Nord User Forum

My fusion band did a rare gig this past Saturday, and I thought I'd come out in full regalia. I own a Stage 2EX 76 and an Electro 6D 73, and usually only take out one or the other depending on the need. I decided to do a rare dual keyboard setup. Here are a few pictures:

View from the top:


Front view. I play through a pair of QSC K8.2 speakers. The K10 in the back belongs to the sax player. In this picture, you can also see the 2nd tier struts I made for my K&M 18880 stand. The design was inspired by the original Invisible Stand, one of which I still own:


I use a small pedal board with this group. I output the synth lead patches out Output 3 on the Stage and route it through a Moog Minifooger MF Drive pedal and Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail analog delay. The Moog filter in the Drive pedal gives a nice warm fatness to the sound, which works well with the old-school analog delay.


I have to say that it's not really necessary to bring all this stuff out. The Stage will cover all my needs for almost everything except heavy organ playing (the HP action is not ideal for anything other than simple technique), so the Electro is kind of superfluous. I actually only used it on two songs the entire night. We had a jazz jam session intermixed with the fusion material, where I tend to play mostly piano anyway.

maxpiano wrote:Nice rig Rusty Mike, very interesting the use of the MF and analog delay on synth sounds

Otoh probably you could use a 4-5 octaves waterfall/synth master keyboard instead of NE6 for those few songs where you need to play the organ "properly" (and you could use it as second manual both with NE6 and NS2 depending on the situation)

PS: nice stand too, is it something you did yourself or commercial?

Thanks for nice words.

I've been giving some thought to getting a decent controller as an upper tier. I was very tempted a few months back when Arturia was running a special on their mkII controllers. It would mate nicely to the Stage and can be used in the studio for other stuff. It may happen yet.

The upper tiers are custom built from wood. They are designed to fit into the tubes of the 18880 stand:


Makes a nice clean look when assembled:


I like the two tiers close together and low.

JayDee wrote:Rusty Mike is a closet guitar player. He's got his own pedalboard What's next, a keytar?

No way Jay! I don't have the ego!

The pedalboard was just a way to simplify the setup time. Much easier to just pull it out of the bag and plug it in.

dhbp-nord wrote:"necessary " lol - it's never about necessary! It's all about the fun and the nerdiness of it all. If you have it use it.

D.

The fun and nerdiness was the reason I brought it all out on Saturday.

That said, I'm also lazy!

cphollis wrote:Nice setup, Mike!

There is nothing wrong with bringing a pair of Nords to a gig if it's worth the effort. My current weapons of choice are a NP4 below for weighted stuff, with all the sounds being generated above by a NS3C. Nothing external except a few control pedals, e.g. no effects, no mixer, etc.

I feel more comfortable with a "spare" board in the rig (vs. a weighted controller) as I can limp through the gig if the NS3C gets a brain cramp. Thankfully, this has never happened.

One of the best features I like about the NS3 is the "song" mode which means I can easily enter the night's set list and simply go to the next one with no effort. Since I tend to forget what key some songs are in, I just code that into the name of the song. Simple is good, although it's low on the nerd-o-meter.

If you want to go even more flashy, consider the bright-red Stay stands. Not the most stable if you bang the boards at the ends, but otherwise quite capable.

Hi Chuck. Thanks for the kudos! (and congrats on your recent retirement! welcome to the club)

I like your approach to using the NS3C up top as the do-all sound maker. Given that 95% of what I do is piano (big band and cocktail-style jazz combos), the two-keyboard rig is actually useless most of the time. I'm better off occasionally supplementing the Stage with something on top than to control it from down below. Now if the fusion band were to pick up a bit more, I would give more consideration to a controller up top like the Arturia Keylab 61 mkII.

Too bad it doesn't come in Red.

Putting the key of the song right into the song name isn't nerdy??