Nord Drum 2 - Hesitation

The Lounge Other Gear
#245

Sequential Studio 440 was one of the best sounding samplers I ever owned. Made everything sound phat and juicy, gorgeous filters.

Bought mine from Mike Dred - The Kosmik Kommando (really lovely guy) in the 90’s, for a few hundred £.

Here’s an image of it in his studio (complete with missing pad cover): https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4033874460_2.jpg

Doesn’t surprise me to learn so few were made. It was about £3k when released in the 80’s.

I often thought of the Octratrack as a modern equivalent of the Studio 440.

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#246

A digital OR module functions as a trigger mixer.

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#247

Question for Nord Pad users…do you use your desk or a separate stand for it?

#248

I’ve used it on a cushion, on a desk with the foam from the box underneath, on a bed, knees, and blu-tacked to my NL4’s blank panel (kb). No problems playing with sticks, pencils and hands on any of these surfaces…
I don’t have room for a stand but would be great with the brain attached too…

Oh yeah nice trick is to attach the bracket to the ND2/1 for desktop use, it angles it just right for twisting it up!

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#249

I’ve used it a bit to trigger rytm drums but can’t modulate very well based on velocity to make it super enjoyable. On the other hand, triggering the internal sounds is always super expressive.

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#250

I use the Roland PDS-10 stand that’s recommended in the manual, plus the Pearl AX-25L. Coincidentally I already owned both for another purpose, but it’s a solid gig worthy setup.

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#251

Wow the nord pad 2 plus nord pad combo is great. It not only plays the nord instruments well but also kontakt drums, ableton drum racks, and battery 4. I’m gonna get the stand today.

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#252

Is anyone using ND2 with Octatrack in single Chanel mode? I’m planning to buy ND2 but have most of midi channels already occupied by other stuff.

What are the downsides / issues / workarounds etc.
Thanks!

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#253

Each sound will respond to a different note on the same midi channel so layering on a single track would be limited to 4 notes. Not so much of a problem.
Biggest thing you will miss is playing each ND channel chromatically, although you could just sample anything so… another angle.

The ND2 is perfect with/for the OT.

Put it this way, no matter what you have, or how you use it, if you get the chance to buy an ND2 then you should!

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#254

Thanks!

The 4 notes limitation you mention - you mean per step not per track, right?

How about CC,s? I want to use automation and I’m not sure how it works with OT + ND2 on single channel mode. Can you i.e. control decay of kick, snare, hihat separately and PLock it?

#255

Hey yeah, 4 notes per step, but realistically you probably don’t need more hits than that on a step! If so just use another channel on the OT!

Regarding cc, obviously you can set it up but I forget now what happens when just using a single channel, I think you have limited parameters rather than all of them in multitimbral.
Check the manual on the Nord site, I’m stuck at work so can’t link it at the moment!

#256

From the manual:

Recording parameter changes

There are more parameters in the Nord Drum
2 channels than there are available MIDI
Control Change numbers.
The Channel Select buttons on the panel will
therefore be used to set the transmitting and
receiving Nord Drum 2 channel focus of the
CC messages. This allows you to record and
receive parameter changes on the Global
MIDI Channel.

That’s a little bit weird CC implementation - you have to physically touch buttons on ND2 to adjsut paramteters of each ‘voice’ if I’m gettin it right.

#257

Not sure man!
I never use it this way so can’t comment.
I’d imagine some sort of sysex is taking place…
Just check the cc chart and it should all be there…

#258

Just to chime in: I was thinking of a drum machine companion for my Octatrack. I found this thread, read it all, and bought a used ND2 off local online auction. Thanks guys!

PS: if someone’s looking for one, there’s a new one in a Polish guitar store here: https://riff.net.pl/perkusje-elektroniczne/31050-nord-drum-2.html

Bit pricey (some 480 Euro), but it seems they’re hard to find these days.

#259

Finally, after looking for it for a long time, I found one on ebay yesterday.
Looking really forward to it. OT+ND should be awesome :slight_smile:
And I want to try to sequence it with Patterning on the Ipad

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#260

I’ve also almost bought one off ebay in a GAS-powered rush, but luckily realised in time that it was ND1, whereas I was looking for an ND2.

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#261

yes, there are a lot of ND1 on ebay, but ND2 is really rare. But the ND2 is far superior in settings.

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#262

It’s here finally. and damn it sounds awesome

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#263

ND2 is King…

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#264

I love my Nord Drum 2 and Pad, had them for almosf two years now. I bought a Heat at the start of the year to run the ND2 through, which put me onto Elektron in general, and now I’m umming and ahhing over whether to drop the cash and add an OT MkII to the party. It would be an easy decision if not for financial considerations… Seems like a perfect match.

The only thing - and correct me if I’m wrong - is that playback of a sequence recorded from a live Nord Pad performance using the ND2’s midi channel 10 into a single OT midi track will end up cutting off long decays unecessarily on different pads/channels due to the OT’s weird Note On Velocity Zero thing, right? Like, a Trig playing Nord Drum Pad 1 (note 60, Channel 10) on sequencer step 1 with an extremely long decay will be cut off if there’s a trig for Channel 2 (note 62, Channel 10) on sequencer step 5 before it ends, right (due to each ND channel’s monophonic nature)? This is kind of frustrating because normally the ND2 doesn’t respond to standard Note Off, (a good thing), but the OT’s weird behaviour effectively puts all six pads in an unnecessary mute group (unless notes are triggered simultaneously as a chord) when Channel 10 is used. Am I right? I haven’t had a chance to try it, just going off what I’ve read.

Also, what if I play faster than the O2 sequencer’s resolution? Like a really fast roll? Are notes lost? What logic defines which notes are lost and which are kept?

Anyone with an OT and ND2 combo, I’d be curious to know about these behaviours. I’m almost tempted to take the whole setup into a shop with an OT to test it.