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Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby jb1979 » 24 Jun 2018, 18:01

Hello

The sax player from my band lended me her Nord Electro 3 61 for a concert. She allowed me to modify everything on it, but she needs to have it back exactly in the same state as today (she uses it regularly for her musical project), and it has OS version 3.00 so I am not sure if it is safe to upgrade the OS, etc.

What I would like to do:
1) backup everything with the Nord software (including the samples, this is very important)
2) upgrade the OS to latest version
3) install the piano sounds I need
4) play at the concert
5) restore the original configuration from step 1 using the Nord software.

Is it possible/safe? Should I rather keep OS version 3.00?

Thanks for your help
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Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question


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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby harmonizer » 24 Jun 2018, 18:45

There is no single step you can take to backup everything on a Nord Electro. Let's ignore for a minute whether or not you will do an OS upgrade. There are completely separate memory banks on the Nord Electro for sample files and Nord Piano sounds. The Nord Sound Manager software allows you to upload selected sample files (.NSMP) or piano bank files (.npno) to your Nord Electro. If you were to delete the uploaded copies of some of these files from the Nord Electro, then to replace them later you would need to get the same copies of these which are probably on the computer at your sax player's home.

It seems like your main goal is to use this board for acoustic piano. If this is true, you might not need to change anything at all in the Sample bank. This will simplify things for you.

There are a few peculiarities with the Nord Electro 3 (I have one) when it comes to AP sounds:
1) the waterfall keyboard is optimized for organ. It is by far the lightest weighted "semi weighted" keybed I have ever played, and it takes some getting used to.

2) While the Electro 3 can use all the latest AP sounds, it has only 184MB for its piano sound bank. I also use the piano bank to store some sounds for Clav, Wurli, and Rhodes EP, and your sax player might be doing the same. I can only fit a single "L"-sized acoustic piano sound at a time into my Electro 3. So I can't do direct A/B tests, unless I use small sized versions ("S" or "M") of the piano sounds.

3) There is a peculiarity of Nord acoustic piano sounds - most of them prefer stereo with two speakers. Related discussion can be found in this recent thread:
nord-piano-forum-f10/review-one-month-in-and-amplification-problems-t15655.html

The octave below middle C is where many of the AP sounds generate my "Ew" reaction, when played with a single speaker (whether the mono button has been turned on or not). The Royal Grand is an exception (it sounds really nice at home), but does not cut in the upper registers in a covers band. Another user here posted that the Silver Grand cuts well with a single speaker, if you take the output from the "R" output instead of "L". This might work well for you, if you mostly care about the upper end AP sounds and not the lower end.

The current version of OS version is 3.12. I would think that it is a pretty safe process to upgrade the OS from 3.00 to 3.12, and applying this upgrade should not change any of the sounds that are already loaded in any of the memory banks in the Electro 3. Your sax player friend may be using an old version of Nord Sound Manager if he is still running OS version 3.00. You might not be able to find the old version of Nord Sound Manager that works with the OS version 3.00. And if your sax player friend really wants the board returned to him exactly as it is today, I am not sure what would be the process to take it back down to OS version 3.00, if you upgrade it for your purposes.

The simplest scenario for you would be if you were to discover that your friend had already loaded an Acoustic Piano sound on the Electro 3 which works for you.

The second simplest scenario would be if you were to discover that there was enough unused storage in the Electro 3, that you would be able to add an Acoustic Piano sound, without having to delete any sounds that are already in the piano bank. But you would need to connect Nord Sound Manager to the board in order to check how much free space was in the piano memory bank. Maybe someone can direct you to where you can get a copy of an old version of Nord Sound Manager which can work with OS version 3.00.

You still probably would need version 3.12 to use the latest piano sounds. If there is adequate free space, maybe you could convince the sax player to allow you to upgrade the OS version to 3.12, and then you could tell them what newer version of Nord Sound Manager they would need to upgrade to on their computer, and that you would install a good acoustic piano sound for them on their Electro, as part of the process..

