Nord User Forum

Still learning the 3P and excited at the prospects of using it both for recording and live. I've decided that I won't likely want to hit the pads when playing live and would prefer to use a trigger on the Kick and one trigger for my snare and have the 3P sounds available for specific songs/sections.

I've been trying to figure out the following:
1. Which trigger devices (Roland, DDrum, etc) are compatible for what I'm trying to do?
2. As there is only one 1/4" input (kick) - can that port be used to trigger any pad/channel?
3. Do I need to use the MIDI input instead?
4. Given I'd like to have at least 2 triggers (one on kick drum and one on snare), how can that possibly be done?

Any info and/or recommendations is appreciated.
Thanks,
Rob

Hi Rob, welcome to the forum!

Yes, you can only connect 1 pad/trigger to the 3p, it's hard wired to drum channel 1. I think they had an electronic bass drum pedal in mind, to play a bass drum sound. However, drum channel 1 can be programmed to any sound you like, and you can also use any brand of pad, drum trigger, or electronic bass drum pedal you prefer, just be aware that with multi zone pads it will only use the main one, and hihat pad setups won't work as intended.

If the 3p itself doesn't fit in your setup, and you want to play more than 1 drum sound on the 3p, then indeed MIDI may be a solution, in theory... You'd have to find a device with a pad, or a drum 'brain' to which you can connect several pads, that has a MIDI out port, from which the (digital) MIDI messages can be sent to the 3p. Alesis makes some small units with 4 pads, the Roland SPD-One models have one pad and MIDI out. A drum brain may also be an option, they often also have a MIDI out port.

Why don't you want to play on the 3p directly live?

Cheers,
Albert