Nord Stage 2 as a controller

[rafmusic]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use my Nord Stage 2 to control the sounds of a Roland Fantom G6 for a handful of songs. I connected the MIDI OUT of the stage to the MIDI IN of the Fantom and it talks fine. The problem is that it doesn't access all of the high velocity layers of the Fantom and the sustain doesn't work. I tried the same thing with my Rolsnd RD700 controlling the Fantom and it's all fine.

Therefore the problem is with the Nord. I'd like to get this fixed if possible as I'm thinking about getting a Korg Kronos 61 for the top and using my Nord on the bottom, interchanging between using the sounds on the Nord and controlling the Kronos on the top. I may replace the Nord with a Kronos 88 if it's not going to work.

Any ideas people?

Ryan

[rafmusic]

From what I can see, there seems to be no way of altering the global sensitivity or adjusting sustain settings. The sensitivity can only be changed for the actual Nord sound in the dynamics section in the piano section.

[RedLeo]

On the Nord, there is a setting in each section to turn the sustain pedal on or off, you probably need to check this.

As for velocity, I'm pretty sure that the Nord does send the full MIDI velocity range. I'm not quite sure why this is not working for you. I don't know which version you've got, but if you've got the weighted piano keyboard, it needs to be played pretty hard to get to high velocities. As silly as it sounds, you may just need to play a little harder. If that's not the problem, are you using the External section to control the Fantom? If so, there's a velocity adjustment parameter you could look at: "Extern MIDI A/B Vel Curve" which is in the External section's menu. You can set this to Soft, Normal or Hard to adjust the velocity response sent out via MIDI.

[anotherscott]

I'm trying to use my Nord Stage 2 to control the sounds of a Roland Fantom G6 for a handful of songs. I connected the MIDI OUT of the stage to the MIDI IN of the Fantom and it talks fine. The problem is that it doesn't access all of the high velocity layers of the Fantom and the sustain doesn't work.

It sounds like you need to enable the sustain pedal function in the Nord's EXT panel, with the SUSTPED button. The fact that you can switch this function on and off allows you to do things like splits where the sustain pedal sustains your left hand supporting sound but not your right hand lead sound, for example, which is quite useful. As for velocity, make sure you check the Nord's "Extern MIDI Vel Curve" setting.

[rafmusic]

Thanks guys. This has helped solve 50% of the problem. I wasn't really taking in terms of using the external section so the velocity thing is working, but only after I changed the Global MIDI transmit on the Nord to a blank channel on the Fantom (channel 11) and then changed the External section to transmit on Channel 1.

The sustain thing doesn't work at all, even with the sus ped button activated. (I knew about this so I'd already tried that). What I failed to mention is that the sustain half works! It kind of sustains part of the sound and the sound disappears after a few seconds, but not a proper long sustain like if I was playing the fantom itself.

My gut feeling is that this system isn't going to work!

My ideal scenario would be to have left split nord piano, right split Nord controlling the fantom, but the Fantom keyboard itself playing a completely different sound. So far, even the fantom will not play a different sound to the Nord, even though I set it to a different MIDI channel. I just don't think they're compatible keyboards unfortunately!

[anotherscott]

What I failed to mention is that the sustain half works! It kind of sustains part of the sound and the sound disappears after a few seconds, but not a proper long sustain like if I was playing the fantom itself.

I wonder if you have some conflict between standard (on/off) and half (continuous) pedaling, in terms of the kind of pedal you are using and/or board/sound settings.

[RedLeo]

My gut feeling is that this system isn't going to work!

My ideal scenario would be to have left split nord piano, right split Nord controlling the fantom, but the Fantom keyboard itself playing a completely different sound. So far, even the fantom will not play a different sound to the Nord, even though I set it to a different MIDI channel. I just don't think they're compatible keyboards unfortunately!

The good news is that your gut feeling is wrong. Your system can do all of this quite easily. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of setting up with MIDI and keyboard programming between both keyboards to get it right. This will be a learning curve, and simply trying another keyboard won't make it any easier, you'll just have a different combination of Fantom plus "something else" which you will then have to "wrestle" to make it work.

What you want to do takes a bit of working out (on any keyboard) and the best advice I can give you is that you will not get it right by simply poking about at random. This is one of those situations where you have to know for sure how to get it all to work. Which means, this is one time you will have to read and understand the relevant parts of the instruction manuals for both the Nord and the Fantom. Hopefully, there will be some advice forthcoming from someone who knows how to get your Fantom to do what you want.