Nord User Forum

OK...so now that I have gotten a bit riled up from another thread, thought I might light another match. There are some songs where I need to make changes on the fly but don't want to take my hands off the keys to do so. The Electro is a very hands-oriented keyboard IMO. When you get down to it, if you are using it as a standalone keyboard, unless you are using outboard pedals, there are only four things you can do with your feet...sustain for pianos, swell for organ, rotor speed for the Leslie sim and a manual wah effect (did I miss anything?). How many of you use pedal inputs from another keyboard or controller with flexible MIDI routing assignments to toggle on and off different things on your Electro...like effects, organ splits, program changes, etc.? I use a PX-5S for this purpose.

Still using a Mitigator for foot control when I have need.

Bless,

Pablo

Pablo, had seen ads for it before but never used one...looks very cool. They should have called it the Midigator though...just sayin'. What specifically do you use it to control on your Nord collection?

Hej!

My friend, "Mr Smooth", with whom I have played some lounge gigs, lost his left arm this winter.
No more bass (6-string fretless custom) or guitar (LP & ES-175) for him. He used to be really, really smooth-good!
But, he wants to take up keyboards again.

What more than

• Nord Pedal Keys 27
  Behringer FCB 1010
  sustain pedal
  control pedals

... can we recommend for him to enhace his performande? Anyone with some experience?
Will persuade him to buy an Electro or Stage.
I think he's still into lounge-jazz. Only beginning to recover. But I'll bring him to the musical summer camp in June, as always ...

/Amicalement
Michael in Scania

Michael, very sorry about your friend's situation. Strangely I have a good friend who also recently lost his left arm...Miles O'Brien who was a CNN anchor and is now doing work for PBS and CNN. CNN just aired a special about his accident and recovery here in the US. Miles's passion is flying and he is very determined to get back into the air on his own so I can understand why your friend want to get back into music. If your friend needs any advice or inspiration let me know and I will try to arrange for Miles to contact him.

As for your specific question, I know the pedals input in the PX-5S, although they are not expression pedals, can be used to trigger a wide variety of things including phrases and arpeggiations that might be handy to fill in some left hand chords or the like. I'm sure there are many other great ideas...probably some using the Nord Stage although I have no familiarity with the architecture of the pedal functions for it.

Marlowes wrote:... can we recommend for him to enhace his performande?

That's terrible news for anyone, and especially for a musician. I hope he can throw himself into keyboards and rekindle his passion!
One idea springs to mind - have you thought about a looper pedal (or similar)? That might allow him to put together some spontaneous jamming and make one hand sound like 2 (or more).
For those who don't know what I mean - this guy is a good proponent of its use

Neo, that's a great idea. I have a looper on my Boss guitar pedal but never tried to use it...I have enough trouble playing the guitar without it...but I have seen others use it with great success. I actually started out my musical life playing classical accordion. I still suffer the consequences of having very diminished skills with my left hand on a regular keyboard as a result. I will often play chords with my right hand that have six or even seven notes by doubling up with my thumb and using the fleshy parts of my other fingers. There are definitely ways to compensate to some extent even without technology. Heck, look what Ravel did years ago with extensive use of a sustain pedal to make the Concerto for Left Hand sound so full.

jimmyjames wrote:Pablo, had seen ads for it before but never used one...looks very cool. They should have called it the Midigator though...just sayin'. What specifically do you use it to control on your Nord collection?

I did say "when I have foot controller needs" These occur only seldom these days. Previously I was using a "dumb" controller with only keys, so the Mitigator (I always wondered why Emmett didn't name it Midigator, too) handled everything else: program changes, controller changes, etc. But for some unknown reason these crazy Swedish folks insist on populating the front panels of their instruments with easy-to-use performance controls. Once in a great while I'll have some idea which momentarily seems brilliant and use the Mitigator to achieve a sort of Impulse Morph (a la NL4) functionality whereby multiple parameter values can be quickly and easily adjusted on the fly by foot.

For example, there is a handy dandy Delay Rate knob which enjoys much use on my NS2, but turning the knob causes values to sweep. What if I start out with delay rate of 250ms and wish to either double or halve it without the sweeping values in between? That's when my reliable old friend re-enters the picture. And, of course, a great many parameters can be instantaneously adjusted all at once in this manner.

Bless,

Pablo

Pablo, I was completely unfamiliar with the Mitigator, that's an awesome vintage piece.

Along those same lines, does anyone know if similar functionality (single touch transmission of a predetermined MIDI control stream) exists in a simple iOS app? I know there's a rudimentary MIDI Recorder/Playback applet bundled with SampleTank, but it's cumbersome; and ForScore will allow you to configure a precise MIDI stream to fire when you select a new document. Is there anything else that combines the best of these two approaches?

PScooter63 wrote:...Along those same lines, does anyone know if similar functionality (single touch transmission of a predetermined MIDI control stream) exists in a simple iOS app?

Might be worth looking at this - I looked at it a while ago for a different MIDI need. AFAIK it can send certain event data, but whether it is comprehensive enough or has a suitable user interface, i can't say:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/midibri ... 60859?mt=8