A Patch Editor for the Nord Stage (based on Ctrlr)

[Scott]

Tremendous thanks to those of you that have developed this functionality with CTRLR and the Nord Stage. Thanks so much.

I purchased a Nord Stage 2 early this year and I am now about to ship my Nord Stage Classic to a buyer. I used the Nord Stage Classic for a number of film scores, commercial projects, and in live performance contexts and I have so far not been able to re-create many of those NS Classic sounds on my Nord Stage 2 (in particular with the new Synth Section). I would like to establish a record of the Nord Stage Classic settings with which I achieved the sounds for future reference and sound design purposes before I ship the keyboard away this week.

I'm planning on creating a CTRLR screenshot for all my patches for future reference.

So, can someone tell me which items are not visible in the CTRLR Panel for the Nord Stage Classic?
So far I have the following on my list....

Patch Name and Number
Panel A/B Status
KB Zone Status
Split Points
Morph Assignments
Piano Type and Model
Extern Section Data

Thanks again to everyone for their work on this, it is a great asset and useful workaround for the dilemma on the NS Classic of not being able to see the settings without changing them (thank goodness they built that functionality into the NS2 (Shift+Setting)).

Finally, can someone verify that this is the only and/or best way to retrieve informative Program settings from the Nord. The Nord Files (.nsb, .nspg, .ns2b, .ns2p) seems to be only readable by Nord keyboards (and Nord Applications). We are not able to peek inside these files to find out our cutoff frequency for example, correct? The Nord keyboards and Applications make no such reference file readable by humans?

Thanks for all the help, glad to finally join the conversation.

Scott

[Johannes]

Hi Scott,

you are right about the list of parameters that are not included in the Panel, the simple reason is that they do not transfer any MIDI information so there is no way around it.
Given I have a NS2, I just fixed the errors I found in the Panel and now it should work almost perfectly. There are only two or three LEDs which are not displayed 100% correctly.
The file format is in principle readable in any HEX editor but any parameter affects at least 2 or three bytes and I tried some but the values would be basically have to read value per value as I did not found an easy way to compute the values, so I'd say, leave it as it is. Probably not worth spending tens or hundreds of hours of IT engineering on it...

[jwh261091]

Hello Johannes,

I am new to Midi and have been trying without success to set up the Ctrlr Patch Editor for my Nord Stage EX. I have downloaded the Ctrlr Software and NS EX panel ("Nord Stage Classic EX Patch Editor RC2.bpanelz") and installed on my PC (Windows XP 32 Bit). I connect the NS EX to my PC by the USB cable and follow the instructions you listed, i.e. "hit SHIFT+MIDI then scroll to the Option "Send MIDI Ctrl". Select the Panel you want to edit/view (A or B) and press the red STORE button", but nothing happens and the panel on my PC doesn't change. The single panel that shows on my PC does not show the purple button title "Request Dump (not yet!)" as is shown in the screen shots in this forum. I would greatly appreciate any guidance you can give me to get the connections and settings right to use this great looking tool.

I look forward to any suggestions and thnak you in advance,


John

[Johannes]

hi John,

what you need of to connect your keyboard via MIDI to your computer since the Nord stage classic and EX do not support MIDI over usb. if your audio interface does not have it, you can get a usb to MIDI interface for cheap.
cheers
Johannes

[jwh261091]

Thanks for your quick reply, Johannes.

I have tried to connect using a 2 x MIDI to USB cable (M-Audio brand) and this allows me to select "USB Audio Device" as the MIDI Input and MIDI Output device. Nothing happens when I follow the steps ending in pressing the red Store button to Send MIDI Ctrl with the USB Audio Device set to the default channel 11. If I change to channel 1 then the Organ settings only (but not the Piano or Synth settings) transmit to the Ctrlr panel. This also only works for Panel A on the NS EX and doesn't work at all for Panel B.

Any ideas what to try next. Do I need to change any other settings on the keyboard itself?

Thanks,

John

[riberto123]

Yesterday I have tried the editor the first time and it basically seems to work but
I am wondering how to synchronize the Midi channels of the instrument and the panels
so e.g. what channel do I have to choose to send the complete values of panel A
(I am confused because even the instrument sections have there own midi channel)

kind regards
Robert

[Johannes]

To receive and send Panels, you should choose a MIDI channel for a "Slot/Panel" in the MIDI settings.
But on the NS2 I am myself still looking for the best MIDI settings as sometimes I have problems to get the result I want to. Will post on that in another post soon.

[riberto123]

ok thanks
I trieds with USB 1 for Slot A and USB 2 for Slot B (Global on USB 16) but it doesnt work stabil

[klaussss]

hi - I recently got my NS2 and was hoping to transfer a couple of patches (stereosweep and wisps) from my classic to the 2 - came across this ctlr utility here and downloaded to my mac - however - when I click the ctlr app in the applications folder, it launches and then immediately a window pops up saying "unexpectedly quit" - which keeps popping up every time I try to relaunch - what am I doing wrong?

thanks for your help

[Johannes]

Hi,
hmm, strange. Which revision of the software are you trying?
Get the latest STABLE from here http://ctrlr.org/page.php?p=downloads or try the NIGHTLY.

This software has been developed over there, adn currently the main developer is not able to continue working on it, so it is kind of on hold. But one of the two versions should work (both work on my PC 64bit). If not, maybe I can upload somewhere a bit older version. (Not sure I still have it though).
Please report back if it works, or what OS version you are using exactly.
Cheers! Johannes


EDIT: just checked, the nightly version works fine, at least on Win7 64bit.