User Manual

16 | NORD PIANO 4 USER MANUAL OS V1.0X
6
SAMPLE SYNTH
ON/OFF AND LEVEL
The Sample Synth section is turned On or Off by pressing its ON button.
The LEVEL dial controls the volume of the Sample Synth section.
OCTAVE UP/DOWN
Use OCTAVE UP (Shift + Dynamics) or OCTAVE DOWN (Shift + Pedals)
to transpose the Sample Synth section up or down by octaves (+/- 12
semitones). When assigned to the entire keyboard it can be transposed
one octave up or down. When assigned to only one zone the available
transpose values will vary, but always provide access to the entire range
of the synthesizer.
SUSTAIN AND VOLUME
SUSTAIN (Shift + Octave Up) activates any attached sustain pedal for the
Synth section.
VOLUME (Shift + Octave Up) assigns any attached control pedal as a
volume control for the Synth section.
Read more on how to configure attached pedals on page 22.
ABOUT THE SAMPLE SYNTH
The versatile Sample Synth section can hold up to 512 MB of samples
and comes with a large selection right out of the box. Additional sam-
ples can be found in the Nord Sample Library section of the www.nor-
dkeyboards.com website, and are downloaded to the instrument using
the Nord Sound Manager software. To further the possibilities, custom
samples can be created from any sound source using the Nord Sample
Editor application, also found on the Nord website.
SELECTING A SAMPLE
Use the SAMPLE SELECT dial to scroll through the available samples. The
position and name of the selected sample is shown in the Program area
display. Which sample is selected is stored in the program, when a Store
operation is performed.
LIST VIEW
Pressing SHIFT while turning the SAMPLE SELECT dial allows for brows-
ing all samples in a list. The default sort order is numerical, but samples
can also be browsed by category, by activating the Cat soft button. The
3 and 4 soft buttons can be used for quickly jumping between cate-
gories. .
Holding down the Cat button allows for browsing and selecting all avail-
able categories from a list.
SHAPING THE SOUND
There are several ways to fine-tune the sound and behaviour of a loaded
sample, in order to make it more or less dynamic and responsive. Each
sample comes with preset values for the parameters below, which are
automatically loaded when a sample is selected. Of course, all controls
can still be adjusted manually as desired.
DYNAMICS
AMP
With the AMP setting turned off, samples will always play back at full
velocity. When active, the sound level of the Sample Synth responds to
the velocity with which you are playing.
FILTER
Activate FILTER to apply a velocity sensitive low pass filter to the Sample
Synth. The filter reacts to how hard the key is being played and gives
the sound a more dampened quality when played softly and a brighter
character when more force is applied to the key.
ATTACK, SUSTAIN AND DECAY/RELEASE
These controls allow for setting the contour, or envelope, of the Sample
Synth sound:
ATTACK controls the time it takes for the sample to reach its full level
while DECAY/RELEASE determines how quickly the sample fades after
having been triggered. At 12 o’clock the sound is in SUSTAIN mode,
meaning that a sample will sound as long as the key is being pressed.
Settings past 12 o’clock give samples an increasingly long tail after the
key has been released.
OrchStrings Marc HiVib
OrchStrings Leg HiVib
OrchStrings Tremolo
OrchStrings Pizzicato
5
4
3
2
Sample Ens Strings
AllNum Cat