Nord User Forum

First of all, thank you to all the contributors of this forum! Although this is my first post, I have read so many posts on
here as I fell deeper and deeper in love with Nord since buying my first, the Electro 3. It is because of your posts that I decided
to first wet my toes for the Micromodular (so cool for so little money!), and then take the plunge with my new (for me) Expanded G2.

Here is my question to you: Can you please help me to determine whether I am getting the polyphony that I should for OS 1.62 Exp?

I know that the polyphony of the G2 is a maximum of 32 voices (depending upon patch complexity), but this is all I am getting on these voices from
Patchbank 4 of Factory Bank v.124 revA, with the expansion chip.

When I activate each voice in a single slot by itself, I get:
Piano1 DX 22 (24) 22 voices of 24 requested
Stringpad 1 DX 22 (24)
Rhodes1 DX 22 (24)
Wurli1 DX 22 (24)

I can’t get full polyphony on any of them. Yes, I am aware that they are complex patches, but why would they be written with 24 voice polyphony if I could not get all 24 voices from a single slot setup on the Expanded G2?

When I layer slots 1 and 3, I get:
Piano 11 (24)
Rhodes 10 (24)

When I layer 1, 2, and 3, I get
Piano 7 (24)
Stringpad 6 (24)
Rhodes 6 (24)

And when I layer all four, I get
Piano 5 (24)
Stringpad 5 (24)
Rhodes 4 (24)
Wurli 4 (24)
I get a total of only 18 voices.

Whether you have the unexpanded G2 or the expanded, would you mind loading up these patches, and seeing what you get in terms of polyphony, just for comparison?

As another example, If I load these voices into single slots all alone, I get:
Welcome G2 15 (32) PatchBank 1
Piano 1 22 (24)
AccGuit 15 (17) PatchBank 1
YetAnotherOrgan 14 (20) PatchBank 1

If I layer all four slots, I get:
Welcome G2 3 (32) PatchBank 1
Piano 1 3 (24)
AccGuit 3 (17) PatchBank 1
YetAnotherOrgan 3 (20) PatchBank 1
This is a meagre total of only 12 voices! Is this normal?

Thank you,
m7flat5

I'm not recognizing that bit of white plastic in your photo -- perhaps you could take a closer shot of that?

With regard to polyphony, there is a detailed discussion about this in the G2 manual. Polyphony is limited by DSP capacity. The expansion card doubles polyphony by doubling DSP. Individual slots do not get individual polyphony limits, the instrument's limits affect ALL slots. Try this: clear ALL slots of everything (ctrl+A will select everything, then hit delete), then load the awesome ChOrgan program and see what polyphony you get. Then start loading individual programs to the other slots, one at a time, and watch your ChOrgan polyphony decrease each time. This is normal behavior.

bless, Pablo

PS -- the G2 was already discontinued by the time this forum was created. You will note that the activity in the Modular section of this forum receives MUCH less attention than any other. ELECTRO-MUSIC.COM is the place where hardcore Nord Modular fans made their home, and I suspect that they still get most of the online traffic that there is relating to modulars. You will find more resources relating to the Nord Modular there than here.

Hi Pablo,
Thank you for the reply.

I did manage to replicate this with the Welcome G2 patch, along with three others. I think it is because the Welcome G2 sustains for so long. I had been under the impression that in the editor, you would see a maxing out of DSP, but when you actually got the sounds into the G2 hardware, you could play without danger of the sound dropping to nothing. I just expected that when the number of voices exceeded the max polyphony, the first voice only would drop out, not all of them!

This forum, however, is where I fell in love before I bought my first Nord, the Electro 3, so it is dear to my heart. I have always enjoyed your posts, and I am so grateful that you posted on my thread!

m7flat5

Hi m7flat5,

thanks for your kind words...agreed that the polyphony results seem correct...no clue about the total dropout, have never experienced that through extensive use of G2 and a pair of G2Engines. I have experienced frequent "lock-up" of my G2Es, where reboot is required. When this happens the midi indicator light is frozen on. The suspect there has been the midi feed into the Engine, not the engine itself, but a cause was never pinned down with any certainty. There have been slight changes in the midi data feed and the problem seems to have quieted, but then again I'm not gigging as much anymore, so perhaps that's why I don't see it so much.

Also agreed that the plastic piece does appear to be some sort of stand off, but...I sure don't recall ever having seen anything like it in any Nord instrument. I've refurbed a pair of G2X's, been in and out of a pair of G2s and also my engines. Does not look like anything from keybed either. That piece is a complete mystery to me...

I'd be more concerned about the total loss of sound after 30 seconds in some playing situations than the mystery bit of plastic...hard to give up a G2 once you've landed one, but you sure don't want to inherit someone else's problems...

bless, pablo

PS -- I am your tech support rep. If you wish to seek service on the instrument, we have a shop in Montreal, and things are occasionally sent back to Stockholm for service there. Please feel free to reach out to me at my regular day job contacts:

pablo.mastodon@americanmusicandsound.com
800-994-4984 x3030

bless, pablo

Hi Pablo,
Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate your time.
m7flat5