Can NordStage send midi information with Extern turned off?

LarryV · Joined: Jan 06, 2011 Posts: 2 Location: NL

Hi All,

I'm a big fan of the Nordstage, use it a lot playing live. Setting: Dual Keyboard, a simple balanced 88-keyboard goes to midi in of the Nord, using the piano/rhodes sounds. On the Nord itself I use mainly the great organ sounds.
In addition to this I use the extern sections with sounds from midi racks (Yamaha XS and Roland XR). I now have per song a lot of possibilities, and the beauty is that I steer all instruments-programs from the Nord: I only have to choose a program on the Nord and all midi racks turn to their right program.

The only problem I encounter is when I want the extern rack to be silent when I begin a song, and during the song I want to add strings from the rack. I now use the extern volume key, because the extern section cannot be turned off: in turned off setting there is no program change sent to the racks. In that case, when turning extern on the racks start playing in its previous program.

Question therfor (and I have studied and tried everything): is it somehow possible to send midi program information without the extern actually on? I then do not have to turn the volume key to add the rack sound, but I can throw the rack sound in by simply pressing extern on..

Hope anybody can help me here,

Regards
Larry

toro.larsson · Joined: Oct 11, 2010 Posts: 3 Location: sweden

hi Larry.
in order to send midi program change commands, you'll need to have the external section activated. there's no way around that.

what you can do is set the volume of the extern section to zero at start and then bring in the racks by turning the knob or by using a morph function. if you don't like that solution you can always turn off the external section directly after loading the desired program.

hope this helps.

regards, Henrik

LarryV · Joined: Jan 06, 2011 Posts: 2 Location: NL

Hi Henrik,

thanks, I understand. This is indeed how I work now.

Maybe an idea to include an option in the next release (option: send midi message with extern turned off - yes/no). Just a thought to improve a great instrument even further..

regards, Larry