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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby baekgaard » 24 Jun 2018, 18:50

Well, there are some significant bug fixes (at least the one on not using the velocity curves in the piano library and maybe another one too), so it's probably a good idea to upgrade if you intend to play piano on the board.

But this could also mean that the feel and behaviour of the board would change (in my view: improve) but your friend may not like that but prefer to stick with 8 year old software...

Hence, the issue you're facing is that you may need to, but there is likely no way you can get back to 3.00 -- unless you can find the release somewhere (unlikely to be on Nords homepage).

And even if you can get it, I would recommend (just in case) that you put in an additional step 2.5, making a backup of the sounds after having upgraded the firmware. Which entails backing up both the piano and samples areas as well as the program areas, etc -- I assume you're familiar with Nord layouts; if not, you need to read up a little on this.

And then, you may be just about the only one in the world trying to backup (and later on restore) a NE3 using the latest sound manager with 8 year old firmware; not sure if this has ever been tested.

So just in case, in your shoes, I would try to negotiate a deal with the owner that you will upgrade the instrument to the latest SW (with the bug fixes that has been performed) and send it back to her with the same samples but the latest firmware...

And if you only need to change the piano sound(s), you don't need to fiddle with the sample area; these are different.

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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby jb1979 » 24 Jun 2018, 19:35

thanks for your answer harmonizer
harmonizer wrote:If you were to delete the uploaded copies of some of these files from the Nord Electro, then to replace them later you would need to get the same copies of these which are probably on the computer at your sax player's home.

I will download all files including Nord sounds and wave samples to my computer before doing anything!

It seems like your main goal is to use this board for acoustic piano. If this is true, you might not need to change anything at all in the Sample bank. This will simplify things for you.

I only need Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds for this concert, but I might add an upright piano

1) the waterfall keyboard is optimized for organ. It is by far the lightest weighted "semi weighted" keybed I have ever played, and it takes some getting used to.

It is ok for me. I don't like it so much compared to my old Novation Remote because the springs are quite hard, and I prefer piano-type actions for non-organ sounds, but it is certainly professional and miles better than my Korg Kross.

2) While the Electro 3 can use all the latest AP sounds, it has only 184MB for its piano sound bank. I also use the piano bank to store some sounds for Clav, Wurli, and Rhodes EP, and your sax player might be doing the same. I can only fit a single "L"-sized acoustic piano sound at a time into my Electro 3. So I can't do direct A/B tests, unless I use small sized versions ("S" or "M") of the piano sounds.

This is fine, I had a Nord Piano in the past so I already know I will use Nefertiti and Mark V Rhodes + Wurlitzer + either Black/BlueSuede/Queen upright

3) There is a peculiarity of Nord acoustic piano sounds - most of them prefer stereo with two speakers. Related discussion can be found in this recent thread:
nord-piano-forum-f10/review-one-month-in-and-amplification-problems-t15655.html

The octave below middle C is where many of the AP sounds generate my "Ew" reaction, when played with a single speaker (whether the mono button has been turned on or not). The Royal Grand is an exception (it sounds really nice at home), but does not cut in the upper registers in a covers band. Another user here posted that the Silver Grand cuts well with a single speaker, if you take the output from the "R" output instead of "L". This might work well for you, if you mostly care about the upper end AP sounds and not the lower end.

This is true. But fortunately I will have both stereo FOH and monitoring at this concert.

The current version of OS version is 3.12. I would think that it is a pretty safe process to upgrade the OS from 3.00 to 3.12, and applying this upgrade should not change any of the sounds that are already loaded in any of the memory banks in the Electro 3. Your sax player friend may be using an old version of Nord Sound Manager if he is still running OS version 3.00. You might not be able to find the old version of Nord Sound Manager that works with the OS version 3.00. And if your sax player friend really wants the board returned to him exactly as it is today, I am not sure what would be the process to take it back down to OS version 3.00, if you upgrade it for your purposes.

Yes I have no idea where to download OS 3.00
I have an old Nord Sound Manager version on my computer though

The simplest scenario for you would be if you were to discover that your friend had already loaded an Acoustic Piano sound on the Electro 3 which works for you.

