Clavia Nord Stage EX, User Manual

Page 1: ...9WIV 1ERYEP 2SVH 7XEKI OS Version 6 x Part No 50250 Copyright Clavia DMI AB 2010 Print Edition 6 0...

Page 2: ...flash with the arrowhead symbol within an equilateral triangle is intended to alert the user to the presence of uninsulated voltage within the products en closure that may be of sufficient magnitude...

Page 3: ...panel 10 Audio connections 10 MIDI connections 10 Connecting pedals 11 4 Getting Started 12 About Instruments 12 About Programs 12 Activating instrument sections 13 About Panel A B 14 Setting output...

Page 4: ...etups 58 9 The Morph Assign feature 60 About Morph Assign 60 Using Morph an example 60 Morph Assignable parameters 61 About setting Morph parameter ranges 62 Clearing Morph Assignments 62 About Aftert...

Page 5: ...Nord Stage Manager 72 Overview 72 The Quick Tour 75 Nord Stage Manager reference 79 Tabs 84 14 MIDI functions 86 About the MIDI implementation 86 Using Nord Stage with a sequencer 87 Program Controlle...

Page 6: ...Table of contents Nord Stage EX v6 x 4...

Page 7: ...isn t a Swiss army knife FEATURES The Nord Stage EX has the following main features Organ section with faithful reproductions of three classic models B3 Hammond V Type Vox Continental and F Type Farfi...

Page 8: ...PDF file format It can be downloaded free of charge from Clavia s web site at http www nordkeyboards com When reading the manual as PDF file you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader 4 0 or later This progr...

Page 9: ...he other effects See The Rotor section on page 55 THE ORGAN SECTION The Organ section in the Stage features emulations of three classic organ models a Hammond B3 a Vox Continental II V Type and a Farf...

Page 10: ...ee The Effects on page 49 THE KEYBOARD The keyboard of the Nord Stage EX features 88 76 medium weighted keys or 73 semi weighted wa terfall keys for optimal feel and response with piano instruments Fo...

Page 11: ...AWBAR buttons are special in the way that they auto increment decrement the corresponding parameter when held I e if you hold a DRAWBAR button the corresponding drawbar parameter will continue to incr...

Page 12: ...stereo to your audio equipment you should use CH1 OUT in pair with CH2 OUT You can also route individual instruments to CH OUTPUTS 3 4 either in stereo or as two mono channels This is done on the Sys...

Page 13: ...ent characteristics To simplify setup the most com mon pedal models Roland Yamaha Ernie Ball and Fatar are preconfigured in the Nord Stage EX and you simply select the type of pedal in the System menu...

Page 14: ...ograms also contains settings for both Panel A and B see About Panel A B on page 14 For more details about the Program memory architecture see What is a Program on page 19 SELECTING PROGRAMS The Progr...

Page 15: ...Synth section You can activate deactivate instrument sections in the following ways Pressing the KB ZONE SELECT ON OFF button for an Instrument section so that one or more of the LEDs lights up will...

Page 16: ...er Panel to the active Program Panel press and hold one of the Panel buttons and turn the Value dial The display will indicate which of the Panels in the entire Program memory of the Stage that will b...

Page 17: ...overdrive and amplifier speaker modelling with EQ and a Compressor and Reverb section The Compressor and Reverb effects are global and affect all in struments routed to the main CH OUT 1 2 jacks The...

Page 18: ...ess any of the PROGRAM 1 6 buttons to load the corresponding program from the current Pro gram Page Press or hold PAGE or to step through the 21 Program Pages in the Nord Stage Turn the VALUE DIAL in...

Page 19: ...gh all the 121 available Pro grams DISPLAY The MAIN DISPLAY normally shows the name of the currently selected Program but is also used for displaying various system parameters and messages THE SHIFT E...

Page 20: ...o be controlled using the Mod wheel a control pedal or keyboard aftertouch Multiple parameters can be Morph assigned so that when you for ex ample move the Mod wheel it will change the drawbars settin...

