N Wave: Massive Load of Sounds

oktoplus · Joined: May 09, 2009 Posts: 11 Location: Köln

Hey There,
just having breakfast and turn on my Laptop... and taddaaaa:

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?tm=Products&clpm=Nord_Wave&clnwm=Program_Library

Many musicians and sounddesigner created new program libraries for the Nord Wave.

btw: Who of you Wave Players is interested in starting a Wave Sharing topic (for .nsi, Libraries, Samples, etc.....) ???

Tobias

Wout Blommers · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 1:26 am Post subject:

So you are happy now Very Happy

See you again next month or so! Wink

Lets start the Nord Wave Program pages...

Wout

ark · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:24 am Post subject:

Along with the sound banks, Nord says that the banks depend only on the factory samples, but don't say which of the factory samples the banks depend on.

So here's an operational question. My understanding is that the banks and samples are mutually independent, so that if you replace a sample, every bank that refers to that sample now automagically refers to the new sample. This means that if you load these new banks, and you don't want their behavior to change from under you, you have to maintain all of the factory samples that the sounds use--but you don't actually know which ones.

Moreover, the factory sounds take up almost all of the sample memory, which means that it is difficult to add any new samples without replacing at least some of the samples that are already there, thereby possibly changing some of the sounds.

Is my understanding correct? I'm asking because I keep thinking that I should buy a Wave while the current sale is going on in the USA, but can't convince myself that problems such as this one won't be too much of a nuisance.

msy2 · Joined: May 21, 2007 Posts: 42 Location: united states

Unfortunately I think until Clavia adds features that people want like better sample layers, better control of loop points (for manipulation) it will not do well. People who want "real" sounds have many cheaper options. Clavia should focus on allowing more sample manipulation for programmers.

Someone in the next 5 years will make a modern sampler for programmers. With the right features, the Wave could be it. It is all software and could be done without hardware changes I believe. I just don't know if Clavia are focused in that direction.

ark · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 11:10 am Post subject:

msy2 · Joined: May 21, 2007 Posts: 42 Location: united states

ark · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 12:17 pm Post subject:

Ruud · Joined: Mar 17, 2008 Posts: 28 Location: Rotterdam

Hi Ark,

That's right about the order of samples. There is a list of these factory samples
from 1 to 53. The rest is free but that's not much.
However there are a lot of excellent sounds made by these samples.
All my banks are full...
Time to listen critical to alle the stuff and delete some Very Happy

PhilippPott · Joined: May 22, 2009 Posts: 2 Location: Munic

I just did the download of some program libs:

1. Factory Setting of the Samples & Locations can be found here Nord Wave Factory Samples.pdf

2. Programs/sound banks refer to sample locations and are mutually independent. Replacing a sample let's the bank refer to the new sample. I just updated most of the samples to v4 or v5

3. Updating samples with the sample memory full under the roof is quite a work. (upload a single sample, replace the old, delete the old). However, some newer samples need less memory. I will remove some samples I don't need on occasion. My opinion towards Clavia Nord: you could have given us more memory for that money!

4. Adding own samples could be done to locations bigger than 53 (the last sample of the factory setting is at 53). If you need space, delete unused samples <53 and check if your preferred sound banks still work properly. (maybe we need a Wiki which lists all the samples used by the factory sound banks???)

5. I uploaded 4 banks full of sounds, here is my opinion:

6. Unfortunately, you can only download the banks to a complete bank, overwriting existing programs in the bank. You have to move any existing programs to another bank if you want to keep them. Alternatively you can upload the bank to your computer and then replace it. Downloading a bank to the instrument is fast, selecting and moving is quite a work.

7. Another alternative is to download single sound programs into your instrument.

My overall opinion: the program library is a good idea. With this one can learn you professionals design different sound characteristics. However, it is a lot of work to identify all the sounds. But that seems to be life...

radiospace · Joined: Apr 09, 2008 Posts: 14 Location: USA

My number 1 wish for the Sound Manager software is for the Sample Library mode (i.e. "Samp Lib") to display, in a column after each instrument, any programs that use that sample. I.e.:

22violins_ste SRV1 1:30, 1:41, 2:7, 6:102, 6:103

This way you could look at your loaded samples and immediately tell which were not being used, or, you could quickly find and listen to all the programs used by a particular sample so you could decide whether they were "keepers". This would help immeasurably in getting full use out of the limited sample storage space. I don't see any reason why this ability couldn't be built into the software.

As far as arranging the sounds, I don't see how it could be any easier. I think arranging banks, copying the new programs that you want to use is incredibly easy with the software. You just need 1 empty bank to load the new stuff into, but even if you don't have it, you can save one of your banks to the hard drive, then overwrite it, and use that location to (consecutively) load in each of the new banks, moving single programs to a permanent location as you audition them and want to keep them. When you are done, load your original bank back into the keyboard, and you're done.

I think the Wave is pretty clearly not meant to be a sampler in the traditional sense. Of course it'd be swell if it additionally had those capabilities, but it's misguided to say that it is defective because it doesn't function well as a traditional sampler, when it isn't designed as such. The samples are great for things like mellotrons, but without velocity layers, it's never going to make a good grand piano host. (Nor is there sufficient memory on board to store a bunch of great piano samples, etc.). Remember this is a Nord Lead with the additional ability to use samples in the synthesis engine. For that, it works wonderfully. And as a matter of fact a lot of the samples are really, really good (strings, accordions, mellotron) despite their technical limitations. I would reach for the Wave for string sounds before just about anything else for pop or rock music.