Nord User Forum

Is it possible to open the gate of the synth section without triggering the oscillator? Or, another way of asking would be.. is there a way to set oscilator to zero volume without turning off the whole synth section? The goal here is to use the cutoff filter as the sole instrument, something that's common on analog synths. Thank you in advance!

you could use an empty/silent wave file as the oscillator source which will get you the silent oscillator, but i don’t believe the filters on the stage 3 can be driven into self oscillation.

EDIT:

Ok went through all the Filter Settings and "LP M" is the only filter type that will self oscillate. I already had a sample that was mostly empty, only a few keys at the bottom of the key range have anything on them, so no oscillator and just the filter in self-oscillation. Set the keyboard tracking to get it to change pitch across the keyboard.

It definitely makes some interesting sounds.

Please do let us know if you make the attempt.

I made such a type of patch some time ago on my NS2, you can do that by using the white noise sample as OSC waveform (so that it provides "any frequency" input to the filter), choose LP24 type then set resonance at max, KB tracking 100% (full) play a middle C and tune the Cutoff freq as needed.

maxpiano wrote:I made such a type of patch some time ago on my NS2, you can do that by using the white noise sample as OSC waveform (so that it provides "any frequency" input to the filter), choose LP24 type then set resonance at max, KB tracking 100% (full) play a middle C and tune the Cutoff freq as needed.

That's exactly how to do it - or at least how I have done it. You need something to get it to resonate, and white noise is ideal for that

Sent from my phone in brevity

Yes, a *very* old trick. That is the reason why in virtually all analog synths the "kbd tracking" of the filter (when set to its maximum) has been crafted so it allows playing in a tuned scale just with the resonance. This is also so in the Nords.

So the original question is answered.

As I'm not an experienced sound creator, I just don't understand what this approach is for. A self resonating filter produces a sine wave, as far as I know. What's the idea behind doing it via the resonance filter? The Stage has a sine wave built in.

FZiegler wrote:So the original question is answered.

As I'm not an experienced sound creator, I just don't understand what this approach is for. A self resonating filter produces a sine wave, as far as I know. What's the idea behind doing it via the resonance filter? The Stage has a sine wave built in.

With some overdrive it also produces overtones, and it's not just an on-off tone but may take a little to stabilize and also may wobble a bit.

So it can create some interesting tones.

Sent from my phone in brevity

I've made a few patches using just filter resonance on the Wave 2. Source as white noise, bandpass (BP) filter, filter tracking set at 1 and cutoff either 131, 262 or 523 Hz gets it approx. in tune. A bit of vibrato, and you've got an X-files style whistle!

You can do the same thing on the Stage 3, however for some weird reason (perhaps it's a bug?) the filter doesn't track below C1 on the Stage 3. It tracks over the whole keyboard on the Wave 2.

hoopyfrood wrote:I've made a few patches using just filter resonance on the Wave 2. Source as white noise, bandpass (BP) filter, filter tracking set at 1 and cutoff either 131, 262 or 523 Hz gets it approx. in tune. A bit of vibrato, and you've got an X-files style whistle!

You can do the same thing on the Stage 3, however for some weird reason (perhaps it's a bug?) the filter doesn't track below C1 on the Stage 3. It tracks over the whole keyboard on the Wave 2.

Maybe on NS3 you need to tune the filter 1 octave above (?)