Nord Drum 2 impressions

[Ecaroh]

Hi all!

Those of us having ND2 let's give few first impressions and feelings about it.

I have had mine for two days and as a original ND owner all I can say that this is a HUGE improvement. Sound is amazing and so much more expressive. It gives so rich palette of basic electric sounds but I am amazed how acoustic it can sound: a.snare of timpany for example. And everything in the middle and all this experimental stuff... Together with pad, which has great response for velocities, this is a perfect couple.

[wartaler]

Wow, great! Good to hear!!

looking so much forward, feel tempted to ask you all the details, how it works, noise attack, repeat function,

.. I have to be patient for another month or so!
I pre-ordered it in May at a store that now seems to be the only one in the country that hasn't got it in stock

Albert

[beatus]

I got mine 10 days ago, and it is amazing ,but the headphone out is so low that I can barely hear anything, I wrote to Nord but they didn't answer. Anyone else got this problem?

[Mr_-G-]

I got mine 10 days ago, and it is amazing ,but the headphone out is so low that I can barely hear anything

That could be a problem of the impedance of the headphones. Have you checked more than one model of headphones?

[beatus]

I got mine 10 days ago, and it is amazing ,but the headphone out is so low that I can barely hear anything

That could be a problem of the impedance of the headphones. Have you checked more than one model of headphones?

yes, same thing...

[wartaler]

It finally arrived!!

Nord Drum2 in short: Very addictive!
As JP mentioned, much more complex, richer sounds, and a lot more to tweak!
Whatever sound I hear on TV, or in music, I am able to reproduce it with the ND2 pretty quickly!
Even the sea!

Issues / Feature requests?
Not much to complain, and Nord has already announced FM synthesis, and CC control coming in a future OS update.
- Only minor stuff:

(1) I did notice that the 'this program has been edited' light doesn't work - the LED in my display is fine - (it lights up shortly when you go from one program to the next). I bet this will be corrected with next OS, nothing dramatic imo.

(2) I have some weird things going when I apply noise attack (Ad type) AND have the echo effect active - when you trigger notes shortly after each other, noise is sometimes muted/not triggered.. bit erratic, can't explain..
..well it isn't a combination I'd normally use anyway..

(3) A slight 'zipper' noise from the main volume knob when you adjust volume while playing - I can perfectly live with that

(4) Idea about Group Edit Pitch:
With group edit you can adjust pitch of 2 or more channels at the same time, while maintainig differences between the channels (scale). The scale is lost when you keep adjusting after one or more channels reached max.or min. pitch. My idea is to stop further adjustment of pitch when one of the selected channels has reached the max (or min.) pitch, so that differences between channels are maintained.

(5) idea about midi/channels
In the light of CC-control; it would perhaps be handy if you could assign individual midi channel to each channel of the ND2

(6) you can only select Yam/Roland rubber pads, with ND1 you can also select different mesh, and acoustic triggers. - don't know if it's really necessary

All in all - very happy so far, not much to complain about really!!
Plus, I absolutely love the sound of this little red synth!!

Cheers,
Albert

based on ND2 OS 0.92

[wartaler]

I found CC setup setting in the MIDI menu (OS 0.92) - I set it to send+receive,
EDIT: but it isn't functional yet -
in other words: please ignore this post!
Albert

[wartaler]

Just a small update after the introduction of OS2.x,

So happy, all points mentioned above are fixed or added in OS2.x , and there is so much more,
one small issue remained;

(2) I have some weird things going when I apply noise attack (Ad type) AND have the echo effect active - when you trigger notes shortly after each other, noise is sometimes muted/not triggered.. bit erratic, can't explain..
..well it isn't a combination I'd normally use anyway..

-still there in OS2.x
.

For the rest, OS2.x is an awesome improvement, not just for the above fixes and additions, there is much more to tweak with the sound!!!!

I'm happy!

Albert

[kroffe]

(2) I have some weird things going when I apply noise attack (Ad type) AND have the echo effect active - when you trigger notes shortly after each other, noise is sometimes muted/not triggered.. bit erratic, can't explain..
..well it isn't a combination I'd normally use anyway..

-still there in OS2.x

wartaler: I don't think this is a bug - since the echo is sort of a monofonic "played" echo (think midi echo) with lesser velocity than your trigger, if you increase noise attack the echoes will make the attack velocity curve less step. I does makes sense doesn't it?

[wartaler]

Well, I see what you mean but it behaves irratically;

Repro:
noise attack: 23 / env: Ad
noise decay: 2 / lo: off
echo: 10 / amount: 20
tempo at 120 bpm

>action: trigger with trigger button (set at max)
>result: first note is loudest, then echoes decay = as expected
>action: trigger new note(s) while you stll hear echoes of the previous,
>result: sometimes the new note is very soft (equally soft as the echo of the first sound),
sometimes it is very loud, sometimes level is normal (as originally programmed)

When I trigger a new note, I expect it to start with the noise sound I programmed, which then decays with echoes,
- tone and click do behave as expected, so you get a weird mix where noise level is variating each time you trigger...

It is the combination of noise attack (Ad type) and echo (normal echo), do note: - the problem does NOT occur with rEP (straight repeat) type of echo..

Ok, I hope you can reproduce it, I do think it is some sort of 'bug' in the software, [EDIT: it isn't, Kroffe was right!]

Cheers,
Albert

ND2/OS2.24