Feeling underwhelmed by the horns and strings

[KenNord4]

Is it just me, or do the horns and strings sound cheesy?
(new Nord 4 owner... still in my 45 day return period)

The VSTs I use in my DAW (Ableton) sound much richer and real than the synth samples for brass and strings in the Nord.
I bought the Nord as I am starting to play out again and did not want to show up for gigs with my midi controller and laptop.
But I am having second thoughts about the Nord now .

Do people get reasonable strings and brass out of the Nord stage?

[SuperStage]

I agree. I moved from a NS3 and unfortunately nord decided to not provide ns3p compatability for the factory sounds and the variety of brass and strings on the NS4 are underwhelming. Hopefully this changes as the expand the ns4p library. The current brass and strings are definitely not superior to the ones I use in mainstage, but they are certainly acceptable in a live setting.

[KenNord4]

If your reference are the Brass and Strings of advanced VSTs, forget you can get exactly the same realism on a Nord keyboard, which uses monolayer samples in a VA synth; it would not be bad to reconsider using the VST also live (lot of pro and non-pro keyboardists do), just for those sounds.

This doesn't mean you cannot get effective brass and strings on a Nord Stage, using factory or user samples and some good programming, particularly for live usage where extreme details are not really relevant, but do not expect to get in the same league of a VST.

Nord Sample Library v4 is not yet fully aligned to v3 but there are quite a number of brass and strings samples (most also loaded in NS4, but you need to search for them as they may not be used in a Synth preset yet), in addition you can take a look at samples in www.nordusersounds.com and use them as a starting point to build your own brass/strings patches.

[mistral_73]

Hello

>not want to show up for gigs with my midi controller and laptop.
If you can't find better sounds, don't forget the extern section which can almost replace a midi controller. (laptop still needed, I agree).
I was also unsatisfied with strings and horns sound from Nord, the best solution (to my ears) was to use a Motif rack, driven by the extern section. You have to dig in some midi settings, but once it's done, your external device is fully integrated in the nord interface with the same ease of use as the other sections. (on/off, level, morph, pitch stick, ...)

my 2 cents

[TomGisler]

www.nordusersounds.com is a great source of much better strings and brass samples. Needs time to find, and then you have to convert (a lot of the sounds are in nsmp format) with the PC Programm Converter 1.12 (works only with PC) into the nsmp3 format, then you can import the stuff with the soundmanager in NS4. good luck!

[KenNord4]

I found that the mix of horn section 3, a motif brass sound (several can be found on the forum), a trumpet and a sampleset that I ported from my tyros based yamaha digital piano work great live.
Set the mix of the different layer to taste, play with different velocity curves and filter settings. This way it gets interesting on the different dynamic levels.

Request: I someone has the Killing live brass sound on his synth (Mainstage, Motif, Roland,....), I'm able to loop them perfectly for you and share the result here in the forum.
Turn of all effect (delay, Reverb and Chorus) Record every second key at velocity level 110 for around 5 seconds into one big audio file at 16 bit as loud as possible without clipping.
Send that file to me and I'll loop them and put them on this forum!

[KenNord4]

Thanks all! Very good suggestions.

The net of it is that I have some work in front of me

Last week I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to convert and load Stage 3 sounds into the Stage 4... with limited luck.

And of course, there is a dearth of NS4 sounds on the forum at this point. I was able to import and get working sound 50367 for sledgehammer. (all 4 based)

I had totally forgotten about the Extern. That is probably what I am going to pursue setting up next. I am not looking forward to the additional complexity... including have to now also send the output of my Mac to the board/amp. I suspect that, practically, means that I need to get a small mixer to combine the Nord and Mac/Ableton/Mainstage output.

Question: is it advisable to get a separate USB-C Audio Interface for the mac, or is using the headphone out with a 1/4 adapter the same thing?

[mistral_73]

Hello

You can avoid an additional mixer using the "monitor in" input.
If it works like the NS3, keep in mind that the master level knob does not apply to this input, which can be an issue.
(issue with many workarounds : Control the extern level with the synth level knob, or morph the extern volume decrease with the wheel, ...)

Regards

[KenNord4]

With the help that Eriknie offered, you might end up with some very nice samples and be able to leave your Mac at home. Good luck!

Edit: I also have NSMP samples posted at post150547.html#p150547 that might provide a broader selection of options for you. The Brass and Brass/Strings ensemble combinations were created layering Nord and Korg base samples. Some of the samples work well for slower passages while others work well when you need something fast and punchy. As Sound Manager still has a bug not allowing NSMP files to be converted to NSMP4 format, here's a link to a converter posted a few years ago that will convert user-created NSMP files to NSMP3 format which NSM will accept and convert when loaded on the NS4--> post164553.html?hilit=Converter#p164553. Some folks have also been successful loading user-created NSMP files simply by renaming them ".nsmp3" which actually won't work in a keyboard that uses NSMP3 files, but will be converted correctly to NSMP4 format when loading into the NS4.

[KenNord4]

I'm getting some OK brass by layering 2 or 3 brass / sax sounds, different octaves, some delay etc. I really need to upload some of my NS4 sounds here and we can collaborate on making them better. I just haven't had time for it and won't for a little while. I've got a reasonable selection of programs now, as have a couple of other people.