Nord User Forum

I have managed to connect my Nord 3p to my MPC 2500 via MIDI. When the midi sequence I have recorded plays back, the Akai is triggering the 3p channel selection to occur. This means it’s impossible to edit individual sounds whilst the sequence is playing, as it continually changes pad.

This weird behaviour does not happen when the sequence is stopped and the notes are triggered from the MPC pads.

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

Hi Barry,
Perhaps this is the 'Pad follow' function (page 6 of the manual)?
Cheers,
Albert

Alas no. The individual pads are continually changed whether Pad Follow is on or off. The MIDI notes it receives changes the pad regardless, but only when the MPC sequence is playing. When playback is stopped, if I trigger the Nord using the MPC pads, it doesn’t follow. Weird.

Strange,

Do you have MIDI monitoring software to check what the difference is between MIDI notes sent from the sequencer of the MPC, and notes sent from the pads of the MPC?
Are you using individual MIDI channels or the Global MIDI channel to trigger the 3p?

Cheers,
Albert

I tried it with a Digitakt tonight and that works smoothly. As with the MPC2500, triggering midi notes does not change the Pad Follow, this can only be done when the device is in Local On and triggered from a drum pad. The Digitakt doesn’t not exhibit the same problem as stated in the original post.

I made a sequence on the Digitakt, to play the 3p and it has exceptionally solid timing. The use of CC’s also make it extremely good fun with Spectra / Decay and Reverb send. As there is no MIDI Thru on the 3p, and the Digitakt doesn’t send MIDI Clock on its Thru output (3p is using MIDI out), the only choice was to make the MPC the master, Digitakt the slave to play the 3p by playing to the MPC midi clock. All three are so rock solid together. I love the MPC simply because it’s so reliable. No crappy software midi drop outs or timing issues.

Please can anyone help me?

Hi Barry,

Nice video.. The only way to find out what is sent to the 3p is to route the MIDI back to the interface and monitor or record it, with MIDI monitoring software you should be able to see individual messages with a time stamp, like note on, note off, CCs etc. If you compare that with the messages sent by the MPC whilst playing the pads (which doesn't cause the note following behavior) you should be able to find out if there is a difference.

As for your goal of controlling individual drum sounds: why not try to use the Individual MIDI channels of the 3p? Problem perhaps then is that you'd have to find a way to select which channel you want to edit, maybe you can set something up in Ableton to select the MIDI channel with the pads on your controller?

I don't understand why this following behavior depends on the CC settings, strange.

Cheers,
Albert