Nord User Forum

I created this for my Electro 4HP as an attempt to cover all important parts of Madonna's Vogue - an interesting challenge on an instrument not primarily designed for this sort of thing. The result is surprisingly compact, memory wise. There are far too many parts in the original for the number of keys available, but here's what's included, from the bottom up:

1) a short percussive sound, to cover the Ebm7/Ebm6 sixteenth note chords (on 16th notes 1, 2 and 4). It's not the "right" sound but it does, note also you'll have to lose the top Eb from the original chord voicings as there weren't enough notes on the keyboard! It's actually a sample from a Korg Delta.

2) Three octaves or so of Korg M1 piano, for the piano bit.

3) Two string samples, at different octaves. Actually Roland JD-800 samples. These are designed so that you can play the sustained high string note and the lower chords with one hand, provided you can stretch a 9th on black notes.

4) Some hits. These are NOT on the correct chromatic notes, but you will find two different hits for the earlier part of the song, and the top E is a variant for the very end of the piece (hit four times before the Vogue vogue vogue vogue bit).

I believe that all samples here meet the forum T&Cs. All instrument samples were found freely available from various places on the Internet and there are no soft instrument etc. samples. Where original samples are used, these are very short and no more than a quarter of a bar.

My band folded before we covered this song properly, so I haven't fine-tuned this in terms of relative levels etc. I hope some of you find this of use.

Al

I've made some tweaks to this, which mean it should all work on both the HP and SW73 models. The end sample is conveniently located on the lowest key on the HP, less conveniently on the highest two keys for the SW. I've corrected the erroneous looping on the lower percussive sample, and tweaked split points so that you can also transpose it down a semitone and still have it all work OK.

And I've made a demo. There are many errors in my playing and timing, and of course the drums/bass are missing, but this is one take, no overdubbing, maximum stretch is a ninth across black notes (easier I find than a ninth across white notes).

• Vogue.mp3

Here's the newer file Let me know what you think. Perhaps one day I'll improve it further but for now I need the space by the computer where the Nord has been lurking for something else.