Korg Forums

I finally picked up my M50 73 yesterday! Love it so far. I'm planning to perform live with a Nord Stage and the M50. Seems like there might be quite a bit of hassle calling up two configurations for each song we play (one for Nord, one for Korg). What I want when I'm finished is the Nord plays Nord sounds and the Korg plays Korg sounds. But, I would just like to call up a combi on the Korg and have it select the program on the Nord Stage. Is that possible? (Guess I would be happy to go the other way, too...Nord sets up patches on the Korg, but given the additional MIDI functionality in the Korg, that would seem less likely to be doable).

I've played a lot with MIDI in my studio at home but it has always been Sonar sending the config info to get the right patch to sound. Now it seems I need to learn a little more about MIDI.

I know the answers are somewhere in the pile of manuals that come with the two keyboards but I was hoping I might get a head start from the folks here.

thanx, Vince

good link, but I didn't think it was the most straightforward example, so i'll chip in here:

What you want are EXT or EXT2 (if you want to use bank changes too) timbres.

If you're not wanting to actually control the other synth through the keyboard you can change the keyzone so it is out of range, or use MIDI filtering to tell the other synth to not respond to note and cc information (rather, tell it only to respond to patch and bank changes). I believe you can also alter the timbre settings so that it filters out transmission of realtime controllers, joystick, pedal, expression, aftertouch, etc.

In the combi (or i use SEQ mode for live use. not actually running a sequence though you understand), you create an EXT timbre on the channel of the other synth, so for example have your other synth set to have its global channel as ch7, set one of the combi's free timbres to ch7, set its mode to EXT or EXT2 (rather than INT or Off).
then you set the patch change just like you would select a program. I have a TR so there may be some slight differences - for example I say just ignore the program name, but I think I remember someone mentioning that might have been fixed so that EXT timbres don't display a name.
but basically you set the program number just the same as any other timbre.

bank change messages are more complicated and I can't help you with that. But now every time you select that combi, the EXT timbre will cause it to send a program change on that channel.

How do you use the various sounds on the Nord Stage?

I've got the MIDI channels on the Nord set so that there's no overlap, like this:

Panel A (all) - 1
Panel B (all) - 2
Panel A Organs - 3
Panel B Organs - 4
Panel A Pianos - 5
Panel B Pianos - 6
Panel A Synth - 7
Panel B Synth - 8

By default, I use channels 9-16 to trigger sounds on my TR and my laptop, unless I also want to trigger sounds on the Nord, in which case I use the appropriate channel in the list above.

In combi mode, the M50 can send to any of these channels at once (limited by the number of available tracks you have); in sequencer mode, which I use, I can only send to one at a time, so thinking about layering is important.

I never layer an organ with anything else (well, not quite true - I have one pad sound that uses an organ, a synth, and both piano sections; I only play that from the Nord). I often do a two-manual organ, with the Nord having Panel A's organ active and my TR triggering Panel B's organ.

If I want to layer multiple things together, I try to play it on the Nord - both pianos and a synth, for example, to make a lush Rhodes pad. In the rare occasions when I can't do that, I add in sounds from my laptop or use other sounds as a workaround. Or, I can use channel 1 or 2 to get all the sounds on Panel A or Panel B, which works if I'm playing the Nord on Panel A only and triggering Panel B from my TR, or if I'm not playing the Nord at all.

For example, one song I often play is dual-manual organ except for the bridge. I used to mix two Rhodes together for the bridge. In Combi mode, no problem: have a new combi that sends to both piano sections (channels 5 and 6 in my case), and switch combis for the bridge. Playing with sequencer mode, I can't send to multiple channels at once, so I'd have to turn off the Panel A organ, turn on the Panel A Rhodes, and hit both the Panel A and B buttons so that both panels were active, and play on the Nord, and then reverse all that to get back to the organ.

Alternately, I could send a program change to the Nord, but I try to avoid switching presets if that'll cause a gap in the audio - that's why I'm playing in sequencer mode in the first place (only one sequencer track is active at a time, all tracks with the same MIDI channel as the active track will sound, and MIDI is sent out only on that MIDI channel as long as an EXT/EX2/BTH track uses that channel, but you can sustain notes with a pedal and switch the active track and they'll keep sounding).