Page 21: ...tor effect affect both Panels and are stored with the Program as well Splits layers Keyboard Zones and Morph assignments are of course also part of a Program ABOUT THE LIVE 1 2 BUFFERS The special Liv...

Page 22: ...rently selected PROGRAM button indicator starts blinking and the DISPLAY will read Store to X X the current Page and Program number plus the Program name 2 Next step is to select a Page Program locat...

Page 23: ...ll available characters a z A Z 0 9 Space and By holding down SHIFT and pressing the INS PAGE button you enter a blank step at the cursor position By holding down SHIFT and pressing the DEL PAGE butto...

Page 24: ...s see About Split Organ Setups on page 29 COMMON FEATURES ACTIVATING THE SUSTAIN PEDAL PITCH STICK FOR INSTRUMENTS You can freely set which instruments should respond to a connected Sustain Pedal and...

Page 25: ...strument has a finite note range You can use Octave Shift to shift the pitch up or down within the instruments note range See Octave Shift on page 58 for more information OUTPUT ROUTING The Nord Stage...

Page 26: ...anner Modeling of the individual random contact bounces for each harmonic Modeling of the unique frequency characteristics of the built in pre amplifier which forms the body of the B3 sound Simulation...

Page 27: ...ental harmonic Howev er in most situations it is perceived as sounding below the basic harmonic When you play different notes on the keyboard the harmonics are being transposed up or down with the fix...

Page 28: ...t the phase modulated signal is added to the original signal A lot of time and effort have been spent in accurately recreating the chorus and vibrato scanner effect Like on the original B3 Nord Stage...

Page 29: ...wbars used by the V Type organ Note that the 6th draw bar from the left controls three harmonics simultaneously 3rd 4th 8th The two rightmost drawbars determine the mix of the two basic waveforms that...

Page 30: ...The available voices for the F type also printed on the panel directly over the draw bars are as follows from left to right Note that the voices aren t supposed to replicate the instruments they are...

Page 31: ...KER The Rotor section rotary speaker simulation is logically placed next to the Organ section but you can also use it for Piano or Synth sounds just like the other effects The Rotor effect is describe...

Page 32: ...e reason why they all sound and feel so authen tic ABOUT THE PIANO INSTRUMENTS Since all piano samples are stored in Flash memory you can easily add and or replace the stored piano instruments with ne...

Page 33: ...a carefully voiced German Model D that has been carefully selected by us because of its special tonal characteristics The unique voicing brings out the best of this 9 foot beast you just add a bit of...

Page 34: ...t and a revision number e g R5 E Piano 1 Electric Piano Mk I Stage Piano SeventyThree It was built in May 1978 and was adjusted to deep timbre adjustment The volume adjustment is set to Low These sett...

Page 35: ...e EX have very wide dynamic ranges by nature and naturally we wanted to capture this as accurately as possible Therefore it could be perceived that it is a little hard to reach the most extreme levels...

Page 36: ...veform with lots of overtones and then shape the colour of the sound with a filter usually a low pass filter that removes some of the upper harmonics By modulating the filter cut off frequency while t...

Page 37: ...t losing polyphony This allows for some really thick sounds TIMBRE The central TIMBRE control is used to shape the sound in various ways depending on waveform and algorithm see below Timbre can be Mor...

Page 38: ...llators with adjustable relative pitch Timbre knob and detune Unison knob S Sawtooth synced A sawtooth oscillator with adjustable pitch offset hard synced by a second oscillator P Pulse One pulse osci...

Page 39: ...e wave where the pulse width is adjusted in absolute time values with the TIMBRE knob i e the pulse width is constant over the keyboard This results in a spectrum with fixed formants similar to the ch...

Page 40: ...ic hard sync sounds When sync is applied the basic pitch of the oscillator is locked to that of the sync oscillator When you vary the relative pitch of the synchronized oscillator with the TIMBRE knob...

Page 41: ...e fre quency of another the carrier The carrier can in turn modulate the frequency of yet another oscilla tor etc There are several different algorithms in the FM category ranging from one up to three...

