tips on assembling a custom archive/bundle?

[fishtaco]

Can someone here share their experience with curating their own archive/bundle by picking and choosing from various sources?

In my case, I have:
(1) my current Electro 6 state of all the Factory presets
(2) Plus about 50 programs of my own at bank "P" and above
(2) A pack of third-party programs and samples from PatchFoundry.com that I haven't yet loaded

My goal is to have a custom collection mixing selected items from all three sources.

I've gotten some pretty good information on this by googling, but still feel like there's a mystery of what will actually go down when I try it. Can any of you give advice on how managed it, and pitfalls to avoid?

P.s. I will be playing things safe by archiving my Electro6's current state first, in case it all goes south and have to restore things back.

[M_a_c]

Well... For me, the solution was only and simply "time and hard work". I´ve gone through ALL 7346(or so) Samples and Sounds I had to that time and choose the ones, I´d liked / I could use or that I found interesting. I´d even made an Excel-Sheet and wrote down small comments. From that I´d choosen the best and had my NE5 filled about 70%. If a new Sound comes up / can be found, I check it and let it go through the same decission-process. The main thing here is, that you SUBJECTIVE surely NOT need all the Pianos and factory loaded stuff. I come along with 3 different Pianos. With the EPs I use the Stockholm and Nefertiti the most - I also still got one from the older ones (just don´t remember what). From the Piano-side, I don´t expect multiple Intruments available - I´d just like a Piano-Sample, that fits to my play. And so it is with all those Sample-Player-Stuff - if you got rid of the stuff you don´t really need, there´s a big room of RAM to be filled.

With the NS4 I´d got more new (options and) Sounds to keep, but the storage is still only used by 50%. With the time and new upcoming sounds (and in my case new upcomming own Samples) I need the free place anyway. I´d built a "M_A_C-Patches" Bank, that I saved as a full backup. If I start a Song from the scratch, I refer to this settings.

After I´d checked available stuff, I´d searches especially for Sounds that are missing for me and new sounds I like. I bought (and sold afterwards) some Keyboards just to sample them (there is a PCM-Pad in the Korg-Kross (and just only that one Sound in this key, I´d hunting for next. Some of those Samples/Sounds are also added to my "Own-Preset"-Bank and what not fits in, I´d made comments in my list, make it easy to find it to load, when it would be needed. In fact and for the moment, there are about 30 Samples of a borrowed Synth to be loo finished / looped - it´s a hard work, but the route is the goal. In the end you have a very "personal" Nord...

Away from creating own Music, my NS4 only accompanies me on better Gigs on clean and spacous stages (for the rest and the dirty and narrow stages I use a not that expensive second key-rig), so I had Stage-Sets for my different projects. I load them into the Nord the evening before the Gig. We´re mostliy playing along a Setlist and I programmed the NS4-memory according to the positions on the Set-List.

That´s my way...

[fishtaco]

Thanks for your reply, M_a_c. As you loaded in new programs/samples, did you have any choice in which slots they used? How did you prevent the archive/bundle you uploaded from overwriting slots that you wanted to keep?

[M_a_c]

I´m not working with bundles that much. And I always have the RAM-space in mind, when loading a bundle in. It does not overwrite a sample-slot. If memory in the Nord is fully used, it wont load anyway (remember always to make space by erasing things you not really need). With that I only use the handfull of Piano-Samples I like - they won´t be loaded / overwrite something, since they are allready in.

The Nord RAM-Logic depends on the file-name. So any loaded Sample is stored on the next free space without sorting. But I sorted the samples within the Sound Manager by category - all Pads to Pads, all Brass to Brass e.s.o.. The sequence is the same in den NE6 then when you switching through the available samples (in the Sound-Manager I´d even leave a slot free to be able to separate the different categories on my PC-screen). So when programming the NE6, I`ll find the required available sounds when looking for a Pad, Brass, Synth e.t.c.* ... Hint - the Stage-Series does this anyway - every sample is bound to a category there and cannot be changed... In my NE5 / NE6 I´d went the same way...

This is the same with the Programs - just sort them with the Sound Manager. I have my favourite Sounds in the first 30 slots, then 4x about 30 Sets according the my different main Band-Project-Playlist, followed by new Programs for new Ideas (If I had a "rent-a-keyboarder"-Gig, I often save the RAM as a backup-file and create a Program-Set according to the Bands setlist, that I overwrite with the backup after the gig). And in the very end of my RAM you can find those patches from the factory, I don´t wanna live without. I`m still learning from what the guys at Nord included in this red thing...

*Since I use the Nord more for gigging than for composing, I have mostly refer to the samples/sounds that I stored in my Nord-Keyboard when programming a new Program-Patch. Of yourse I refer to the archive on my computer-harddrive also, when looking for a special sound. New Sounds bringing new ideas. But in most cases, the already carefully checked and known Sounds stored in my Nord (let me say "Sounds like M_a_c" of which I know how to play them and how they behave in a Band-Frequency-Spectrum) in my Nord are sufficient for this. This is what makes your Nord unique in the end. Only after checking out the factory presets and after all those not so beloved Sounds (I mean the Piano-Samples and Organ-Patches also) had been erased from the RAM, you have the REAL good sounds you´ll always find, when you´re looking for. And with the sounds added that YOU prefer and YOU need, the Nord experience finally started with the "original fishtaco-NE6", noone else can have...

Conclusion: owning a Nord does not mean, you have a red Keyboard - the usage of the Sound-Manager-Program is mandatory and I even expect trying the Sample-Editor, since great sounds that makes you who YOU are can be created with ease (okay, it stays a little bit of work)...

[fishtaco]

M_a_c, this part of your reply:

It does not overwrite a sample-slot. If memory in the Nord is fully used, it wont load anyway (remember always to make space by erasing things you not really need).

...is gold for me, it tells me what I can I expect when I get started on loading my PatchFoundry bundle.

The rest of your reply will no doubt be useful once I get into the thick of it. Thanks again!

[M_a_c]

Sorry... I missed learning to write short responds...

[sumary56]

I’ve done something similar, and backing up first is definitely the right move.
When mixing sources, I found it easiest to import them into the Nord Sound Manager and manually drag only what I needed.
The main pitfall is overwriting something you wanted to keep, so double-check bank positions before saving.