Stage 4 - Extern Setup for Program Changes ONLY

[caso12]

I'm trying to ONLY send program changes from a Stage 4 to a Stage 3. I don't want any notes to be transmitted to the Stage 3 when I play the Stage 4. I can't seem to find a way to turn off the Extern keyboard zone on the Stage 4.

On page 45 of the manual it has a section that says:
NON-KEYBOARD EXTERN SETUP
In addition to the regular keyboard zones, there is an extra option – selected the same way as regular keyboard zones – which doesn’t assign the Extern section to the internal keyboard at all, signified by all KB ZONE LEDs being off for that Extern Layer. However, all other Extern features are still active, such as the Pitch Stick and the display dials. this is useful when you want to control external equipment with no need for MIDI keyboard messages.


This is exactly what I'm trying to do, but when I cycle through the zones, it doesn't give me that option (some LEDs are always lit). Am I missing something obvious or is this a software bug?

Thanks.

[caso12]

It looks like this was identified as a major bug (#9) back on April 26th and still hasn't been fixed. Not happy...

[changearound]

I don't know if the synth layer on/off buttons send a midi cc message at all. It's not mentioned in the manual but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't and it could be checked using some midi monitoring software e.g. pocket midi.

If they do, you could use the external section of your Stage 3 to send a midi cc message to turn off the external mode synth layer on the Stage 4 which is sending the PC message to the Stage 3.

I don't own a Stage 4 (or 3 for that matter) so can't check this out myself but it could be a workaround until Nord gets External No Zones up and running.

[caso12]

Great - so now they deleted the "NON-KEYBOARD EXTERN SETUP" from page 45 of the manual instead of fixing the problem!

[maxpiano]

You may want to check this discussion on that topic, there seems to be a way to do it nord-stage-forum-f3/send-program-change ... 24431.html

[caso12]

Thanks very much --

The sentence below has saved me several hours of re-programming my external synth.
--- You can send a program change for each synth engine in the background to external gear by setting the program change information in the Extern menu (next to midi) for each program and switch "send on load" to on. This works even if the external synth section is switched off!

I also didn't realize this -- "Most settings from the Extern menu are saved with a Program. " I thought it was global.