Page 42: ...ns available and you have many interesting FM sounds at your disposal When a new wave is selected the MAIN DISPLAY shows for a short dura tion the algorithm together with information on the frequency...

Page 43: ...ate a wide variety of timbres The TIMBRE knob does not have any effect in the Digital Wavetable category MOD ENVELOPE The Modulation Envelope is a simple two stage envelope used to modulate the tone c...

Page 44: ...velope Mode The LEDs below the knob will show the selected mode The Attack Decay and Attack Release modes are illustrated below REPEAT In Repeat mode the Modulation Envelope restart directly after the...

Page 45: ...should take for the sound to reach from zero to full amplitude after a key has been pressed With long Attack settings the sound will gradually fade in RELEASE DECAY When the attack phase is over the e...

Page 46: ...the Mod Envelope FILTER FREQUENCY CUTOFF With the FREQ knob you set the cutoff frequency Simply put if you turn the FREQ knob clockwise the high frequency content in the signal will increase This para...

Page 47: ...or higher notes as indicated in the illustration below At Full tracking both LEDs on the filter frequency tracks the keyboard 100 if you turn up the Resonance parameter to full so that the filter self...

Page 48: ...last note will sound If you now release the last key the first one will retrig and start sounding again To activate Mono mode press the SELECTOR button so that the MONO LED lights up LEGATO MODE To a...

Page 49: ...uce natural vibrato effects There are three basic methods you can use to control Synth Vibrato which is set using the SELECTOR button in the Vibrato section If Aftertouch A Touch is selected you can c...

Page 50: ...has been edited a dot is shown after the number to reflect this in the SOUND SELECT DISPLAY STORING SYNTH PATCHES To store a Synth Patch press SHIFT and the STORE SYNTH button in the Voices section Th...

Page 51: ...the Panel effects Global Effects these affect all instruments routed to the main outputs CH1 CH2 The Com pressor and Reverb on the far right of the front panel are global effects See page 54 The Roto...

Page 52: ...e Morph controlled see page 60 ABOUT THE FOCUS BUTTON If you have more than one effect activated in the Effects section e g Effect 1 and Effect 2 The FOCUS button is used to select which effect s sett...

Page 53: ...level at zero AMOUNT setting A PAN AUTO PAN The A Pan is an auto panning modulation that smoothly pans the signal between the Left and Right outputs You control the rate and amount of panning with the...

Page 54: ...hat extra flavour to your sounds FLANGER 1 2 The flanger produces a very characteristic comb filter effect You set the flanging rate with the RATE TEMPO knob and the amount with the AMOUNT knob The Fl...

Page 55: ...amplifier or speaker is per fect or behaves the same They all differ in their frequency response and re spond differently to e g transients high gain and load This characteristic response and sound c...

Page 56: ...mpressor using the ON button The AMOUNT knob controls the amount of compression applied REVERB The Reverb section simulates the natural sound reflections in various acoustic en vironments You can choo...

Page 57: ...enu see Sound Menu on page 68 The DRIVE knob controls the amount of overdrive This simulates the pre amp overdrive effect of the original Leslies By plugging in a sustain pedal or a foot switch to the...

Page 58: ...m an external keyboard or from a sequencer CREATING A SPLIT Creating a split so that different instruments are assigned to different keyboard zones is very easy to set up Proceed as follows 1 Activate...

Page 59: ...ing instrument will play across Zones 1 2 UP indicator lit the corresponding instrument will play across Zone 2 only UP HI indicators lit the corresponding instrument will play across Zones 2 3 HI ind...

Page 60: ...Zone range In the illustration above a piano has been assigned to play in a KB Zone stretching from C4 to C6 Without Octave Shift the actual note range that will be played will be the same as the set...

Page 61: ...ch between these modes without hav ing to bother with MIDI menus Having this function easily accessible on the front panel makes its easy to turn off and prevent the external keyboard to play when its...

Page 62: ...lows you to morph seamlessly between two sounds by using the Wheel 1 Set up so that you have two Instrument sections active e g the Piano and Organ section and that these are assigned to the same Zone...

