Nord User Forum

Hi all,

After years of wanting one I have finally bought a Nord Drum P3, and love it to bits.

For many years I have been using Roland TD modules to play drums live, currently a TD-50 and other Roland devices such as Octapad and SPD-SX.

By connecting MIDI In and Out on the Roland devices each kit change will make the other Roland devices change kits also (and vice-versa) which is very useful playing live.

The Nord Drum P3 also works linked like this via MIDI cables to the Roland TD-50.

However the banks only go up to 50 kits each whereas the Roland devices go up to 100. (I don't have 100 songs per gig but I do play with a number of bands with different sets and I like to have one kit per song in the set lists stored in the Roland TD-50).

I have done some reading up on MIDI and while it looks as though it should be possible to switch banks on the P3 via midi I don't see a way to do it with these particular devices.

I wondered if anyone could shed light on this please - all thoughts and comments welcome.

cheers,

not 100% sure that I understand the question here...you are trying to:

1) use the Nord to send bank change messages to some other device, or
2) use some other device to send bank change messages to the Nord?

Hopefully not #1 because that is not possible. #2 is not documented and I don't have an ND3P on hand to test this with at the moment, but...

I wouldn't be surprised if it responded to bank select messages sent from other devices. Check out the format Nord uses on Stage 3 and try sending it to your ND3P and see what happens. I'll wager (a small amount) that it will work. Please let us all know what you are able to find.

Bless, Pablo

Hi willsud,

There is bank select and program change, although related functionally, they are two different things when it comes to controlling them via MIDI;

Program change are quite universal MIDI messages that in case of the 3p will change the program within a bank. There is a setting in the MIDI menu that controls if these program changes are sent/received by the 3p, the manual says : Program Change can be set to off (of), send only (s), receive only (r) and to both send and receive (sr). set this to receive if you want to change the programs on the Nord drum 3P from a mIdI controller or a sequencer.Range: PC.Of, PC.S, PC.r, PC.Sr

For Bank Select the 3p uses a combination of 2 CC messages (CC0 MSB and CC32 LSB). There is a general setting in the MIDI menu for what the 3p does with CC messages: Control Change can be set to Off, Send only, Receive only and both Send and Receive. Set this to receive if you want to change parameters on the Nord Drum 3p from a MIDI controller or a sequencer. Range: CC.Of, CC.S, CC.r, CC.Sr. Bank Select requires a pair of LSB and MSB values (Least Significant - and Most Significant Byte). Transmit the LSB value first, then the MSB value. Which values will select which bank is probably easiest to find out by monitoring what MIDI messages the 3p sends when selecting banks.

Of the two, program change is the more universal in MIDI, although the reach is limited; within one bank of the 3p. Bank change requires some CC messages specific for the 3p (or Nord*), and will possibly/probably not be compatible with Bank selection in instruments of other brands, *(Nord Stage for example uses the same CC's).

Cheers,
Albert

Fantastic replies Pablo and Albert,

Thank you so much.

I had found quite a lot of the information but did not know how to approach making it work.

I will let you know if I manage to make this work.

cheers,

did you manage to find out how to make it work? I'm struggling with the same issue

I'm controlling my Nord Drum 3P with my Squarp Hapax sequencer that can send a MSB, LSB and PC MIDI signals whenever changing a pattern. What I did was

1. In the Nord Drum MIDI settings: set program change and control change to "receive" (PC r / CC r)
2. On my sequencer: LSB controls the Bank: 0=A, 1=B, 2=C and so on. The MSB doesn't seem to matter, neither empty "––" or some value "03" does anything. The PC changes the Drum Kit 1=1, 11=11 and so on.

So to change my Drum Kit to C11, I would send LSB=2, PC=11. Change it back to A1: LSB=0, PC=1.

Hope this helps


Edit: I got a Faderfox EC4 now too, bank change is a bit different there: I set knob 1 to CCAh, Disp 9999, Numb 000, Lower 0, Upper 7. And knob 2 to PrgC, Lower 0, Upper 49.

Knob 1 sends MSB 0 (Numb) and LSB 0-7, BUT … this only gets executed when you send a PC. So to change the preset from A1 to C32, I must first turn knob 1 to 002 (nothing happens), then turn knob 2 to 031 (Nord jumps to C32). To change it back to A1, first turn knob 1 to 000, then knob 2 to 000. Just changing presets within 1 bank only requires knob 2 with the program change.

By connecting MIDI In and Out on the Roland devices each kit change will make the other Roland devices change kits also (and vice-versa) which is very useful playing live.

I dont think this is possible. I change my kits via the Momo Muller app stand alone and via the VST version in my DAW. works great. Can be a pain in the ass to set up though. IMHO.

This is such an under rated and often over looked app. Nord has dropped the ball in not having an app that can control parameters and kit changes via PC.


I have done some reading up on MIDI and while it looks as though it should be possible to switch banks on the P3 via midi I don't see a way to do it with these particular devices.

See above comment.

I wondered if anyone could shed light on this please - all thoughts and comments welcome.

cheers,[/quote]

I went without answers for months on my Nord drum 3p and finally got it in tip top shape. Hell, I managed to move the midi notes closer together on my DAW Piano roll! The nord manual seriously lacks!!