HX3 with Nord Stage 2/73

[hallk]

Hello all,
This is my first post here. I have a Nord Stage 2 / 73 and I'm considering buying an HX3 expander to use with it. I had hoped to control the HX 3 with the external settings on the Nord and my Ocean Beach drawbars. Will this work? It's not clear to me that it will. I understand that the Nord won't utilize the high trigger point on MIDI out, but I can live with that if everything else will work. I'd love to hear from someone who successfuly uses this combination.

Thanks,

Ken Hall

[Valpurgis]

Definitely it will work at least in a basic tone activation but the question is how tight you can integrate the Stage, DB-1 and Hx3.
The Ocean Beach is configurable so you could map the drawbars from it to one of the HX3s fixed cc-sets or use the Remote application to make a custom cc-set directly on the HX3. I am not sure whether the stage sends cc for leslie control, V/C, percussion, this should be easily checked by a midi-monitoring app like Midi-Ox. I have integrated a HX3 expander via midi with my Nord C2 organ. To have dual manual control over the HX3 I ended up by chosing the NI B4 cc-set on the HX3 and some extensive midi-mapping via Midi Solutions Event Plus processor. I used about 30 mappings to be able to map drawbars for upper, lower and pedals, V/C, reverb, percussion, Leslie control, Leslie amp and a couple of other HX3 specific parameters. I suspect you will need a similar type of device to do the mapping for a tight control of both slots (A and B) on the Nord Stage, but the DB-1 should easily merge the Stage's external sections midi with it's drawbar information. If Keyboardpartner could make the programming of a custom cc-set in the remote application more flexible it could minimize the need for an external mapping device.

[yubby]

Hi Ken,
We've traded messages before on other forums. I own the HX3, Stage 2 and DB1. Here's what I have found. I have successfully set up a custom CC set for the Stage 2 where all drawbars, C/V, leslie on/off, slow/fast, 122 AMP, Reverb, percussion and other HX3 parameters work fine directly from the Stage 2 in *global* midi mode. Basically any HX3 parameter can be mapped to any Midi CC # and accessed by the corresponding button or knob on the Stage 2. BUT, in External Mode some of those real time functions in organ mode seem to be lost. The upper drawbars still work in real time controlled by the DB1 in External mode.

A potential limitation is that the Stage 2's midi CC mapping is different than that of the Electro, C2, etc, and as far as I can see there are no CC numbers on the Stage itself that are assigned to the LOWER drawbars. It might be possible to assign the HX3 parameters to switch back and forth between Upper and Lower drawbars using the DB1's A/B switch and it's own configuration software but I haven't gotten there yet.

Valpurgis is using a Midi Solutions box with his C2D for dual manual control; I'm not convinced yet that this is entirely necessary based on what I've read in the C2D Owner's manual re. it's midi mapping (see my post in his related C2D thread).
I think that if you played with the DB1 configuration software and the HX3 remote software with the Stage 2, you could get most if not all the results you're looking for.

[Valpurgis]

Valpurgis is using a Midi Solutions box with his C2D for dual manual control; I'm not convinced yet that this is entirely necessary based on what I've read in the C2D Owner's manual re. it's midi mapping (see my post in his related C2D thread).
I think that if you played with the DB1 configuration software and the HX3 remote software with the Stage 2, you could get most if not all the results you're looking for.

Hi
Actually I am using the Nord C2, not the C2D but I suppose they work very much in the similar way. The reason I must use mapping (the Event Processor) is that the C2 send drawbar information on separate midi channels for the lower and the upper manual. The drawbars for the lower channel use the same CC's as the upper channel but on a different midi channel (channel 1 for upper and channel 2 for the lower). Also the C/V on/off button send identical CC but on two differenct channels. The HX3 expect all on a single midi channel, this is for all the preassigned CC's sets as well as for the custom (programmable) CC set. I remapped the lower manual drawbars to midi channel 1 and used the HX3 NI B4 CC-set as this set it the most flexible one. It is a limitation of the HX3 that it is not currently handling CC's from different midi channels, let's hope this will change so that midimapping via external Equipment is not neccessary. The Midi Solution Processor cost about 180 euros.

[hallk]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. So, with my Stage 2 I would be happy to use the global settings and all I need are upper drawbars ( controlled by my DB1 ) and all of the various controls ( C/V, percussion, Leslie control, etc. If anyone has a working file that will give me this I would love a copy. Also, I don't really understand how to load a custom CC set, so an explanation of that would be helpful. Thanks, Ken