Page 63: ...ion to control all rotary encoders knobs that show parameter values with LEDs and the organ drawbars Apart from the number of assignable parameters there is no limit to how many parameters you can con...

Page 64: ...ameter will move from the first value to end up on the second value CLEARING MORPH ASSIGNMENTS To clear Morph Assignments press SHIFT and the corresponding button in the Morph Assign section that stor...

Page 65: ...ee page 70 SETTING UP 1 Connect a MIDI cable from Nord Stage EX s MIDI Out to the MIDI In on the external device 2 Press SHIFT and the EXTERN button to access the Extern menu 3 Use The PAGE buttons to...

Page 66: ...PARAMETER rotary encoder at the top Simply put you select a parameter and vary the value of the selected parameter with the rotary knob The PARAMETER rotary encoder can also be Morph control led see...

Page 67: ...u may want to check the manual for the external instrument to see which parameters are assigned to which CC numbers 4 Press the EXIT SHIFT button briefly to exit If you now activate the MIDI CC button...

Page 68: ...e steps 6 semitones in steps of 1 semitone Default value is 0 no transpose Fine Tune Fine Tune can be used to adjust the pitch of instru ments in finer increments 50 Cents half a semi tone Default val...

Page 69: ...nctionality of the pedal is reversed i e when the pedal is up Rotor Speed is fast and vice versa Open Closed Default Rotor Pedal Mode If you are using a sustain pedal connected to control Rotor Speed...

Page 70: ...olled Organ Default All Memory Protect This is set to On when Nord Stage EX leaves the factory meaning that you cannot save any changes to Programs or Synth Sounds Set this to Off if you wish to store...

Page 71: ...g instrument to no KB Zone at all i e make it active but available only through MIDI 1 16 Off Default off MIDI Dual KB Channel This sets the MIDI channel for an external keyboard when using Dual KB mo...

Page 72: ...27 Extern MIDI A B Prog Change The Extern section can transmit MIDI Program Change mes sages 0 127 allowing you to change programs on external devices Off Default 1 128 Extern MIDI A B Bank Sel cc00 T...

Page 73: ...they are made and remember these settings after the power is shut off FACTORY PRESETS All factory Programs of Nord Stage EX can be replaced To make sure you don t accidentally over write Programs you...

Page 74: ...th computers running Mac OSX 10 4 or later Windows XP and Windows Vista If you run the Nord Sound Manager on a Windows computer you also need a Clavia USB Driver of version 2 14 or later installed The...

Page 75: ...synth patches Each of these tabs is then divided into banks according to how the actual partition is organized in the Nord Stage EX The individual samples programs or patches will be referred to as s...

Page 76: ...are a z A Z 0 9 and a hyphen and the name can contain up to 16 characters Any other characters will not be displayed in the Sound Manager lists or in the Stage display Pianos cannot be renamed this op...

Page 77: ...at was included with the Nord Stage EX or available as a download from the www nordkeyboards com web site in the Nord Stage download area DELETING A PIANO FROM THE NORD STAGE EX 1 Connect the Nord Sta...

Page 78: ...to the correct bank electric pianos can not be added to the grand bank the grand s cannot be dropped in the clavinet bank etc Tip If the Organize option is active in the View menu you can drop a sound...

Page 79: ...drive The upload process may take a few moments depending on the size of the sounds UPLOAD A COMPLETE BANK OF SOUNDS FROM THE STAGE TO THE HARD DRIVE 1 Make sure that the desired partition and bank i...

Page 80: ...nd Synth partition 1 Make sure that Dual View and Organize is activated in the View menu 2 Select the banks you wish to use as the destination and the source 3 Select and drag a sound from the destina...

Page 81: ...se this function to download one or several sounds from the computer hard drive to the next avail able location in the selected partition RENAME Allows you to rename a sound 16 characters can be used...

Page 82: ...e on the hard drive Note The destination bank in the Stage will be replaced by the content of the source folder BACKUP This will make a backup of all the pianos programs and synth patches in the Nord...

