How do you organize your sounds?

[GuyManning]

I'm not sure how the sound manager relates back to the Stage 2's layout, but I made this quick video to show how the navigation works in reality:

[youtube][/youtube]

ugh, horrible way of explaining it. i should probably read up on my nomenclature before i start to talk about things.. maybe this helps in some way, though..

[GuyManning]

Thank you..that was great!

[bdodds]

i suppose you could look at it this way - if you want to make a row per song, so 5 programs per song, you could have 80 songs all laid out (20 rows, 4 banks).. use program 1 as your starting point for each song.. if you really want to squeeze sounds in, you can use some tricks I use - if your song doesn't need complex sounds - i.e. no layering with slots for multi-timbrality within a single instrument group, you can bounce between slot a and b in a single program.. I use this all the time for songs where i play piano and organ at different times.. also, use the preset 1/2 feature of the organ section to quickly bounce between drawbar settings within a single slot - this doubles your organ possibilities to 4 in a single program, that's of course if you don't just change drawbars live and if you want to jump between exact settings..

[GuyManning]

OK so EACH patch has a SLOT A plus a SLOT B (...so I could have SLOT A = Organ and SLOT B = Piano) on a single patch...that IS excellent! (Any trade offs???? i.e. no loss of polyphony or individual FX etc?)

I do not use any Layers and Splits at the moment 'cos I did not have the ability to do that up to press...so to I could get 10 patches instead of 5 programmed for each row initially.

...or did you say that SLOT A / SLOT B switch can only be within the same group i.e Pianos or Organs or Synths? (Or can you set it up as above Piano + Organ)

Is BANK D always a copy of BANK A (i.e. redundant)?

What is the Hierarchy here? Each BANK (A,B,C,D) has 20 PAGES & each Page holds 5 PROGRAMS? So, for BANK D that would = 100 Programs total available?

[bdodds]

oy my math is off, you're correct about 100 - i have no idea where i got 120 from..

The slot thing is a bit interesting and in my opinion what makes it supremely flexible for live use (for my needs at least).. think of a slot as a second copy of the instrument with the exception of a few commonalities - i believe reverb, compression and the status of the leslie simulator are common to both slots, otherwise everything else is duplicated.. so if you want one piano sound on one slot, and another piano sound on the other slot, you can play them separately, use a MIDI controller on one slot and play the other slot simultaneously locally, or combine both slots to play at once. Split points are also doubled then, so you can have one slot play a piano sound on the lower half and the other slot play another piano sound on the upper half and then play both slots at once for two piano sounds at once..

if i get ambitious this afternoon i may have to crank out another video..

So depending on what sounds you want to use you could definitely get 10 patches instead of 5, and if it's a lot of organ you can double further by using the preset I/II button..

I'm not positive on polyphony, but i don't think so - i really only notice polyphony issues if it's less than 16, my style never really taxes polyphony, but that deserves investigation..

Bank D is a copy of A from the factory, but it doesn't need to stay that way, it's just like that for convenience..

So yeah, each bank has 20 pages and each page has 5 programs, and the only difference between any of the banks is the letter..

[GuyManning]

Thanks again...but my point (just for my clarity) is that SLOTS have to have Sounds from the same Sound bank i.e. Both have to be from the PIANOS so you cannot have a PIANO on SLOT A and the ORGAN on SLOT B ???

What is Preset I/II about then?

Thanks for all the help-...my Stage 2 does not arrive until Wednesday so I cannot get my hands on it just yet!

[FJRNord]

Answers!!

a quick demo on the Preset II button: (i had been erroneously calling it the Preset I/II button or something like that)

[youtube][/youtube]

How the Slots basically work:

[youtube][/youtube]

And some stuff I forgot:

[youtube][/youtube]

excuse the cold i have, and the unrehearsed-ness of it all..

[GuyManning]

Thanks very much for these...these demos are so very useful
Guy

[anotherscott]

Thanks again...but my point (just for my clarity) is that SLOTS have to have Sounds from the same Sound bank i.e. Both have to be from the PIANOS so you cannot have a PIANO on SLOT A and the ORGAN on SLOT B ???

You can have ANY sound on Slot A, and ANY sound on Slot B. So you can certainly have Piano on A and Organ on B.

In fact, each slot can contain up to THREE sounds... one piano sound, one organ sound, and one synth/sample sound. So the two slots give you *simultaneous* access to up to two piano sounds, two organ sounds, and two synth/sample sounds.

What is Preset I/II about then?

The PRESET button lets you switch between two different saved organ drawbar configurations, within a single slot (i.e. you can quickly call up a different organ registration while leaving all other settings intact, basically duplicating the functionality of the "B and Bb" reverse-color preset selection keys on a real Hammond organ). This means you can change organ sounds without even having to change to a different Slot or Program.

And just as a point of academic interest... since you have 100 Programs, and each program has two Slots, and each slot can have two Preset organ sounds, it's theoretically possible to save up to 400 different organ sounds!

Thanks for all the help-...my Stage 2 does not arrive until Wednesday so I cannot get my hands on it just yet!

You can download the manual from the Nord web site in the mean time, most of this stuff is explained quite well there.

[GuyManning]

Excellent