Unfortunately none of the sounds I am used too
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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby jb1979 » 24 Jun 2018, 19:44

thanks for your answer baekgaard
baekgaard wrote:Well, there are some significant bug fixes (at least the one on not using the velocity curves in the piano library and maybe another one too), so it's probably a good idea to upgrade if you intend to play piano on the board.

Yes, velocity curves and better release sound if I remember correctly

But this could also mean that the feel and behaviour of the board would change (in my view: improve) but your friend may not like that but prefer to stick with 8 year old software...

She would prefer the new version of course, but this particular keyboard is used for a specific project so if changing the OS changes the sounds and the playability, even slightly, then this may ruin their next concerts or require lots of work (not the right period for doing this)

Hence, the issue you're facing is that you may need to, but there is likely no way you can get back to 3.00 -- unless you can find the release somewhere (unlikely to be on Nords homepage).

This is the problem. I asked Nord about this, maybe they can send me a copy.

And even if you can get it, I would recommend (just in case) that you put in an additional step 2.5, making a backup of the sounds after having upgraded the firmware. Which entails backing up both the piano and samples areas as well as the program areas, etc -- I assume you're familiar with Nord layouts; if not, you need to read up a little on this.

And then, you may be just about the only one in the world trying to backup (and later on restore) a NE3 using the latest sound manager with 8 year old firmware; not sure if this has ever been tested.

Yes I intended to backup just everything at step 1; but I understand it has to be done with the old version of the software.

So just in case, in your shoes, I would try to negotiate a deal with the owner that you will upgrade the instrument to the latest SW (with the bug fixes that has been performed) and send it back to her with the same samples but the latest firmware...

As I said above, I'm afraid this will change the feel, which is not good for their own concerts

And if you only need to change the piano sound(s), you don't need to fiddle with the sample area; these are different.

Ok thanks for this
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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby jb1979 » 24 Jun 2018, 19:49

Unless Nord sends me positive information about all this, my plan is to

- stick to OS 3.00 (should work with my version of Nord Sound Manager, I kept it installed even if I had to sell my Nord Piano 88)

- check if there is any space to install the Nefertiti and/or Mk V Rhodes (the Wurlitzer is already here)

- if there is not enough space, this can become tricky but I might be able to do this:
a) delete a few sounds
b) upload the 2 new sounds
c) do exactly the opposite after the concert (I will backup all piano memory including Nord sounds before doing anything else)
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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby Arjan P » 25 Jun 2018, 01:31

Even if you find a copy of OS 3.00, it could still be questionable whether the board accepts a downgrade. But others might know more about this. I always keep my firmwares, but got the E6 with 3.06 so my oldest version copy is 3.08..

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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby jb1979 » 25 Jun 2018, 17:16

Arjan P wrote:Even if you find a copy of OS 3.00, it could still be questionable whether the board accepts a downgrade. But others might know more about this. I always keep my firmwares, but got the E6 with 3.06 so my oldest version copy is 3.08..

Thanks Arjan, this is a very good point indeed. I asked the Nord technical support if they can send me the files corresponding to the version 3.00 of the OS + the compatible Nord Sound Manager, and if it is possible to install OS 3.00 if OS 3.14 is already installed
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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby harmonizer » 25 Jun 2018, 17:43

If you have the Wurli 2 Amped XL loaded, that takes about 25MB in the piano bank. There is another version, Wurli 2 Amped L, which saves about 8MB, and seems indistinguishable to me from the XL. The "L" version came preloaded on some Nords, and while not directly downloadable from Nord, it has been shared on this board. So if you need to use Wurli 2 Amped, but need 8MB more space in the piano bank to make everything work, let us know.
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Re: Nord Electro 3 61 upgrade, then downgrade question

Postby anotherscott » 25 Jun 2018, 18:02

The owner may also have the original CD that came wth the Nord, and by the sound of it, it seems possible that she never updated beyond that, so you might be able to restore the OS from that.

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