WOW! X-Trade and Kanthos -- thanx. Like drinking from a fire hose. I'm not only new to the M50 (had it for 3 days now) but I'm also new to the Nord Stage (about 2 weeks). I can sort of absorb what you're saying but will have to go back and re-read and play a bit.

X-Trade - yes, as you said -- I do not want to control the Nord with Note on/Note off events. Just want to set the sounds. Your discussion on using the sequencer is interesting too. I understand that you're not running the MIDI sequencer engine to play notes. I would like to understand what benefits running in sequence mode offers that combi mode does not. Clearly I'm going to have to go play with the rig for a few hours and see what I can learn.

Kanthos -- my original thought was that I would set up several programs on the Nord (I have the 126 to play with, I think) for each song/configuration that I wanted and then just use the M50 to send a program change command to select that program. That way, within the program, I would set up the panels, EQ, other effects, etc. on the Nord ahead of time and store them with the program. Then, I'm customized on a per-song basis. With your channel numbering scheme, it sounds as though you are using the Korg to turn on the instruments explicitly (based on MIDI channel #) but that would mean the instrument settings (effects, e.g.) would be whatever they were the last time that instrument was played, right? Or, are you sending additional MIDI commands to do additional configuration for each song (playing with the EQ to get bright piano, or choosing Steinway vs. Yamaha, etc.).

Like I said, when the smoke clears here, I'm going to know a lot more about MIDI (assuming my brain doesn't break in the process )

No, I'm not talking about turning things on and off (though for a while, I did have that going). Turning on individual sections on the Nord has to be done by a midi control change message, not a patch change. CC #101 turns organs on and off, CC #107 turns the piano sections on and off, and CC #113 turn the synth sections on and off. In my scheme, channel 1 is panel A and channel 2 is panel B, so to turn off everything, I'd send CC #101 on channels 1 and 2, #107 on 1 and 2, and #113 on 1 and 2.

HOWEVER, you can't do this easily on the M50. You'd have to record CC messages in a sequence and play back the sequence once. Or, the way I did it, was to have a MIDI Solutions Event Processor which can do things like change CCs into other CCs (or even other MIDI events). I used to have the two switches on the M50 mapped so that one would turn everything on the Nord on or off (so I could easily use the Nord to control something else, and then switch stuff back on), and the other would turn organs off and pianos on when you activated it, and do the reverse when you deactivated it. I stopped doing this because I needed the Event Processor for another purpose - to duplicate the pedal signal on the Nord to all 16 MIDI channels.

To get to the level of turning individual things on and off, you'd really need a computer with software that would let you send arbitrary MIDI messages to a keyboard. Even then, the Nord's MIDI implementation is limited; not everything can be affected by a CC.


What I'm talking about instead is something like this.

I start playing the song with a dual-manual organ. My Nord, on top, is playing the organ on Panel A; my Korg, on the bottom, is playing the organ on Panel B (by using an EXT timbre sending to channel 4). If you don't already know, the Nord Stage can layer everything on panel A, and if you press the switches for both Panel A and Panel B at the same time, they'll both turn on, so you can layer up to 6 things. In my example, I'd just be playing on Panel A, since I don't want the Nord's keyboard to trigger both organs and I'm not playing anything else on Panel B at the same time.

Later in the song, I want to use a Rhodes for the bridge, layered with a pad from the Korg. If I wanted to play it on the Nord, I'd have to either turn off Panel A's organ and turn on Panel A's piano section and Panel A's Extern section, or I could switch to Panel B (which would have the piano and extern sections on, and the organ section on but not mapped to the keyboard - hold shift and hit the Key Zone buttons in the organ section until they're all off). Obviously, the second solution here is easier.

What I do instead, since I'm switching sequencer tracks often on my Korg, is switch to a new sequencer track that's an EXT track sending on channel 5. Panel A has the piano section active but not mapped to the keyboard (I like to try and have as many sounds as possible on the Nord played from Panel A, so I can see that things are turned on and easily change effects without switching panels). Now, the Korg is sending only on channel 5, playing the Rhodes sound, and if I use another timbre on the Korg, also on channel 5 (type INT this time; we don't want to send things to the Nord twice), I get my pad sound blended with the Rhodes.