Nord User Forum

[AliciaM]

Hello! I’m new here And very happy to join this community.

I really need some help here… I just bought a Nord Electro 6D keyboard, but let’s say I’m new to this world. I’m a classical piano player and need to introduce myself into more modern way of playing since I’m touring with a rock band soon -totally new experience for me-.

I want to get the best out of my new keyboard, and it’s kind of urgent. For the moment I’m going to be using about 4 or 5 sounds mostly for this tour, but I’d like to be able to program what sounds I’m going to use for each song live, etc.

I’m sure that this has been asked before, but there are hundreds of topics in this forum and couldn’t find exactly what I’m looking for. So I wanted to ask some very basic questions - thank you for your patience-.

So basically as I said before, I’d like to have a list of songs registered inside the keyboard with some sounds for each song. So I know there’s setlist mode, program mode, song mode. What is the difference between each of these modes? What is exactly the program mode?

When it comes to selecting the sounds you need for each song, how do you do this?

I would like to be able to switch sounds very fast while I’m performing.

I know these are very basic questions, but if you know about some discussions inside this forum where all this is explained clearly or if someone has the time to help me out… I would really, really appreciate. I wasn't able to find good tutorials on the internet that explain the basics.

Thanks so much in advance!

[anotherscott]

I know there’s setlist mode, program mode, song mode. What is the difference between each of these modes? What is exactly the program mode?

Electro 6 does not have setlist mode (fom Electro 5) or song mode (from Stage 3), which used pointers that allowed you to access the same sound from within different 4 or 5 button-selectable groups of sounds, without having to keep making more copies of the same sound. The E6 does not have any comparable feature.

In the E6, there is no "program mode" per se, though I guess that's what you can call it when you're not specifically in live mode, where every change you make is automatically remembered (8 locations available for this). I'd say that what you're calling program mode is just the board's typical mode of operation.

As to your bigger question about general patch organization, you have Programs, and you have Pages. Pages are simply the sets of four Programs that can be recalled with the four Program buttons at any given time. The Organize function allows you to move your sounds around, either as individual programs, or as sets-of-four (i.e. as pages). You can choose to make a page for each song in your set, if you'd like, for quick recall of the exact (up to) four sounds you need for a given song. And there's no reason you can't put multiple copies of the same sound on different pages (i.e. in different songs).

I also recommend reading the thread at nord-electro-forum-f9/setlist-in-the-ne-6-t15654.html

[AliciaM]

Thank you very much for your response Your message was still a bit difficult for me to follow. I never used a Nord before in my life, so concepts such as "setlist", "pages", "programs" and so on when it comes to organizing the sounds you need inside the keyboard are unknown for me. Indeed I can't find a "song mode" in my E6. I went through the manual (totally unspecific) and some videos, and apparently there's only "program mode" inside the E6.

I don't really get what is exactly the program mode. It says that "programs are organized into 26 banks and that each bank contains 16 programs divided into 4 pages".

I guess a "program" is what we could call a song and the sounds you're going to use inside of it? And each page would be one part of the songs that which can switch easily... Is that it?

Thanks

[pablomastodon]

A Program is a saved sound or combination of sounds, saved with whatever parameters you've chosen (effects,split assignments, etc.). It's kind of analogous to a Korg Combi, a Yamaha Performance, a Kurzweil Setup or Multi, a Roland Registration or Studio Set, etc., if that helps. On the E6, a Program can have up to 3 sounds in it... one from the Piano section, one Organ sound, and one Sample Synth sound.

The E6 can store up to 416 Programs. Many of the locations are pre-filled by Nord ("factory presets"), others are empty for your use. But even the "factory preset" locations are rewritable, you can replace any/all of them with your own user Programs if you prefer.

There are 4 Program select buttons. When you turn the unit on, those buttons will select the first four programs. A set of four Programs is referred to as a Page. You can hit the "Page Forward" button to get to the next page, i.e. the next set of four programs. (There are other ways to navigate as well.) You can use the Organize function (or the Sound Manager program) to re-order the Programs, and also to re-order the Pages if you want to move entire sets of 4 Programs together (for example, if you've associated a particular page of 4 programs to a particular song, such that all those programs should always be kept together, even when re-ordering things, so that those 4 Programs are always available as a group under the 4 Program select buttons).

The 416 programs are not numbered 1 through 416. Instead, as you mentioned, they are sub-grouped into 26 banks (A-Z), each with 16 programs, which in turn are split into 4 pages of 4 single-button selectable sounds (11-14, 21-24, 31-34, 41-44 where the first digit is the page and the second digit is the button number).

So Bank A has 16 Programs, organized like this:
* Page 1, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 11, 12, 13, 14
* Page 2, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 21, 22, 23, 24
* Page 3, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 31, 32, 33, 34
* Page 4, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 41, 42, 43, 44
...and remember, those program numbers refer to which Page you're on (first digit) and which of the four buttons is associated with each sound (second digit).

The other 25 banks, B through Z, are set up the same way. So the last program, instead of being referred to as Program #416, is referred to as Program Z:44 which is Bank Z, Page 4, Button 4.

[cphollis]

@anotherscott, you do the best explanations!

[AliciaM]

A Program is a saved sound or combination of sounds, saved with whatever parameters you've chosen (effects,split assignments, etc.). It's kind of analogous to a Korg Combi, a Yamaha Performance, a Kurzweil Setup or Multi, a Roland Registration or Studio Set, etc., if that helps. On the E6, a Program can have up to 3 sounds in it... one from the Piano section, one Organ sound, and one Sample Synth sound.

