Nord User Forum

Hello,

I'm new to the world of Synths and Midi controllers so please take it easy on me for what is surely a stupid question for some of you more experienced users.

I have a Nord Rack2x and an Akai MPK49. I've had the Nord for a while and decided to upgrade controllers from the cheap M-Audio I had been using for years. The M-Audio didn't have any knobs so I never ran into this before.

I'm having a hell of a time figuring out how to assign the various functions of my Nord to the various knobs on the MPK49. The keys themselves work great of course, but all the knobs are whacky. This, I fully expected. But I didn't expect it would be so difficult to get them assigned to my Nord.

This is my first foray into such a thing and as such, I could very likely be missing a key step that would be obvious to a more experienced user. I've read the manuals but I can't to get the knobs to match up with anything on the Nord. This part seems very sparse on the info, or I just don't know what it's referring to. The knobs do make changes, but it's all unpredictable nonsense changes. I have yet to figure out how to actually make them work properly. I'm a complete n00b when it comes to this.

I'm pretty sure this is a process that I would need to initiate on the Nord and and then use the MPK to communicate back to it as to which knob adjusts which parameter.

Can anyone please break it down to me with an example? How do you map the parameters on the Nord Rack2x to the knobs on any given MIDI controller, such as an Akai MPK? As I said, I've read the manuals, but I just can't make sense of it, having basically zero experience with MIDI before.

Surely someone has used this awesome synth with a nice, knobby controller like the MPK49 and actually knows what they're doing! Help a brother out!

Thank you,

I don't have an Akai MPK49 (I do have a Novation Remote SL49 MK2 though), nor do I have a Lead 2X (not anymore). However, I can probably help you out.

Since you can play the Rack from the MPK, you clearly have the MIDI channels set up correctly. MIDI is basically one-way traffic (not entirely true, more on that later) so while the MPK can send new values for knobs to the Rack, it has no way to query the current value of a knob on the Rack. Some jumping of parameters is likely unavoidable.

If you check the manual for the Lead 2X, you'll find more information on the MIDI implementation of the Lead/Rack in chapter 13. In principle every button has an associated MIDI Control Change number (CC number) associated with it - you'll find a table of those on page 103-104. For example, if you configure the MPK to use CC 19 for some knob, it will be controlling the rate for LFO1 on the Rack. I don't know the MPK, but I expect it is flexible enough to make your own 'templates' that make the buttons send the right CCs, the ones the Rack is expecting. My Novation ships with something like 15-20 default templates (such as for the Novation SuperNova, Roland JV1080 module, Access Virus, etc.) and you can add more.

Assuming you can use your MPK as a MIDI interface when connected to your computer, you could also connect MIDI OUT on the Rack to MIDI IN on the MPK (you may already have that) and run something like MIDI-OX (Windows) or MIDI Monitor (Mac) to view the MIDI CC messages coming from the Rack when you turn a button on it. By default (unless you disable it in the MIDI menu), knobs and buttons on the Rack will send MIDI messages themselves when you use them, that is often a quicker way to find out what message (CC number) to use than looking it up in the manual. Your MPK may even have a 'learn' functionality where you select a knob on the MPK and then turn the same knob on the Rack to teach the MPK what message to send. I've not seen this on a hardware controller, but technically it is possible and this is how a lot of the DAWs (like Ableton Live or Apple Logic) do it.

There are a number of different MIDI messages. You'll be most interested in MIDI CC messages, but you'll also see info about System Exclusive (or SysEx). SysEx is a way to send stuff like firmware updates but also dumps of programs across a MIDI connection. Your MPK can definitely send regular MIDI messages, MIDI CC messages and perhaps MIDI RPN and NRPN messages. The last two are mostly used by overly-complex Roland (or just plain old) MIDI equipment. When I say 'regular MIDI message', I mean stuff like pan - that is so common it has its own MIDI message instead of using a MIDI CC message. This is also why you won't find some knobs in the list in the MIDI CC section; they have their own MIDI message. Page 113 lists what MIDI messages the Rack supports - it seems pan is not amongst them though.

The Wikipedia page on MIDI has a short list of MIDI messages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI
The 'Controller events' section is probably of most interest. And as said before, running something like MIDI-OX or MIDI Monitor and just turning a knob or pushing a button is the quickest way to find the right message. You might also see some knobs (the main volume knob is a prime suspect) do not send a MIDI message, which likely means there's no way to control them via MIDI.

