Hello! This is Marc from my keys to music
thanks for joining me on this video
today we're talking about a song called
a whiter shade of pale from the group
Procol Harum this song is going to be
emulated on the nord stage 3 in fact you
just heard a snippet of it there we are
talking about the b3 which is the
Hammond b3 classic organ being emulated
on a nord stage 3 now it doesn't matter
what kind of keyboard you have as far as
the nord goes you can set your drawbar
settings to this and it should be very
close to the original alright with that
said in a minute here we're going to
take a look and I'll show you the
specific settings to to work with in the
meantime I want to say thanks for being
a subscriber thanks for joining me on
the channel we talked about Nord
keyboards mostly it won't be the only
thing we talked about going forward but
right now that is pretty much the only
thing we've talked about and I have a
great passion for these Nord keyboards
I've learned a lot about them I also
want to say that this video is inspired
by a person named Mike Campbell he's a
subscriber and asked a simple question
which is what are the settings for A
Whiter Shade of Pale on the B3 for the
Nord Stage 3 that's largely why this
video is being made but I figured Mike
is not the only one who might want to
know this so here it is so the setup for
this program is a little easier than
some of the ones we've done in some of
the other discovery videos this one just
involves the B3 at this time I'm going
to be demonstrating it here on my Nord
Stage 3 but feel free to follow along
and use your electro 5 your electro 6
you could even use the nord c 2d organ
if you have an organ on your nord
keyboard this should work alright so
let's do this now I'm going to hold the
shift button and click program
initialize here on my Nord Stage 3 mine
is the original nord stage 3 so my
configuration might be a little
different than yours if you're using a
newer Stage 3 your program initialized
button might be up here under the
transpose button they've actually
reconfigured a few of the buttons and a
few of the settings they're located in a
different place with the newer version
of the Nord Stage 3 all the same
functionality exists it's just the
configuration of some of the things
they've essentially simplified it a
little bit for the new
versions all right so that's an
interesting piece of trivia there so
I'll initialize mine to organ which will
turn the organ engine on and turn the
piano engine synth engine off and
reconfigure everything so that we're
ready for the organ all right
simple enough now the settings here this
is the secret sauce that makes this
sound as close to the original as
possible and this configuration is not
something I did by ear this actually
comes from people who have studied the
original settings and have configured it
in this way so for this here's the key
combination six eight eight six zero
zero zero zero zero all right so let's
do that we'll put the first drawbar two
six I have the digital draw bars but
yours will work if you have the manual
or the physical draw bars six eight
eight six zero zero zero zero zero
that's the secret sauce make sure you
have it set to be three obviously and
then vibrato and chorus off percussion
on you want the percussion on you want
to take off that harmonic third you want
to make sure that the decay fast setting
is off you want to slow decay and you
want the volume to be soft so percussion
on volume soft decay fast off harmonic
third off so that's the percussion
settings that's the drawbar settings for
the B three with the rotary speaker
technically the rotary speaker is at a
standstill for the intro part of the
song the rotary speaker kicks in later
in the middle of the song right before
one of the choruses and you'll hear it
clearly that the rotary speaker is on
and there's a roll up and so forth but
you'll want to turn on the rotary
speaker at least my opinion is that you
actually want the rotary speaker on but
you want it in stop mode so that there's
actually no rotation happening and that
should get you pretty close to the
original and I'm also putting on some
Drive just enough to where you barely
hear the influence of it and
I'm thinking between a four and a five
here on my Nord stage three but your
drive setting if you're on an electro is
going to be over on in your effects
section and your four or five might be
different than my four or five so you're
gonna have to use your ear and tweak
that to get close to what you like put a
little reverb on so for me on the stage
three I'm gonna put I think a stage
stage one reverb with five or six on the
wet-dry setting should do it and as far
as the bright goes that's going to be up
to you I'll put the bright on I tend to
like the bright for the reverb setting
and again if you're using an electric
keyboard your rotary speaker is going to
be over in the effects section and if
you turn on your rotary speaker on an
electro five or six it should
automatically turn on your rotary
speaker on the effects section alright
that should be it let's listen to that
that sounds good
you
and that is the original setting okay I
wanted to take a moment and talk about
one other important part of the song and
that's the build-up to the fast rotary
part so it comes in like this
and then right here at the past speaker
slow it down here
you
and then it repeats now you can feel
free to tweak it the this song it's
original interpretation of it or the
original creation of it has changed with
every artist that rerecords it to the
point where I think Annie Lennox doesn't
even use an organ she uses a more of a
synth sound and I'm not sure the organ
solo or the synth solo in this case is
even true to what it was originally so
it it really is interpreted by whatever
artist is recording it and likewise you
as a musician who you're either gonna
play this with a band and you're trying
to get it as close to the original
original version as possible or you
might be doing one of those flavors like
annie lennox or Joe Cocker or you may
want to do your own interpretation there
are really dozens maybe even hundreds of
videos on YouTube right now where people
are just playing the chords and kind of
making their own version of the song it
is a wonderful song but it is nice to
have a nord stage 3 in this case and be
able to duplicate that sound as close to
possible as the real thing and again
this is a testament to that b3 emulation
provided by Nord so what are the next
steps here for this discovery video I'll
give you a quick homework assignment
there are three additional videos not
related to my channel that I think you
could watch for this if you want to
learn how to play the solo this
particular video here and I pull it up
put a link in the description and there
should be a card window here that
appears at this time to this video by
this person does a really good job of
explaining how to play the entire organ
solo part or the entire organ and
accompaniment part now this video is a
person's mastery of this song what you'd
call perfection I mean other than the
original artists themselves I would say
this person does a great job of really
nailing it in terms of both the sound on
an original b3 as well as the
interpretation and the playability and
so forth I noticed that there is some
sheet music there so perhaps he's
reading from sheet music which is no
sleight against him it really is a great
work of art hear that this person has
done this music
and finally if you're not interested in
learning it or really hearing anyone
else play it do yourself a favor and
watch this video this video might even
bring a tear to your eye this really
brings the song by the original artist
in fact with a full symphony orchestra
and my gosh by the end of this you will
be you'll feel like a new person I love
it I think it's good it's partly besides
Mike's suggestion it's partly what
inspired this video to come to fruition
here and like I said these discovery
videos it's all about taking me back to
a time where I heard the song and it
washed over me I sort of ignored it at
the time now in my older years these
songs are having way more deeper meaning
especially when you start to learn them
on your instrument and try to imitate
them so hopefully you can agree with
that and you want to share some of that
enhanced life with me on this channel
thanks for watching we'll stay tuned
we've got an interesting one coming up
for the holidays that I think you might
get a kick out of and all kinds of other
discovery videos and much more to come
Thanks for joining me we'll talk to you
soon!