The E6 can store up to 416 Programs. Many of the locations are pre-filled by Nord ("factory presets"), others are empty for your use. But even the "factory preset" locations are rewritable, you can replace any/all of them with your own user Programs if you prefer.

There are 4 Program select buttons. When you turn the unit on, those buttons will select the first four programs. A set of four Programs is referred to as a Page. You can hit the "Page Forward" button to get to the next page, i.e. the next set of four programs. (There are other ways to navigate as well.) You can use the Organize function (or the Sound Manager program) to re-order the Programs, and also to re-order the Pages if you want to move entire sets of 4 Programs together (for example, if you've associated a particular page of 4 programs to a particular song, such that all those programs should always be kept together, even when re-ordering things, so that those 4 Programs are always available as a group under the 4 Program select buttons).

The 416 programs are not numbered 1 through 416. Instead, as you mentioned, they are sub-grouped into 26 banks (A-Z), each with 16 programs, which in turn are split into 4 pages of 4 single-button selectable sounds (11-14, 21-24, 31-34, 41-44 where the first digit is the page and the second digit is the button number).

So Bank A has 16 Programs, organized like this:
* Page 1, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 11, 12, 13, 14
* Page 2, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 21, 22, 23, 24
* Page 3, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 31, 32, 33, 34
* Page 4, with 4 buttons that call up Programs 41, 42, 43, 44
...and remember, those program numbers refer to which Page you're on (first digit) and which of the four buttons is associated with each sound (second digit).

The other 25 banks, B through Z, are set up the same way. So the last program, instead of being referred to as Program #416, is referred to as Program Z:44 which is Bank Z, Page 4, Button 4.

This was VERY clarifying. Thanks so much!!

[Gambold]

It's kind of funky and takes some getting used to. I had a 4 and now a 6, so I never saw the setlist feature, which apparently was not enough of a winner, since Clavia removed it after one model.

The concept of 26 lettered banks, each with 16 slots, and that are numbered 11-14, 21-24, 31-34, and 41-44 is very strange. Why not just 1-16? Only the Nordies know. You can only page through the banks and each time you do, you land at the far left slot first. I've found that the best way to deal with this is frontload all my stage sounds in the A and B banks, and organize those by sound type.

Then in the rest of the letters I dumped all the Nord factory presets, sorted by category. That took some time, using the sound manager - the advantage was that I checked out every one of them, if only for a few seconds. I almost never use any of them, but they are a library of sounds to visit that I can modify and save to A or B. See attached.

[pablomastodon]

The concept of 26 lettered banks, each with 16 slots, and that are numbered 11-14, 21-24, 31-34, and 41-44 is very strange. Why not just 1-16? Only the Nordies know.

Two benefits...

Let's say you're playing sound #1 in Bank A , and you want to get to your tenth sound next, using your preferred numbering system where it is actually listed as program #10. You have two ways to do it. One, you could use the scroll knob. But for a quick mid-song change with only a couple of beats to get to your sound, scroll knob is hard to use if your aim is to be both fast and precise (i.e. you don't want to overshoot). So you might prefer to use hard buttons. What buttons do you have to use to get to patch 10? Well, you'd have to do some quick math... where is sound 10 located? You'd have to calculate or remember that sound 10 is the second sound on the third page. Then you could hit "Page-Forward, Page-Forward, 2" and not worry about over-shooting as you might with a quick scroll. But what if instead of calling it sound 10, you called the tenth program sound 32? The number tells you, go to the third page, and hit button two. No math, nothing to calculate or remember. You could still use the scroll knob if you prefer, but if you want to use buttons, having the numbers indicate the position is a timesaver, because the patch number itself tells you how to get to the patch using the buttons. But maybe you don't care about that. Okay, there's an even better reason:

Numeric Pad mode lets you get to any sound in the current bank with two button presses. If, again, you're trying to call up your "patch #10," how do you call it up with two button presses, when there are only 4 buttons available which are labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4? There's no "button zero" so no way to call up 10. Also there's no 5 or 6, so using your preferred numbering scheme, you could never recall programs 5, 6, 15, or 16. By numbering all the programs using no digits except 1, 2, 3, amd 4, every patch in a bank can be called up with two-digit recall. In order to have this work AND have your preferred 1-16 numbering work when using the scroll knob, each Program would have to have two numbers... in this case, sound #10 when in standard program selection mode would become sound #32 when in numeric keypad mode. Talk about confusing! So it's either eliminate numeric pad mode, or live with the fact that all program numbers are made up of only the digits 1 through 4.

This is an extension of what Roland did on many of their old keyboards which had 8 program select buttons... they used program numbers 11 through 88, skipping anything that had a 9 or 0.

The best solution is to have 10 program select buttons instead of 4 or 8. Then you can have patch numbers that use all ten digits, while still being able to recall any of them with direct buttons. I wish Nords had ten program buttons. But absent that, if you want the benefit of direct button recall, your program numbers can't have more different digits than you have number buttons.

[Gambold]

Good explanations! I should try numeric mode, sounds like a better way to get to different banks quicker.

[pablomastodon]

...The best solution is to have 10 program select buttons instead of 4 or 8. Then you can have patch numbers that use all ten digits...

I wouldn't mind 16 buttons for true midi-style hexadecimal usage. Seriously, the more the merrier, wider selection of single-button press accessibility.

and Gambold wasn't lying -- the BEST explanations!

bless, pablo