Nord User Forum

This has always been a bone of contention for me. My playing style is all about layering, Piano, Organ and Synth in a live setting and not being able to eliminate the organ with the organ swell pedal is ...inconvenient! As a result I have to travel with a separate rack with a sub mixer so I can use outputs 3&4 for the organ and run them through a volume pedal and into a 2nd stereo input. I'm not the first to complain about this. Why not have two assignable control pedal inputs and if you want to use one as an "authentic" Hammond Swell Pedal, then have it as an option...no sub mixer required! I grew up with Kurzweil's 2 to 3 expression pedal ins and 4 switch pedal ins and 8 zones...all totally assignable. Luxury. Wouldn't it be nice to have at least some of that flexibility in a nice neat RED(I love my Nord) package?
Please!!!!!
Thank you Nord engineers in advance

Well, you can morph the organ volume with the control pedal, and set it from full to zéro ! I don't see where Is the problem ! Only use the organ swell input if you want authentic swell reproduction... Or didn't i get your question ?

This could be solved in firmware rather than a different output (e.g. drop swell to zero option, but you can only wish).
Morphing the organ volume works as gildabass suggested, but it is not *exactly* the same as the swell control. The swell also changes the tone of the sound as well as the volume (thus emulating a real hammond). I seem to remember reading that the drive kicks in towards the last end of the pedal position. Some real organ owner could comment on how this exactly works.

This is the solution I use: http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-stage ... t3290.html

Mr_-G- wrote:I seem to remember reading that the drive kicks in towards the last end of the pedal position.

This also works if you morph the organ volume instead of using the swell pedal function. That is, it works with the Leslie overdrive, but not with the overdrive in the amp sim section.

Thanks for the correction!

Thanks all for your reply's. I guess what I'm proposing is not for the pure of heart and may not be possible in the midi world. I do play a real B and am aware of the beauty of the beast and the "swell" overdrive. I'm willing to forego that luxury in a live setting and run the leslie through the amp simulator and or manually dial in the drive. I guess I'm just looking for 2 assignable expression pedal inputs so that I wouldn't need to send 2 stereo cables to and from a standard volume pedal for outputs 3 and 4 which is where I have to assign the organ, and then send 2 stereo pairs to the mixing desk. It's hard enough as it is to find a sound guy who is willing to sacrifice 2 inputs for the keyboard let alone 4!! I'd like to travel with just the Nord and a few pedals, sans external rack. However, you can't always get what you want...but I can dream.
Thanks guys

Shadowfax wrote:I guess I'm just looking for 2 assignable expression pedal inputs

But that is basically what I wrote about in my linked post! (OK, it doesn't work with a normal pedal, but it's still easier than using additional gear.)

Yep. Hammond Swell Pedal when hooked up to a leslie greatly influences the quality of the sound. If you turn it up bloody loud, it is cleanish and then will go all the way to a blur. With hammond cabinets, this is less notable (as they were designed to behave).

Nord have done this very well. A pedal which didn't alter the sound, or went to 0 would be odd and sound naff. In fact, very naff.

While playing the NS2 live and having an option to turn the organ swell pedal volume completely off would be a WONDERFUL, EXTREMELY, needed feature! As of now, using the organ swell pedal defeats the purpose of layering the organ with another section of the keyboard as the organ volume can not be turned completely off with the pedal only. It's very surprising using the very simplest setup up during a song of just organ and piano, and toggling between the two, the swell pedal cannot be used to turn the organ volume completely off when only piano is needed and then the organ has to be manually by hand turned on and off. Logically, this appears as it was not a very well thought out feature of the NS2.
Presently I'm using three pedals, one for each section of the keyboard, one via the control input, the other two are pedal midi boxes using CC# outputs. Unfortunately, I'm not utilizing the swell pedal feature at all as having to manually use my hands during a song to turn the organ volume completely off and on is a MAJOR inconvience compared to doing this with a volume pedal.
I do appreciate the realism of an original Hammond function. The Hammond organ wasn't originally designed with the feature of playing with other sound producing sections built together with it. Hopefully, someday the option of being able to turn the organ volume completely off via the swell pedal will be added.

Well what I'd do is that I'd put it into the control pedal input instead of swell and you can morph the organ section volume with the control pedal from 100 to 0. That way it does not behave as a swell.

For those times you want it to work as a swell, try setting the control pedal to also act as swell pedal. I believe some of those "global" settings can actually be placed per program but I do not have my NS atm so I could be wrong.

Saludos,
Gustavo