Nord User Forum

Hello Nord-Community,

as I am entering more and more the Coverband Business as a Keyboarder, I am learning more and more about how important it is to not only have good sounds and beeing able to play your music, but to have a good Volume - Management on your Sounds and Programs. On a small Gig with a Set of 10 - 20 Songs, that does normally not come into play so strongly: You know your songs well, you can level up some sounds or boost your solos on the spot if necessary and you rehearse the Songs normally a few times and can adjust the volume of your programms in the rehearsal until it fits the bandsound fine.

When you are playing in a Coverband and you have up to 100 or more Songs (so up to 60 or 70 Programms), that will get way harder. You have not the chance to adjust them in many rehearsals, so you have to find a way your volumes are allready balanced, testing them more or less only at home. It´s even more crucial when you have to be a substitute at a gig with NO rehearsal before.

I allready searched the Forum for this topic and found some useful posts, but most of them where really specific or too superficial in that matter. So this thread should be about managing your sound- und programm- volumes when you have a ton of Sounds/Programs and NO time to balance them in rehearsals. I hope we get some good input, ideas and experiences together!

Here are my inputs, questions and thoughts to get the conversation going:
- What are your "working-steps" to get your Sounds in Volume ready for the gig?
- Who should have more "control" over your volumes: You as a play or the soundengineer?
- Talking about Volume-Pedals: How to use a pedal, without getting too wide volume-changes throughout the set? (expecially with pedals that go from 0% - 100% percent, I created therefore an extra thread!)
general-nord-forum-f29/talking-about-volume-pedals-t22680.html
- The problem of beeing on the Level-Maximum on sections: How to avoid that, when I want to adjust sounds after the gig, that you cant add more Piano/Sample/Organ because you are allready an to Level - Maximum of one section?

Happy to hear your opinions!

Greetings,
Michael

And i will give my own replies directly in this first answer:

My working steps would be:
1) Getting Sound together, how I want them to sound
2) Setting Nord Main-Volume and speaker Volume (if I run it through a DAW) on ONE level and DON`T change them, so you have alway the same relation to the output.
3) Trying to not get over 60% of Output in every section. So ONE Section on 80% can still be as loud/strong then a layer of 3 sections on 30%. Additionally, I can adjust sound later and add more of one section if want to.
4) Getting all Sound ond the SAME Volume
5) Deciding, which sound should need a Boost and which sounds need to be less loud
6) Checking, if the relation between Progams that are used in ONE Song, are correct
7) Working on the Volume through Equalizer: Boosting frequences if necessary.

One thing, that really bothers me on the Nord Electro 6D ist, that there is no way to regulate the Volume of one Programm. So if a have a layer of 3 sections, and i want all of it louder or weaker, I have to regulate every section for each other. That is changing really often as well the finished sound a little bit, because some sections (f.e. disstortion on Organ) sound different on lower/higher output.

Sound Engineer or me?
I would say, if you know the band well, you can have more courage to boost/lower some sounds. If you a Substitute, it´s better to have a homogenous Volume throughout the whole set and telling the engineere that he should regulate if necessary.

Greetings,
Michael

I have thought a lot about this and here is my approach, going top to bottom in priority: (I use a Stage 3, some details are irrelevant for Electro/Piano users.)

0. Create your own "init" program. Select your go to piano, adjust organ to an average setting (not full stop, switch on rotary speaker), change synth to a slightly LP filtered sawtooth (or the most universal sample). Then adjust sound engine levels so they sound about equally loud. This will be your average (non solo) loudness, so all levels should be under -6 dB. This way you have room for solo volumes when needed.

1. Avoid creating new programs. Try to keep your collection small, and you will have less things to worry about. I only use 1 piano program, 4 B3's (different amounts of drive, levels matched!), 1 clav, 1 EP. Try to re-use synth programs if at all possible. Song-specific split sounds are a different story, but I like to avoid them altogether.

2. Choose 1-2 programs to be your reference points. Choose whatever you use the most. A generic piano is best for this. After creating the first draft of program X, roughly compare it to your references. Not only in loudness, but also in timbre. Are bass and low mids about equal? Is there an unnessary difference in the higher register? Again, you don't need perfection here.
Try to develop your siund hand in hand with the setlist. Jumping from a ballad to a banger will require a drastic change, but if you have 3 rock songs in a row, one with B3, the other with piano and one with synth, try to keep in a similar space..

3. When possible, repeat "step" 2.. Make program X sound as close as possible to your references, without losing its point. Remember: this is not just about volume or loudness. All characteristics matter.
"Why do this?" Two reasons: The sound system will respond very similarly to all programs. If one program works, they all work. Possibly the more important reason is, that your band mix stays consisten.

Surly this is one of the reasons lots use a Nord in live performances.
Adjusting on the fly and resaving. I gig a lot, I rehearse and set sounds and levels best as I can, then I gig it, Adjust as needed on the fly and resave. No glitches, no thumps.
If you are well rehearsed, it shouldn’t take too many gigs to get levels right.
Norm

Basics rehearsal and gig aren't the same thing for levels. Every place you play the sound will be different and even the level changes over course of the gig by the number of people in the room. So bottom line you have to learn to how to adjust as you go unless you are running thru the FOH. Always leave yourself headroom for increasing volume no matter if you going into stage gear or sending to FOH. Learning how to EQ and manage your levels is as much a part of learning to play as is learning tunes.

Missed this thread the first time around. I agree with most all of Elias' recommendations about using "templates" for additional sounds, based on what has worked and balanced on other programs.

I have a batch of sounds that I like to use as "starting points" or "templates" where I know that the various parts of the sound are dialed in well and worked in a live setting. Use these and then swap in alternate sound types as needed.

I also have always run my organ separately through a Vent and it has a dedicated stereo mixer channel on my Radial KL-8, so I can adjust the organ and non-organ sounds within the mixer. Sometimes my sound engineer is like "hey your organ is running a little hot" and I can adjust that in the Radial without worrying about anything on the Nord itself.

For very specialized things (e.g. loops or sound FX) I will run those through a separate output into a separate mixer channel for discrete control of the volume external to the Nord.

Stereo Out of Keyboards into KeyLargo with QSC K8.2 Stereo Wedges

At home or rehearsal: Copy a similar patch with layers / splits / EXTERN Midi channel assignments that I already know works with my bands on live gigs...make tweaks and save it.

At the show and Rehearsal: Be ready to vary synth filter brightness and LED Volume Levels on the fly...saving while playing or after the tune..

Master Volume on the NS3 and other keyboards on my rig are always at 1:00 for normal playing and left hand ready to boost for solo and featured sections...then back just like all our favorite (loud) guitar players do with their pedals.

Ditto to much of the above. Similar to Elias and ericL, I have my "Utility" and another program as starting points for other programs that already have the B3 with drawbars morphed to the Mod Wheel, pad(s), and a couple pianos (now using White Grand the most). I use the control pedal a lot for morphing individual levels within a program that provides the opportunity to set the range of the pedal. Similar to Mr Marko, with my programs already balanced between instruments used, I use the master volume to set a normal playing volume for the evening and turn it up for solos. When working with a sound engineer, as long as I'm in the mix for the song, my adjustment for the solo should get me where I need to be with the sound engineer able to tweak it up or down a little if needed. Good luck to you!