Morph Wheel Behavior

[chvad]

Just noticed yesterday that if I'm using mulitple slots that are being HELD... if I move to another active slot and use the wheel, the wheel affects ALL slots that are currently being held, and not just the active slot. Is this correct behavior or a bug? I can see it being useful in some cases but it was a drag to HOLD open an active slot for a drone and have it affected while trying to perform in another slot. Is there someway to prevent this behavior?

[stiiiiiiive]

IIRC, the modulation wheel always affect all the slots.

[chvad]

Ok cool. Thanks for the heads up. I have mixed feelings about that. I can see it's usefulness but I'd love the option to have all the slots totally isolated from one another.

[pablomastodon]

can be isolated by midi channel...

pablo

[chvad]

Oh yeah? Nice! Lemme try that out!

[pablomastodon]

perhaps I should have written more there...guess I was pressed for time at the moment. Isolation by midi channel woul require turning local off and running through some external device (computer, router/processor, etc.) such that only the slot channels you wanted to receive the mod wheel data would do so. In a studio setting this will be pretty doable, but a big hassle live with a keyed version of NL4, on which all slots will always respond to mod wheel movements if a morph has been programmed to that slot.

The NR4's design is slightly different and the midi channel isolation trick will work easily, but then of course there is no mod wheel on the rack unit -- it presupposes that you are driving from an external controller.

Pablo

[chvad]

Oof. Yeah. Checked and they were all set to separate channels already. I don't use a computer live so that's a pickle. You really shouldn't have to drag a computer around just to do this.

Pablo, is Clavia considering the users requests being posted here? I feel like a number if them are really valid requests.

[stiiiiiiive]

Chvad,

It is not my place to say what Clavia is considering -- nor am I in the know in this regard. As is quite common in the electronics world, makers are loath to make announcements as to what they will do in the future. Doing so serves no reasonable good purpose, and contains plenty of potential pitfalls. Clavia is usually pretty good about being very tight-lipped about future developments. Generally speaking, the earliest I learn of new things is ~48hrs before they are posted on the website. Sometimes I don't learn about them until the website posting. This does not bother me -- in my view, it is as it should be. A few years ago they did plant a teaser on their website about new brass sounds coming. This accomplished one thing only: pure headaches responding to incessant emails along the lines of "when are we going to get the new brass sounds you promised?" They broke the rule about being tight-lipped and were rewarded with a stinging lesson as to why they should stick to that rule.

Imagine for a moment an alternate universe, one in which the NL4's design comported to your personal wishes and mod wheel movements only applied to active slots. In that universe, forum posters would be complaining that mod wheel movements were limited to active slots.

We have been overlooking the simple solution to your issue here: if you don't want wheel morphs to apply to particular slots, clear the wheel morphs on those slots. No more problem.

Please understand that I am walking a tightrope here. My full-time day job is handling tech support for Nord products in Canada and the US on behalf of their respective distributors. I do not work for Nord. When and where I see someone with a problem with which I can help, I'll pop up on the forum and volunteer some advice and my work contact info; I like to help. But occasionally I also like to feel like I am a regular guy and participate in this forum in that capacity only. I do not speak for Nord. And from time to time I am forced to remind myself that occasionally I am also capable of being an idiot.

Nord personnel reads this forum. And frankly, I love and respect those guys. This is not a corporate behemoth we're talking about here. This is a small set of livicated people who practice their craft of making instruments much as most forum members try to practice their craft of making music. They are not perfect, nor are we. But they are damned good. More perfecter, I daresay, than most anyone else around. These things don't happen by accident and they don't happen easily and very few among us, myself included, have much real appreciation for exactly what it takes to do what they do. Consistently. Over what is now decades. The musical instrument business is littered with names of companies that no longer exist. Some of them were very good, too. Some of them were pioneers in the business. The fact that Nord even exists is no small feat.

Pretty much everyone has some bright idea which would make their Nord (or any other instrument) better, in their view. Truth be told, I might have a few ideas of my own. But at the end of the day it's all about making music, not obsessing over that "one little thing" that would make everything perfect. To me, that would be kind of like kicking (insert name of favorite s*x goddess or god here) out of bed for eating crackers.

I certainly agree that dragging a computer to gigs is a huge drag and is something I have only recently begun doing, first to record multi-track of the whole band live from my Presonus 16.0.2 and more recently to drive the DSP on my Presonus 1818VSL. It sux and I'd like to get away from it, but the sound possibilities I get from the 1818 make it worthwhile for me. At any rate, I would not advocate dragging a PC to a gig just for the purpose of mapping midi data streams to work around your problem, but merely offered the suggestion as an intellectual exercise. It could be done that way, but I don't necessarily recommend it.

Easier to simply clear wheel morphs on slots on which you want no wheel morphs.

Pablo

[stiiiiiiive]

[chvad]

Not to be argumentative but as a 4 part multitimbral synthesizer with 4 discreet parts, I think it's fair to want discreet control over those parts individually. There's only one wheel and limiting it's use to one of four parts sans computer is, in my opinion, a flawed design. I don't think it's nitpicking when it affects the entirety of the instrument. Obviously many people have opinions and not very need can be met but for an instrument on the upper end of pricey, users asking for adjustments is a reasonable thing. These are tools I use daily like many others who might be career musicians. I know for sure I'm demanding of instruments and I think within reason that's cool. I'd never ask for things like new waveforms or an extra LFO... Only consideration for the users that really put these tools through significant paces and use those functions that already exist and have reasonable suggestions as to how they can be improved. Making music is def the goal! No argument there!