Nord User Forum

hello there.

i'm relatively new to the world of midi and recording software and was having some trouble with the 3p.

i am running the 3p through a mio iconnectivity to my laptop which is running garageband. garageband is saying that there is a midi device connected however I don't have a plain track option available to run the 3p to. is it just the fact of the daw being absolutely basic? i understand the settings have to be to channel 10 and global has to be off.

if there's anything else I could be missing, I'd appreciate the help. thank you.

Hi VincentAnthony,

I'm afraid I can't help you with Garageband for Mac, I have the iOS version (and that user interface really drives me nuts, but that is just personal). You have to create a MIDI track, not an audiotrack, but how to do that and how it's called in Garageband I don't know. However, I looked on the internet if it is possible to send MIDI from Garageband back to external instruments (in your case the 3p), apparently it is not. So you can record MIDI from an external keyboard or drum pad onto a MIDI track, but only to play sounds from Garageband itself..

So the best advice I can give you is to search for Garageband forums or tutorials on the internet to double check, because perhaps I'm wrong.. Or look for another MIDI sequencer / DAW for your Mac. Perhaps someone else here can help you with that, I'd suggest Logic, but that might be a bit expensive...

I can help you with the MIDI settings of the 3p.. for most common uses you should not turn the Global MIDI channel off, so [GL.10] is ok, leave it like that. Use MIDI channel 10 as your MIDI track output channel. In most cases you won't need the Individual MIDI channels, best to switch them off [Ch.OF].. (or at least pick different MIDI channels than the Global, and also choose unique MIDI channels, so all different from each other, but I would leave them off for now).

Cheers,
Albert

albert,

thanks so much for your reply. after posting on here i did a bit more research and came to find a video on youtube saying in short what you did. garageband doesn't have the capability to assign tracks and to create a midi track. it does look like logic is the answer.

if you could answer on the video that I saw, the person created the midi track and then just went under the preferences under the track and changed it to channel 10 and was able to get the sounds to come though the nord. obviously the nord has to be set up properly with global midi channel and all. is that all it would entail with logic? thank you again.

VincentAnthony wrote:if you could answer on the video that I saw, the person created the midi track and then just went under the preferences under the track and changed it to channel 10 and was able to get the sounds to come though the nord.

This is how it is usually done in the DAWs that I know:
-Connect the MIDI interface to your computer and both the MIDI in and out to the MIDI out and in of the 3p.
-Create a MIDI track, select the MIDI interface for it and set the output MIDI channel. Usually the input MIDI channel does not have to be set, it will record any MIDI channel on the input.
-Click on the record button and hit some pads of the 3p, the recorded notes will appear in the MIDI track, you will notice that the recorded drum pattern only consists of the notes that are set in the MIDI settings of the 3p.
-If you like you can now edit individual notes, eg 'quantise' the recording so that the timing is correct, add or delete notes, increase the velocity of some notes, etc.
-If you then play the track back, the notes will be transmitted to the 3p which will then produce the drum sounds. On the 3p you can select other drum sounds if you like, the same drum pattern will then sound differently.

If you only want to sequence the 3p, and do not want to record any audio, then check MIDI sequencers or step sequencers. If you also want to record audio check DAWs like Logic, Cubase, Pro-Tools, Tracktion, Ableton etc

Albert