Page 83: ...rd drive to the next avail able location in the selected partition BANK UPLOAD CTRL SHIFT U This allows you to upload an entire bank pianos programs or synth patches to a folder on the com puter hard...

Page 84: ...e will then be irrevocably re placed by the content of the backup file CLEAN DELETED SPACE This function will clean up the space where any previously deleted pianos programs or synth patches have been...

Page 85: ...ist If this is unchecked only the occupied locations will be shown DUAL VIEW CTRL L Select this option if you need to move items between different banks Please note that both lists rep resent the actu...

Page 86: ...es for the different bank types NAME The name of the item SIZE Shows the file size of the Piano samples This may be useful if you need to know how much space e g a particular piano occupies in the Pia...

Page 87: ...ar shows the progres sion of the individual processes and the lower indicates the status of the entire task MESSAGE AREA TEXT AREA The left part of the text area will present any confirmations or erro...

Page 88: ...stain pedal connected to the SUSTAIN PEDAL INPUT this is transmitted and received as Controller 64 Sustain Pedal If you have a sustain pedal connected to the ROTOR SPEED INPUT this is transmitted and...

Page 89: ...gured to respond to Program Change and Control Change MIDI messages see the MIDI menu on page 68 LOCAL ON OFF Local Off should be used when you use a sequencer to record and play back from Nord Stage...

Page 90: ...To solve this you could record a snapshot of all Controller settings of the Nord Stage EX Program s at the beginning of your sequencer song See Sending MIDI Controller dumps below PROGRAM CONTROLLER A...

Page 91: ...Select to send the synth patch from the active Panel one synth category or all synth sounds by using the VALUE DIAL 3 Press the STORE button to send the dump to the MIDI OUT of Nord Stage EX The Store...

Page 92: ...Organ Drawbar 5 17 Organ Drawbar 6 18 Organ Drawbar 7 19 Organ Drawbar 8 20 Organ Drawbar 9 21 Organ Percussion Enable 22 Organ Type 23 Organ Vibrato Type 24 Organ Vibrato Enable 25 Organ Percussion...

Page 93: ...p Envelope Attack 54 Synth Amp Envelope Decay 55 Synth Amp Envelope Mode 56 Synth Amp Envelope Velocity 57 Synth EQ Gain Lo 58 Synth EQ Gain Hi 59 Effect 1 Type 60 Effect 1 Source 61 Effect 1 Amount 6...

Page 94: ...verb Enable 97 Organ Enable Sustain Pedal 98 Organ Octave Shift 99 Organ Level 100 Organ Enable 101 Organ KB Zone Assignment 102 Piano Enable PStick 103 Piano Enable Sustain Pedal 104 Piano Octave Shi...

Page 95: ...zed Remarks MIDI Channels 1 16 1 16 Individual channels for Panel A and B Velocity Note On Off Yes Yes Incoming Velocity data ignored for Organ Release velocity sent but not received Aftertouch Yes Ye...

Page 96: ...15 MIDI implementation MIDI Implementation Chart Nord Stage EX v6 x Page 94...

Page 97: ...Pedal Type 67 D Decay Release Amp Envelope 43 Mod Envelope 42 Display 17 Drawbars B 3 24 Drawbars V type organ 27 Dual KB 59 Dual Panel setups 58 Dump Program source 69 Dump Program Source 69 E Editi...

Page 98: ...cer 76 implementation chart 81 local on off 75 Program Change 75 recording in sequencer 75 Program dump 76 send all MIDI controllers 77 Sysex dump of single Programs 76 Sysex reception of Program and...

Page 99: ...12 Saving 20 Selecting 12 Q Q value Filter 45 R Rear panel 10 Register selectors V type 28 Release Amp Envelope 43 Mod Envelope 42 Release velocity 74 Resonance Filter 45 Reverb 54 RM Effect 51 Roland...

Page 100: ...Transpose 66 Tremolo modulation 51 U Unison Synth 47 USB for downloading Piano instruments 72 V V1 V3 Organ Vibrato 26 Value Dial 17 Velocity Sensitivity Piano Dynamics Piano 33 Vibrato F Type organ 2...

Page 101: ......