Layering

Activating

You can play more than one Program at a time. Proceed as follows:

1.Set up the Program slots to play the Programs you want to use.

2.To activate more than one Program slot, simply press all the Program Slot buttons you want to use, at the same time.

All those slots’ LEDs light up. The one you pressed last is blinking. This will be the one you are editing from the front panel, but more on this on page 21.

Slot C (LED dark) is not activated.

Slot B (blinking) is selected. Any editing will apply to this Program slot.

Deactivating

To turn of the layer, press a slot button that is not part of the layer, or press all the buttons that make up the layer.

Polyphony

How many notes you can play when layering sounds depends on what Play modes and Unison settings each Program uses. See page 54.

Replacing One Program In the Layer

You might want to select another Program for one of the slots in the layer:

1.Press the Program Slot button that you want to select Programs for.

Its LED will flash to indicate it is the active slot.

2. Select a new Program for that slot.

Combining Split and Layer

Since both Slots A and B will be played from the left part of the split keyboard, and Slots C and D from the right part, you could split the keyboard and still play layers on each keyboard half. Just select all the Slots you want to use, and activate Keyboard Split.

Selecting Performances

A Performance is a collection of four Programs, one for each slot. Furthermore, the Performance contains information about which Programs should be active (layered), and settings for Keyboard Split.

In fact, a Performance also contains information about what MIDI Channels to use for each slot, and a number of other settings, but this is described in detail on page 33. This text is only meant as a quick introduction to playing the factory Performances.

1.If you have the rack version of the Nord Lead 2, make sure you transmit on MIDI Channel 1.

This is because the factory Performances are set to receive on MIDI Channel 1.

2.Enter Performance mode by pressing Performance.

The display shows the latest selected Performance.

The Performances are organised in 10 Banks, named alphabetically from A to L (the letters I and K are excluded because they’re hard to write clearly on the display). In each Bank there are 10 Performances, for a total of 100. If you have a PCMCIA card inserted, the Banks on the card are found after the internal (ROM) Banks and labelled in the same way, but indicated with the digit 1, to the left in the display.

3.If you want to select another Bank (A to L), hold down Shift and press the Up and Down buttons.

4.To select a Performance in the Bank use the Up and Down buttons.

The Performance is instantly loaded and you can try it out. For a list of the factory Performances, see page 104.

Use the Up/Down buttons to change Performance (indicated by the digit 1-9 to the right in the display).

5. When you are done, exit Performance mode by again holding down Shift and pressing Performance (Manual).

Monophonic and Polyphonic Operation

For each Program you can set a Play Mode (Poly, Mono, Legato). The exact nature of these modes is described on page 54.

To make a sound fatter, you can activate Unison. This reduces polyphony. See page 55 for details.

Stereo/Mono

If you are using more than one output, or headphones, you might want to know something about how the sounds get positioned in the stereo image.

The complex answer is that this depends on the Out Mode settings as described on page 59. However, the simple truth is that in the basic mode, which the Nord Lead 2 is set to when it comes from the factory, all Programs are in mono. In fact, there’s one exception: If a Program is set to Unison, the instrument is switched to stereo operation.

Pitch Stick and Modulation Wheel

Pitch Stick

The Pitch Stick is used to bend the notes, just as with a pitch bend wheel on traditional instruments. The pitch stick differs from other pitch bend devices in a couple of ways:

▼There is no dead centre in the middle of the throw. This allows you to use the pitch stick for natural vibrato, pretty much like a guitarist can.

▼The effect on pitch is logarithmic, that is, the further you move the stick away from the centre position, the more drastic the effect will be.

To set the range of the Pitch Stick, proceed as follows:

1. Hold down the Shift button and press the button labelled System.

Hold down the Shift button...

...and press the button labelled System (the LED above the button lights up).