Nord User Forum

When gain staging mixer/speaker where should the keyboard volume be? What I'm currently doing: Speaker at unity, mixer at unity, keyboard at 12:00
Is this correct?

- Keyboard at 12 or 1 O'Clock so you have some room to go up or down

- Speaker at Unity if the input gain matches the output gain from the mixer (+4 or -10). If they don't match, then you'll need to adjust the speaker gain as needed. This is of coarse just a basic generalization, and gets more complicated if your running bi-amp, try-amp or other multi amped speaker systems.

- Mixer channel gain at what ever is appropriate for the signal coming from the keyboard, that is what the channel gain is designed for. If you just blindly set it at unity, it will almost certainly be wrong (either to sensitive or not sensitive enough).

Depending on circumstances, you may find yourself wanting a powered DI or similar to boost gain before mixer. Nords do not have especially hot outputs.

This is how I do it.
I use a Nord Stage 3 and Nord Wave 2.
The main volume of both are set at 3 o'clock.
Me reference is always the Nord Stage 3 with a piano set at -6dB.

Because the Organ and Synth section need some headroom, I always set the piano section to -6dB on the Nord Stage 3.
If you do not use a reference sound, I tend to keep increasing all sounds until they all are at 10.

Because I have consistent output, I never have issues with clipping. My keyboard mixer is set at unity, our main desk (Midas XR-18) is setup that all inputs are set that they are around -18dB.