Nord User Forum

I must have jinxed myself with this thread where I reported multiple gigs of trouble-free use with my NS3. I had issues at my gig Friday night that led me to pull in my backup NS2 EX Compact to get through the second half of the gig.

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I wish I had audio and video of what happened, but that was impossible on stage in front of a large crowd. I've now seen this same thing happen more than once on a gig, but have not been able to recreate it at home. I'll describe it the best I can. This is with NS3 Compact working from Song mode.

I was in the middle of playing a song where I have a pretty complex multi-split going on with one synth sample on the lower section of the keyboard, then a second sample in the middle range, and finally organ on the top range of the keyboard. This seems to occur midway through the gig after the NS3 has been in use a few hours. What happens is suddenly the various split sounds start to behave as if they are layered, which is shocking since they are octave shifted accordingly for their part of the keys I've assigned them to, but then when they start triggering together, the sample from the low end is way high since it is being triggered at a higher part of the board.

At the same time this happens, the display on the NS3 goes to the edit page for the splits and starts flickering a bit. I am unable to navigate away from it. When I turn off and back on, it works ok for a moment and then reverts back to this situation of all sounds are triggered together and stuck on the split menu page (see below).



I have left the board on for hours at home and have not been able to recreate the problem. I've also opened it up to be sure that all the ribbon connectors are secure. This bug is really bad and renders the NS3 useless - it's a show stopper for sure.

Has anyone seen anything like this? I had seen it a few months ago and then after doing some of the more recent OS updates I played multiple gigs with no issues, so I I was hoping it was a random bug that got fixed. Now that I'm seeing it on the current OS, I'm baffled.

Thanks!

That doesn't sound like a software/firmware bug, that sounds like a hardware problem. Could be a faulty switch or cold solder joint.

I haven't seen such an issue, but I was wondering if this could be some kind of hardware issue related to the control panel or some of the buttons. If one or more of the split-related buttons somehow can start sending random key-presses, it could maybe cause this kind of flickering. I cannot though, on my board, make it behave like you say by pressing buttons, so it's possibly more than just one single button that is faulty.

Does anything happen to the split points (F3 and F5) -- i.e. are there anything on the panel that changes? Can you see if the zone of the A and B panel synths are still low and mid, respectively?

But if you haven't already, you should definitely talk to Nord about this (although I guess the Stockholm HQ is having a summer break at the moment). It sounds like it may need some care from Pablo

Yes, Eric, you know that you have a direct line to me anytime you need it.

I am inclined to suspect, as baekgaard and cgrafx above, that this may be related to a front panel button switch or combination of button switches which is/are misbehaving. Admittedly, this seems a little tougher to figure out that some other button failure instances, but the inability to navigate away from something strongly suggests that a stuck button is standing in the way.

Weird that you can't get it to fail at home --and also further proof that Murphy's Law is real.

Perhaps these thoughts can help you to focus in on possible candidates...of course, it's somewhat axiomatic that it's really hard for a tech to solve a failure mode issue which she/he is not able to replicate on the bench...

Good luck...keep us posted...

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts on what might be wrong with my NS3. I'll keep testing it and trying to see if I can recreate it. I've lost a bit of faith on using it for gigs since it is a true show-stopper. I was wondering if perhaps I am just pushing the thing to its limits as I do have this complex array of programs, all of which are using dual panels, multiple morphs, etc. but I think the instrument should be able to handle it. My NS2 units have not had problems with similar complex programs.

Pablo, I will reach out to see what you think in terms of getting this repaired.

Thanks,
Eric

@ericL: I don't think you're pushing the NS3 to its limits. And even if you would have done, it would be a quite strange bug that would cause this kind of issue. If you had hanging notes or weird morphs happening, or dropping notes, it could have been related to a complex use case -- but that is not the case here.

So yeah, reach out to Pablo and figure out what needs to be done so you can have your faith restored in the keyboard. I totally trust mine, and have never had an issue that has interrupted my playing.

Just based on the symptoms you described, I'm guessing one of the circuit boards has a faulty component or cold solder joint both of which generally happen during thermal events. So the component or solder joint heats up and disconnects intermittently. The most likely candidate would be a component related to the matrix scanning logic that reads the state of the buttons. If there is an option with the retailer to return and swap the keyboard I'd take that path first, otherwise its going to need to go in for servicing, but your going to have to be very insistent that they do a full thermal burn-in both hot and cold to find the defective part and not just send the unit back to you without specifically diagnosing the issue.

ericL wrote:Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts on what might be wrong with my NS3. I'll keep testing it and trying to see if I can recreate it.

As cgrafx suggested, temperature of the unit might be a factor in recreating the failure. The on-stage environment (under stage lighting) likely exposed the Nord to higher temperatures than you see at home. The higher temperatures affect the chassis and switches mechanically, perhaps causing a stuck switch (as suggested by Pablo).
Wishing you good luck recreating this,
-pterm

Hi, just to make sure - probably already checked - do you have any kind of MIDI or USB connected throughout the gig? And if yes, which devices?

I'm 99.99 percent sure MIDI or USB connections have nothing to do with the specific issue being discussed. There are no midi commands to change split points of the NS3 and then lock out the controls on the front panel.