As I mentioned earlier, MIDI is one-way. If you however use two MIDI connections (MIDI OUT on MPK to MIDI IN on Rack, MIDI OUT on Rack to MIDI IN on MPK) you can create two-way communication. On page 109 a non-standard MIDI SysEx message (all controllers request) is described that can be sent to a Lead/Rack to trigger it to send a complete dump of all the current settings of all knobs/buttons. It could be used to set one Lead to exactly the same knob/button settings as another, or a sequencer/DAW could use it to query the current settings. I know the commercial editor from ReKon Audio does this (and because Ableton Live does not support MIDI SysEx messages while Logic does, the editor works properly under Logic and not Live - supposedly version 2.x of the editor does not have this problem) and likely the Open Source Ctrlr editors for the Stage/Stage 2 (no idea if there is a version for the Lead/Rack) also use this. However, I expect the MPK isn't smart enough to do anything with this - I know my Novation can't make use of it.

This might be a bit too much information/bla bla in one go. Give it a try and please don't hesitate to ask further questions or correct me if I made a mistake; in the end we'll all learn something.

Thank you!

Although I am admittedly not familiar with some of those concepts, I do believe that is exactly the type of introduction that I needed. That definitely points me in the right direction.
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Since you seem so knowledgeable I would like to pick your brain for one more bit of advice, if you don't mind.

Fair warning: This is probably an even stupider question than above.

I have heavily modified many of the patches on here and I am now using them in some of my songs. It took a lot of work and it would probably be nearly impossible to recreate them if my Nord ever stopped working (or I screw it up bigtime, which is likely). In my reading of the manual, I have come across mention of the sysex file, which you also mentioned above.

I could be way off here, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the sysex is that: "If my Nord ever died, I could take a backup of the sysex file (assuming I made one before it died) and load that onto another Nord Rack 2x and have all my custom sounds back". Is this an accurate assessment of one of the functions of a sysex file? And if not, is there a way to backup my settings (perhaps to my computer, {which has midi connectivity via a Delta 1010lt}) in such a way as to be able to duplicate them on an identical machine in the event of a catastrophic failure?

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I swear that I have actually read through the manual and I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to piece this together myself, even though I probably come across as an idiot needing to be hand-held. I came across a really good deal on this Nord and couldn't pass it up, despite not knowing the first thing about it other than that I like the way it sounds.

SysEx is the way to archive you files, IF you have a wormking librarian.
Maybe you could tkae a lok here about the NordLead (click the words in the screen)
http://nm-archives.electro-music.com/02 ... /Red_Lady/

Wout

Woot, it's Wout. He's one of the reason I bought my Lead 2X.

As Wout says, you could use some SysEx librarian application to make backups of your Rack. I don't really have experience with those, but you used to see people talking about SoundDiver all the time (back in the Virus B/C days) and I suppose it was one of the best known SysEx librarian applications.

Having a SysEx librarian application that understands the program format of the Rack allows you to restore a complete backup of all your programs, but also a single program (because the librarian knows enough of the programs to be able to take a single program out of a SysEx file containing multiple programs).

Even if you don't have such a librarian, you can still make a backup. You need a MIDI interface connected to your computer (PC or Mac), but you'd also need that if you were using a librarian. You then run a small piece of software on your computer that can receive a bunch of SysEx messages (sent by the Rack) and can write those to a file (usually a *.syx file). On a Mac I find Sysex Librarian works fine (a simple, free utility) and on Windows I think you can use MIDI-OX, which is also free. You'd plug one end of a MIDI cable in the MIDI OUT port of the Rack and the other end in the MIDI IN port of your MIDI interface.

You would then start whatever application you're using to save the SysEx data (set it up to use the right MIDI interface) and then set that program to record incoming SysEx messages. Then you follow the instructions on page 78 of the manual (MIDI SysEx Bulk Dump). To restore that backup, you set up the Rack to receive a SysEx Dump, which is also described on page 78. You send this (bulk) dump with the same MIDI utility on your computer; generally you just select what SysEx file you want to send and then it gets sent. Note that in same cases the data gets sent faster than the Rack is able to process it; in that case you might need to tweak the settings of that utlity to slow it down so the Rack can keep up.

A DAW (like Logic or Cubase) could probably be used to, provided it knows how to handle SysEx messages. I think both Logic and Cubase do, but I'm not 100% sure; I am sure Ableton Live is not able to do this properly. You'd set the DAW software to record MIDI data and you would then send it a SysEx dump as described above. I've never tried this though (well, I did with Live and failed miserably ).

Don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions about this. I think the 'Sysex Librarian' utility for the Mac overstates its name a bit (since it lacks some functionality which I think should be present in a 'librarian' application for a specific synth), but it is easy to use and works well. I also use it for upgrading equipment where a SysEx file is used to upgrade the firmware (such as with your Mopho).

Edit: now that I think about it, the Rack might send the SysEx dump of a complete bank as separate messages. If it does, they would likely end up in separate (numbered) files, with one file per program.