Nord User Forum

Hello all! I baught a Nord Piano 6 this december and was excited! But I am completely blind and having a hard time memorizing all button placements and what they do. In official nord manuals there are zero hints for blind people. How to get the descriptions of all buttons, there placements and shapes and what they do? Clavia don't reply me on that kind of support tickets.
Can someone prepare a small file with all button's placement and descriptions? (without colors, just shape and orientation), like: at the left top side of the pannel, there is a master volume knob, and below it there is a button... (still don't know what this button does).
Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I don't own a Piano 6, but I did spend some time programming a Piano 5 and I am also blind. What I did to get started was simply have a sighted person go through the layout with me one time and I was good to go. If you can have somebody do this, it should take 5 or 10 minutes of time and will save you much frustration. Nords are very easy to use from a blind perspective once you understand the layout, even the few options that are in menus are easy to access as the main knob has a tactile click as you turn it.
Wish it was a Piano 5, as I could definitely get my hands on that unit again to help but the P6 does use a different layout, and the other Nords I have experience with are the Stage 4, Wave 2 and Electro 5.

I don't own a Piano 6 (nor a Stage 4 that works similar in some aspects) and I'm not a native English speaker but I'd give it a try. Let's see if I don't miss some important point.

We could start on the left side because there is some logic behind: master volume, then the section for the two piano layers, followed by the section for the two sample synth layers, followed by the program section to organise and select sounds, and finally the effects section (which may be the most complicated for you).

But I'd like to start the description of the panel in the middle: the program section. It starts above the key of middle C. It should be easy to find: 6 buttons in a row, above them the display which you should also be able to feel.

Those 6 buttons in a row are program buttons to select sounds. Wherever you may be in the program banks, you always have 6 programs at hand to select directly from. There's a seventh button to the right of that row, not totally in line, but slightly above - that's a button you may need quite often: the Shift button. It enables the secondary use of a lot of other buttons. If you want to use it, you usually need to hold it and press the other button to get a secondary function. The 6 program buttons, for example, will shift into Menu buttons to select basic settings - from left to right they are Prog Init, System, Sound, MIDI, Pedal and Organize if used together with the Shift button. You maybe could say that Menu buttons in a narrower sense are only buttons 2 through 5 (System, Sound, MIDI, Pedal) while button 1 and 6 will just be used to make program handling easier. Those buttons 2 through 5 are the only ones that also have a third meaning: If there are options to choose from in the display, those 4 buttons in the middle of the row of 6 will select the right option.

Let's get above the gap between the row of 6 and the Shift button: you'll find 2 buttons to get up and down in the programs. If you press one of them, you get up or down for the next 6 programs (secondary use with the Shift button: up and down a whole bank). You can also use the rotary encoder above to toggle from one to the next program.

There's a last button above that rotary encoder which has a special colour: It's red because it's the Store button. If you hit it, it will store the momentary settings to the active program. So it will overwrite the current program. You will need to hit it a second time to really get the settings stored. If you hit it and want to exit the storing process, just hit the Shift button to exit. Which means that the Shift button as well has a secondary meaning. If you hit the Store button together with the Shift button (hold Shift and hit Store), you will get a 'Store As' process which enables you to change the name of the program while storing. Being blind, you won't be able to use that process - instead, you might be able to do the same thing on a computer using Nord Sound Manager software.

I now go counter clockwise around the display. There are three more buttons to the left of the Store button that belong to the program or general section: ProgView (secondary: Panic), Transpose (no secondary meaning), and Keyboard split (secondary: cross-fade). The latter may be a little hard to use as a lot of other buttons and knobs are involved to get the split right. I think you need a person to assist you 2 or 3 times in that process to find out how it goes. There are two more buttons to the left, but they don't belong to the program section anymore. Instead, get down along the border of the display to find a single button for enabling LiveMode (secondary: NumPad).

That's all about the central Program section. And maybe the thing you need first. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

Now you may get an answer what that button does totally at the left, below the MasterVolume knob. It says Vibrato (no idea what it exactly is meant for - you may need to look it up in the manual). And I don't have any idea why it is at that place, totally outside the system of different sections.

Start from there one step to the right: It's the Piano section. Two sliders for the volume of the Piano A and Piano B layer. They have LED columns to their side as the volume stored inside a selected program may and often will differ from the setting of those sliders. If you select a program and want to adjust the volume by those sliders, the volume will jump to the slider's position as soon as you move it a little. That's the way, a lot of knobs in the Effects section will behave as well. Below those two sliders you have the buttons to switch on and off that layer (Piano A and B - secondary: select the zone where this layer is meant to play on the keyboard, hit the button multiple times to toggle between the lower zone, the upper zone and both zones).

