Nord User Forum

Hey all! Is it possible to use an attached MIDI controller to provide dedicated hardware control to that keyboard's drawbars? For example, if I have a controller attached as the "upper" keyboard, can I set the Nord's drawbars to control the lower manual and the controller's sliders to control the upper manual's drawbars?

I would to know this too. I have used my Ocean Beach Drawbar controller with my vernerable NE2 for years.
I would use the controller for the upper manual and the led internal digital drawbars for the lower manual.
I would expect to be able to do the same thing on my new NE5d but so far have not been able to do that.
I was very excited to be able to have a full set of drawbars.

Looking at the NE5 manual, the MIDI CCs for the drawbars (CC# 16-24) are only for 1 drawbars set, so I would expect that if you send those CCs on the MIDI upper channel you will pilot the Upper manual drawbars (and if you send the on the Lower Receive you control the Lower ones)

Keeping the NE4d on Preset1/Lo(Bass) should make its drawbars control the Lower (assuming you are in Split mode, of course)

With some simple tests you should be able to verify the above.

I was trying to do the same, but unfortunately found (unless I was doing something wrong) that sending CC messages to the channel of the upper part had no effect on the drawbars, and I was only able to change the drawbars for the "active" preset, whichever was selected on the Nord panel and controlled by the physical drawbars.

As a workaround, I am sending a CC to switch to the upper preset before sending the actual drawbar change messages, then another CC to switch back to the lower preset. It works, but would be really nice to not have to do that :-/

I'm sorry I don't really understand. I'm so midi illiterate... I just know that on my NE2 I plugged in my most amazing and trusty Ocean Beach DB-1 and used it out of the box, plug and play ready to control the upper manual and then used the crappy Nord Led drawbars to control the lower. I was so excited when I bought the NE5d as it has 1 set of drawbars on it. I'm a bit perplexed that i can't seem to get my DB-1 to control one manual and use the NE5d's drawbars control the other manual. This machine is more than 12 years advanced than the NE2.... there must be a way....