Nord User Forum

I have searched the forum for this topic. Please redirect me if I missed it and it has already been discussed.

I am soon to pick up a NE5d 61. This would replace the tangle of NE2 Module/Ocean Beach Drawbars/midi keyboard (not to mention the music stand to hold the module and the drawbars) combination I am wrestling with now.

I am thinking that if I price it right, the combination of module/drawbars/kb would make a nice package on Reverb to sell. But before putting it together, I was wondering if the Ocean Beach unit could be patched in to control one half of a B3 keyboard split.

This could be a short conversation. I am bracing myself for "No." Which would be fine.

Thanks, folks. This forum is a daily stop, even for a module guy.

The answer, I think is yes, on the upper part only, but the added functionality might not be worth the trouble.

You can put the same organ sound on both sides of a split, and change which part you're controlling with the draw bars by using the Preset 1/Preset 2 buttons in the organ section. Hard to imagine a scenario where you need two active sets of drawbars at the same time, but maybe I need a better imagination...

I tend to use the drawbars live all the time, not only to control tone, but also volume. My peculiar approach, I suppose. Since getting the physical drawbars, I never use presets anymore at all, which I know is exceptional among the denizens of this forum, and something that could change with the acquisition of a NE5.

Using the outboard drawbars does not strike me as something that would be covered in the manual, but let me know if that is the case, and I will have a look.

I enjoy the feel of the Ocean Beach unit, and perhaps would prefer to be using it on the upper part.

You can set the lower or upper parts to receive MIDI, in the MIDI menu. Page 15:

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sites/defa ... on%20D.pdf

You would not use the "Receiving MIDI on part Upper in MIDI receive mode" scenario outlined on that page, as that would require a second keyboard to play the upper part.

Hope that helps.

OrpheusNY wrote: Hard to imagine a scenario where you need two active sets of drawbars at the same time, but maybe I need a better imagination...

A real B3 has 4 sets of drawbars... two for the top manual, two for the lower! But most people would find one set for top plus one set for bottom to be sufficient on today's boards. The main reason for the second set for a given manual was to be able to have another sound set up to instantly switch to, because there was no convenient way to save your own presets (you had to actually go inside and move wires to different locations to create different presets, see video starting at about 2:20). And also, even if you called up a preset, there was then no way to further manipulate that preset "live" with drawbars, as you could if you created your next sound with the alternate set of drawbars, another problem we don't really have today. But it's still nice to have a live set for the top manual and another for the bottom when setting up a 2-manual rig.

At first, I had my two Ocean Beach on my Stage 2 and yes, one was for the Upper split sound and the other one for the lowere split...Now they are both on my C2...

The Ocean Beach module has a topside button that determines whether the upper or lower manual is active on my C1. I think if you redo the setup procedure when you get your rig as a C1 but have the ne5d in split mode you might be able to fool both units into your scenario.

Jake

A bit late to the party, but I am about to pick up a used db-1 module to act as upper or lower (I don't care) drawbars for my NE5D in B3 split mode.

Does this work? Has anybody gotten it right?

I'm asking because I see that the MIDI CC numbers are identical for both sets of drawbars on the Electro 5 (as opposed to earlier versions, where there were designated ones).

Tracii wrote:A bit late to the party, but I am about to pick up a used db-1 module to act as upper or lower (I don't care) drawbars for my NE5D in B3 split mode.

Does this work? Has anybody gotten it right?

I'm asking because I see that the MIDI CC numbers are identical for both sets of drawbars on the Electro 5 (as opposed to earlier versions, where there were designated ones).

Hi, not a NE5 owner but I believe that it has to do with the NE5 MIDI Implementation which lets you specify 2 distinct MIDI channels for Upper and Lower parts receive, so the same CCs for each set of drawbars but received on different channel, I'd say.

As an alternative let me suggest you to take a look also at the GM Lab D9U (if you just need drawbars) and D9X (full controls) controllers, see https://www.gmlab.it

Tracii wrote:A bit late to the party, but I am about to pick up a used db-1 module to act as upper or lower (I don't care) drawbars for my NE5D in B3 split mode.

Does this work? Has anybody gotten it right?

I'm asking because I see that the MIDI CC numbers are identical for both sets of drawbars on the Electro 5 (as opposed to earlier versions, where there were designated ones).

Hopefully the manual for the DB-1 might help - it doesn't mention the NE5 (stops at NE4) though I would imagine the Electro series works pretty similarly.

http://www.oceanbeachdigital.com/downlo ... ev%20f.pdf