General Discussion of the Nord Stage (EX), Nord Stage 2 (EX), Nord Stage 3, and Nord Stage 4 Synths, FAQ, Troubleshooting etc.

Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby Oly1200 » 05 May 2018, 10:14

I want to hook
Up the stage 3 to mainstage, only as mainstage has a lot of pre programmed patches I need and it will save me ages in programming.
Question is can I hook it to laptop by usb cable that came with bird and just play the patches that are on mainstage on my nord? Ie use the Nord as a controller, I know it’s a waste but I have a gig coming up and it would be easy to have all
The complex patches on mainstage and call
Them up when the song requres
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Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage


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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby analogika » 05 May 2018, 10:26

Absolutely. It will work exactly as you describe.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby Oly1200 » 05 May 2018, 12:57

great, so how do i set it up? is the usb cable suffice to connect to pc, and what settings on the nord need to be done
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby anotherscott » 05 May 2018, 13:12

analogika wrote:Absolutely.

I'd give it more of a "probably."

If the Mainstage patches expect all MIDI input to come over a single MIDI channel, then yes, and I think all you have to do is make sure the Nord's Global channel is set for the channel Mainstage expects (and the default of 1 is likely to work).

However, if Mainstage has been set up to play different things on different MIDI channels (i.e. if it had previously been set up to be controlled by a two keyboard stack with the different keyboards triggering different sounds at the same time; or even if it were set up to be driven by a single multi-zone controller in that fashion, with the zoning being done at the keyboard instead of from within Mainstage), then it gets more complicated.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby analogika » 05 May 2018, 17:04

Oly1200 wrote:great, so how do i set it up? is the usb cable suffice to connect to pc, and what settings on the nord need to be done

If you haven’t done any customisation on Mainstage‘s MIDI routings, just hooking up USB should have you all set.

If you have changed the MIDI channel on which Mainstage responds, you will need to change the Stage 3‘s MIDI send to the same channel (in the MIDI settings).

If you wish to switch between the Nord‘s sounds and Mainstage, it gets a little more involved, since you can run the Stage‘s outputs into Mainstage as an extra channel strip, or use the Nord‘s Extern section to control Mainstage separately from the internal sounds.
Last edited by analogika on 05 May 2018, 17:04, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby Bachus » 09 May 2018, 19:11

Still not decided on the nord stage..

This is one of the questions that remains...
Its mainstage/midi related

If i set the ns3 keys to local OFF
And then send the midi controlls over he global channel to mainstage
And then use mainstage to route them back over the global receive to the NS3
Will i have full controll over the ns3 this way?

This would allow me easilly to switch by filter scripts on mainstage to switch between controlling ns3 or a softsynth or even a module connected trough mainstage.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby anotherscott » 09 May 2018, 19:14

I *think* that will work... but you will lose a couple of things... the high trigger option on the organ, and the low trigger release on the clav that I assume i has (the Electro 5 has it, at least)... those things only affect internal sound and do no impact the MIDI Note On and Note Off messages that are sent.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby analogika » 10 May 2018, 00:11

You also add latency.
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby Bachus » 10 May 2018, 15:15

anotherscott wrote:I *think* that will work... but you will lose a couple of things... the high trigger option on the organ, and the low trigger release on the clav that I assume i has (the Electro 5 has it, at least)... those things only affect internal sound and do no impact the MIDI Note On and Note Off messages that are sent.


Good to know, this indeed is a bugger because high trigger for fast organ parts is so sweet to have..
And i haven’t found any way to program switching local controll on and off trough a button
And since its a global parameter, you cant program it in a registration either.

analogika wrote:You also add latency.


Yes about 3 ms
But there will allways be latency when controlling software or even other hardware..
I think the latency will be acceptable... but have to test it...
I will try to tets it to oorow, visiting a music shop with a ns3 on site, and will bring my Mac..
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Re: Hooking up stage 3 to mainstage

Postby someclevername » 11 May 2018, 13:44

If i set the ns3 keys to local OFF
And then send the midi controlls over he global channel to mainstage
And then use mainstage to route them back over the global receive to the NS3
Will i have full controll over the ns3 this way?

This would allow me easilly to switch by filter scripts on mainstage to switch between controlling ns3 or a softsynth or even a module connected trough mainstage.


My experience with mainstage would be to recommend against this, you need some sort of backup. When (not if!) mainstage crashes, you're going to be left high and dry. When I use mainstage in my rig I set the first 4 presets of a page to bread and butter sounds, e.g. piano/e piano/organ and set preset 5 to control mainstage via the extern section. That way when mainstage dies you can quickly switch to something to get you to the end of the song while you restart mainstage.

It's a shame to lose the excellent sounds provided by the Stage internally, but you really do need to account for how fickle mainstage can be sometimes. Personally, I have a particular aversion to mainstage's internal piano and e piano sounds. If you don't have the money to get suitable samples or replacements you could try sampling your favourite sounds using autosampler. This would give you Nord sounds with a few minor caveats (no string resonance) but it does separate the stage's sound engine from mainstage for occasions when the poo hits the fan.

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