Most efficient way to use Nord Stage live?

[domneary]

Hi there, I've recently bought a Stage EX 88 to fulfill my live requirements of organ and pianos....no surprise there then. I want to use organ (effectively the top manual on panel B) all the time via an external controller keyboard, while switching the Nord keyboard between the lower manual organ on panel A, and an acoustic (panel A) and electric piano (panel B). On the face of it this is easy - but I want to keep the same live organ settings for upper and lower manual as I use the drawbars a fair deal and don't want to have my organ voicings etc. reset to the new program settings when I change the voice of the Nord keyboard. The best solution I can see at the moment is to use the keyboard zone select button on the organ panel A (panel B always for the external controller), and the keyboard zone select buttons on Piano panels A and B to switch the Nord between playing the different piano models and organ panel A. This seems a bit of a hassle though, as for each change I will need to switch off the currently playing instrument, and switch on the one I want to move to. I guess I could use the drawbars to turn the organ on and off, and then only have to use the keyboard zone select on the piano panels, but it would be great if there was a way of doing this with one-touch program changes, but I can't see how set the programs up in such a way that they don't initiate a new organ setting. Sorry if this isn't entirely clear, but hopefully you get the idea of what I'm trying to do. Thanks in advance for any thoughts,

Cheers,

Dom
I've just realised I could programme the midi controller to enable piano or change kb zone assignment - is this the best way? I could put piano panel A on midi channel 2 and piano panel b on midi channel 3 and assign 2 buttons on the controller keyboard to piano enable on each of those channels? Or would kb zone assign be better. If you have a better way, or a method that gets to it via the Nord's controls, please let me know.

[Gustavo]

the only thing I can efficiently think about is this:

If you only use 1 acoustic piano and 1 electric piano, ONLY load the 2 samples you need.

Then in panel Aset the expresion pedal (or wheel if you want) to morph down the organ volume and morph up the piano volume.

Then when you need to change piano you jsut change the piano sample, that´s quite fast!

[-Toro-]

hi Dom.
welcome to this forum!

if i understand you correctly, you may consider using a MORPH function. setup PANEL A with both your piano and your organ (lower manual). MORPH the volume of each instrument to the modulation wheel for example.
this way you can change between the organ and the piano (crossover) by just moving the mod.wheel.

[-Toro-]

...that´s quite fast!

Gustavo! you're too fast for me! hehehe ;-)

[domneary]

Sounds good - I'll give it a go. Thanks for the advice and the welcome!

Cheers,

Dom

[-Toro-]

on second thought, maybe it doesn't work as you wish.
if you want to play the organ (PANEL B) on an extern controller, you'll need to use the NS in "dual keyboard" mode. it's not possible for you to play anything in PANEL B on the NS keyboard here... the internal keyboard is always playing PANEL A.

and you can not use the piano section twice within one panel. that's the limitation of the Stage.

what you can do is playing everything on the internal keybed, layering PANEL A and PANEL B with a split point. but that is not what you asked for.

[domneary]

In case anyone is interested, I came up with a very workable solution. Live 1 program, Panel A and B active, Panel B organ only set to midi channel 1, controlled by an external keyboard - with no split assigned (and not in dual keyboard mode) 2 clicks of the organ keyboard zone button activates the panel B organ for use via midi, but is off locally. Then use the keyboard zone buttons to switch panel A organ, and panel A and B pianos on and off. I thought I'd have to cycle through multiple presses of the keyboard zone keys, but this is not the case. 1 click for switching each instrument on and off. Thanks for all the helpful comments. Cheers, Dom

[-Toro-]

In case anyone is interested, I came up with a very workable solution. Live 1 program, Panel A and B active, Panel B organ only set to midi channel 1, controlled by an external keyboard - with no split assigned (and not in dual keyboard mode)

i assume you've set the "MIDI Organ A/B Channel" in the MIDI MENU then? by doing this you will always send the organ in PANEL B on a specific channel, which makes the organ only available through MIDI. settings made in MIDI MENU are global and affects all your PROGRAMs. (it doesn't have to be "Live 1", there can be any PROGRAM...)

I thought I'd have to cycle through multiple presses of the keyboard zone keys, but this is not the case. 1 click for switching each instrument on and off.

i'm not sure what you mean here. in my world seems to be a lot of button presses. ON/OFF of each instrument section and between the PANELs? but maybe i am misunderstanding...

anyway, i'm glad you worked it out! and thank you for sharing your solutions with us!

[domneary]

Interesting - I found that I can toggle between external control of the panel B organ, and nord and external control combined. I have set panel B organ midi to channel 1, but you can toggle between the Nord keyboard and external keyboard controlling it via the keyboard zone button....perhaps an enhancement in the OS? Basically it isn't forced to be controlled by midi only..... thanks for the heads up though on the fact that midi settings are global - that has saved me a lot of future confusion!

As for the button pressing, for switching between the panel A organ and piano on the Nord keyboard it's 2 presses (the keyboard zone button in each instrument section), but you are right - if I'm moving from panel A organ to panel B piano, it's 3 buttons - organ kb zone, panel b, then piano kb zone. I'll make sure the piano I use the most is on panel A! Anyway, it should be sufficiently quick and straightforward that I don't screw up live!!

Thanks again, I'm sure I'll be back with other questions over time,

Cheers,

Dom