The other buttons in the Piano section will only affect one of the two piano layers so you can set the two layers differently. You'll need to find out which of the two layers is the active one. There are two more buttons below to move the sound up and down in octaves (secondary use: sustain pedal and volume pedal on/off).
To the right of those two buttons, you' find a combination of rotary encoder and button to select the sound for the active piano layer: The button will toggle between Grand pianos, Upright pianos, Electric pianos, Clavinets, Digital piano sounds and Misc (like Vibraphone). The rotary encoder will move you through the loaded sounds in that category.
Above that combination, you have 4 buttons set in a square. They are to the right of the volume sliders. From top left clockwise they are: Dynamic compression (3 values, secondary use: pedal noise), Keyboard touch (3 values, no secondary use), Timbre (Soft, Mid, Bright, Dyno1, Dyno2 - depending on the sound category, you'll toggle between 3 or 5 values) and Unison (3 or 4 values in the sense of a slight chorus effect). That's the piano section.

To the right of the piano section, you'll find the sample synth section that starts with exactly the same layout: 2 faders for the volume of layer A and B and two buttons below for on/off of those layers (secondary use: zone select in the same manner as for the piano section). Again 2 buttons close together below for octave +/- (secondary use: sustain pedal and volume pedal). That's the part that's identical for the piano section and the SampleSynth section. To the right of that you have 3 potentiometres one above the other for shaping the sample envelope: attack, decay and release from top to down. The lower right corner of that section again has the selection of the sample - this time it's two rotary encoders: for category and sample.
Again four buttons above in a square. From top left clockwise: VoiceMode (mono, legato, secondary use: Glide), Vibrato (3 values, secondary use: Rate/Amount), Dynamics (3 or 4 values), Unison (3 or 4 values).

I'm sorry, I can't explain the effects section on the right side of the panel in a good way - the handling has changed a lot between my Stage 3 and the generation of your Piano 6 and the Stage 4. In a nutshell, you need to know that on your keyboard, every effect can be attributed to any of the 4 layers - with different settings for each. So the very first thing to do on the effects panel is to properly select the layer that is meant to be affected by your momentary selection. Can you find the Shift button again? It was to the right of the 6 program buttons, slightly above the row. If you go above the Shift button and slightly hold to the right, you'l find a column of 3 buttons, one above the other. They are used to activate the effects for a specific sound layer: The top button is named FX-on. The button below lets you toggle between Piano layer A and B (secondary use: both piano layers). The lowest of the three buttons lets you toggle between Synth layer A and B (secondary use again: both synth layers).

To the right of those 3 buttons, you find the effects sections to choose from. They are not arranged one next to the other from left to right, but there are 3 lines. The upper has Mod1 and Equalizer, the middle has Mod2 and Delay, the lowest has Amp, Compression and Global Reverb. All of those effects sections have a button to their right that's set upwards instead of horizontally: It's the On button for that effect. Each section has between 1 and 4 controllers. So let's list those controllers for that monster of an effects section, from left to right and from top to down:
- MOD1 has a toggle button for TREM, PAN1, PAN2, SPIN, WAH and RM (secondary: CtrlPed), then two pots for Rate and Amount;
- EQUALIZER has 4 pots: Bass, Mids/Gain, Frequency for the parametric mids and Treble;
- MOD2 has a toggle button for PHASE1, PHASE2, FLANGER, CHORUS1, CHORUS2 and VIBRATO together with two pots for Rate and Amount;
- DELAY has a button for Tempo tap or setting (secondary PingPong 1 and 2), a knob for Feedback, a button for the Feedback filter (lowpass, highpass, bandpass, secondary use: FLAM), and a dry/wet knob;
- AMP has a button for the amp model (3 values, secondary use: ALT TONE) and a Drive knob;
- COMPressor has only one knob for the amount;
- GLOBAL REVERB has a button to toggle between Spring, Booth, Room, Stage, Hall and Cathedral (secondary use: Pre-Delay), a button for bright and dark reverb (secondary use: Chorale) and a dry/wet knob.
All of these controllers sit to the left of their respective on/off button (the ones upwards set).

That's it. Enjoy!

As a blind person myself I can say this was very well done. Someone should attempt this with the Stage 4. lol

On Windows at least, I can confirm that naming programs is possible with Nord Sound Manager. That application is quite accessible.


I believe the "vibrato" button on the left is a way to trigger the vibrato sound in a synth sample on the fly. Basically an instant mod wheel.