Nord User Forum

Hello everyone !

Sorry if my subject sounds a bit confusing and also sorry if theses questions have previously been asked... I have two main questions

I used to own a Nord stage Classic EX but had to sell it. I loved the fact you could play several voices at the same time ( Multi timbral ? ) ; is it still possible to do this on a Nord Electro 3 Keyboard ?

I got myself a Nord electro keyboard because I really love the custom samples and extra goodies we can download from the Nord website but was wondering if it's possible for example let's say to Play strings voice + Piano at the same time ?

Any way around this to do the trick ?

My second question is if I add another midi keyboard attached on the nord electro keyboard can I play two different instruments that way and split the keyboards as different layers ?

Hej Chopin!

I think the Electro is mono-timbral.
A cheap and very small old box like the JV1010 (my was 60EUR) or an iPad with some good apps can support you with fat layers!
Connect to MIDI.

Split and stuff like that can easily be done with the iMIDIPatchbay. You'll find lots of info about that on this forum.
What I remember the Electro does not support split. The Stage 2 does.

Hope you'll find the solutions that fits your needs!

/Amicalement
Michael in Scania.

Hi Chopin,

Marlowes is correct, the Electro series is, and has always been since day one, monotimbral. You cannot split it on its own keyboard. You cannot split it with an external keyboard. You cannot split it in a box or with a fox....

There is a "workaround" of sorts which involves creating your own custom sample which contains whatever it is you want to hear in your layer/split. If you are familiar with general sampling techniques, you will GREATLY appreciate the Nord Sample Editor freeware which makes this possible. If you do not, then you'll have fun learning!

Bless,

Pablo

Hej Chopin!

I forgot to mention that I don't think you can mute parts of the Electro keyboard with an external unit, but you can add stuff! And that's great. What I sometimes do with my Leads.
(But you can quickly mute the whole keyboard with the master volume and let the external sound take over.)

But Pablos "workaround" is a possible solution.

/Amicalement
Michael in Scania

Marlowes wrote:I forgot to mention that I don't think you can mute parts of the Electro keyboard with an external unit, but you can add stuff! And that's great. What I sometimes do with my Leads.
(But you can quickly mute the whole keyboard with the master volume and let the external sound take over.)

I think there are (at least) two ways to mute a portion of the Electro keyboard. First, if you're playing an organ sound, you can create a split, and assign one side of the split to the drawbar setting 000 000 000 and then that region of the keyboard will not trigger a Nord sound. Second, if you turn Local Off and take the MIDI to an external device that is capable of zoning the keyboard and then feed that back into the MIDI IN, you would effectively be able to selectively mute the Nord keyboard. You mentioned an iPad running iMIDIPatchbay, and I think that will actually let you do this (while also allowing the same iPad to be your source for additional sounds to split or layer with the Nord).

You mentioned an iPad running iMIDIPatchbay, and I think that will actually let you do this (while also allowing the same iPad to be your source for additional sounds to split or layer with the Nord).

Actually it is possible to use iMidiPatchbay to split the Nord Electro, while also having one of the voices be an iPad synth. The iPad synth needs to have CoreMIDI and be able to do the virtual MIDI connections (which most can).

I have done this on my iPad mini (original version, not retina), and used Animoog as the synth. It works very well, and it is easy to change split points, octaves, filtering of things like the sustain pedal. I have also split the Nord with my Moog synth (also using iMidiPatchbay). I used the camera lightening connection kit and a standard USB hub.

iMidiPatchbay's "Master" channel is supposed to represent both the input and output of the master keyboard, but for the Nord, you'll need to use the Master as the input, and use a separate output channel. The developer knows about this issue and workaround, and supposedly will be fixing this in an update. But in the meantime, using separate input/output channels works fine.

So fret not...there IS a way to do a proper split...(you can also use an iPod touch or iPhone if you don't have an iPad).

Hi chopin83390!
You might want to check out these layered samples i created a while ago:

http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-user- ... t7398.html
http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-user- ... t7401.html

Good luck,
Anders

Thank you so much for the input guys ! Your advice is great ; I guess that's to be expected from people using Nord keyboards !

I will try your samples Elektromin and am very fascinated by all the features the Nord electro line of product can offer so will definitely look into the samples and how to make my own samples. If you have any good tutorials
on how to start making my own samples that would be great

Thanks again guys

chopin83390 wrote:If you have any good tutorials on how to start making my own samples that would be great

As a matter of fact, I did write a little sampling tutorial after I learned it myself. It's in this thread:
http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-user- ... tml#p47570
Good luck!

Hi folks,

I want to buy a Nord Electro to use as a second keyboard. I use a Roland 88-note piano (and for Rhodes) and currently use an old Roland 60-note workstation keyboard for other sounds. I want to replace this second keyboard with a Nord, mostly for its great B3, Rhodes and clav sounds and the variety of sounds in the Nord sound library. The problem is that I often need to set up keyboard split on the second keyboard - for instance a vibraphone below, say, Middle C and strings above it - and I'm aware that the Electros don't allow the keyboard to be split, and since they're not multi-timbral either, I can't solve that problem by accessing a second sound from the other keyboard. I've seen posts suggesting that the 'workaround' for this would be to create custom split sounds using the Nord editor. As a newbie to using computers with keyboards, I'd be really grateful for any advice about whether this is a simple thing to do. If it involves a lot of in-depth stuff working with the software or hassles to load it back to the keyboard, it's probably not the answer for me. But if it's easy to use the Nord editor software to set up two sounds across two parts of the keyboard and load it back to the Nord for live use, quickly and easily, then would you agree that I should go ahead and buy one of the Electro models?

Alternatively, maybe the solution lies in getting a cheap sound module which I could access via the Nord? For instance, perhaps on the sound module I could set up a split in the keyboard maps so two sounds would be accessed in different parts of the Nord keyboard, even though the module is receiving on a single MIDI channel. Is that right? But then, I read a suggestion in one post that you can't mute the Nord easily in a live setting - is that right?

I'm aware that a Nord Stage would seem the best solution for me because it does allow keyboard splits. But I prefer to have a full piano/Rhodes with a full keyboard range as my main keyboard, and use the second keyboard for the other sounds.

I'd be really grateful for any advice on this. Maybe I missed an obvious solution?

Steve