work on my Nord board. Also, I find it safer to completely destroy the existing one to prep the job. That is, using an electrician's side cutter (meatier than would ordinarily be used on tiny electronics), I nibble away at the plastic and at the metal bits until each soldered pin becomes separate from the others. Much easier that way; minimizes danger of applying too much heat to the PCB. It's just so tricky getting multiple pins completely desoldered at once.

Posted in the hope that some portion of this info might help someone out.

Bless, Pablo