Which electro for keyboard split with external synth in?

[andrew00]

Heya,

I'm in the market for a Nord Electro and am looking to do something specific. I'm a fan of the old Farfisa combo organs and am basically looking to recreate this with a Nord.

My plan is to have an organ sound as the left split in the keyboard, and a synth sound on the right split, either from the sample library or more likely provided from an external synth module - such as one of the Roland Boutique series. So that would be left split Nord organ, right split Nord Synth or external in synth.

I've been trying to research which Nords can do this, but am getting a bit confused. From what I can see some of them can do this and others can't. Can anyone please just clue me in an let me know which models are going to work for me so I can grab one of them please.

Also, as a second point, is there any way to select if the effects affect only one of the splits? Ie it could be useful to have the Organ have the delay/reverb and then use a pedal for the second split, ie the external synth one. I suppose that's getting to complicated?

Thank you in advance if you can direct me either way!

Also, does anyone use the Nord like this regularly and what is your experience of it? I did consider instead getting something like a Reface YC and a separate synth for leads, but it seems the Nord is higher quality so I'm trying to make that work first. Thanks!

[vcfvca]

You need the Electro 5 if you want to control an external synth. You can use Channel Upper Split - this will send MIDI to your Boutique, you just match the channels. Lower split can be used for Organ. You can use OUTPUT ROUTING MODE With the PartL : L, PartU : R setting Part lower is routed to the left output and Part Upper to the right output. Effects can be set to Lower or Upper. So you can just have effects on the lower part. So if you want to just use the Sample Synth you can send that Dry to external FX.

I used the E5 with an external module but when I upgraded to the E6 Nord removed this function!!!

The Electro series are great boards - BUT BEWARE - with every upgrade Nord always remove something really good that was on the earlier model. Crazy!
BTW with E6 you can route your YC into the Monitor In if you like. Save on using a mixing desk. (But you would be stuck with the YC keyboard in that case). On the E5 the monitor in signal only appeared in the Headphones.

Edit - Don't you mean Reface CS which is the synth? The YC is the organ and the Electro has that covered.