(inspiring keyboard music)
- Hoo, what you just
heard was the Nord Stage 3
electronic keyboard.
And it's pretty incredible.
I've owned it now for almost two years.
And it has really enhanced
a lotta different things
that I do, both on my gigs
as well as in and around the studio.
And what you just heard
was emulation or imitation
for music or a music effect
backdrop that could be used
for either motivational-type environments.
You could use it for
a backdrop in a video.
It could be used at weddings
or special ceremonies.
It could be used to back up a slide show.
It could be used in
worship-type environments
or gospel-type environments
where you might need special
music, just in the background.
The Nord Stage 3 really can provide it all
because it's got great piano.
It's got great effects.
And most importantly, what you
heard was the synth engine.
It was using both synth
from Panel A and B together
to create just this
really wonderful backdrop
of sound and emotion, almost,
or at least the beginnings of that.
Now I would imagine,
based on what you can do,
you could probably make
what I did even better.
So if you're new here, I'm Marc.
And the name of this channel
is called My Keys To Music.
And I'm really happy to
have you here with me
because what we do here is,
we talk about the Nord
line of keyboards, mostly.
I'm not necessarily affiliated
with Nord in any way,
but I find myself
talking about Nord a lot.
And I have quite a few videos now,
almost actually over 60
videos on the channel
and most of them oriented
around the Nord Stage 3,
the Nord Electro 5 or the Nord Electro 6.
For those of you who've
joined me this whole time,
I wanna thank you for your support.
For those of you who have participated
in my Patreon account,
providing donations,
I thank you especially.
And I don't wanna forget the people
that are currently enrolled
in one of my courses
at mykeystomusic.com.
These courses cover Nord
Electro 5, Nord Electro 6
and Nord Stage 3 training
and/or tutorials.
They are essentially a
course you can enroll in
where you can take video
lessons at your own pace
in an environment that
doesn't include the ads
from YouTube and all the other things
that go along with that.
In addition, you have direct access to me
to ask questions along the way.
So if you have a moment, check those out.
Okay, with that said, let's
talk about this particular sound
in this particular
program, and we'll dig in.
Thanks for joining me.
They call that sound Sonic Choir.
And you'll hear a lotta
things going on there.
Most notably is that background sound
that starts the whole effect.
And that becomes pretty effective
when it comes to doing
background, inspirational music
or perhaps even things
for the worship setting.
And to do that, it's
actually quite simple.
The real secret here,
and I'll just give it to you right away,
is we're using a KB hold on
Panel B for the synth engine.
Those notes are sustaining
through the whole piece.
It works with the chords
that I played on Panel A
with the piano and then, the other choir.
So let's break this down a little bit,
so you can potentially
imitate this on your own.
Now the inspiration for
this came from another video
and from a subscriber saying,
(mellow keyboard music)
"Hey, can you imitate this sound,
"or tell us how to do it?"
And I'll put a description
for that particular video
down below here under this video.
And the way this works,
it's pretty simple.
So we go to Panel B.
I'm actually starting
with a small choir sample.
It's surprising because I'll play for you
the original sample
before any of the effects.
To do that, I'm just gonna
hold the Shift key here
and click Sound Initialize, push Okay.
You'll see that I'm using
Small Choir Male ah Soft.
That's the actual name of the sample.
It's Sample 212.
And by itself, it's pretty unassuming,
and it's actually kind of a choir,
(choral keyboard music)
traditional, sampled choir.
Now on it's own, it isn't bad.
But it sounds nothing like
the sound that you just heard.
So let's listen to it
with all the effects.
And note that I'm also playing
some key ingredient notes here.
I'm playing a low D and a high A.
(deep keyboard music)
D and an A
makes for that nice, low resonate tone.
And that high A kinda
gives it that airy feel.
As I move the control pedal,
because I have the control
pedal here morphing
this particular sound,
(mellow synth music)
as I move the control pedal up,
I'm moving the volume
up for the most part.
That's all I'm doing.
So I can bring in that or take it out.
Now I never go all the way to zero.
It's always there.
If I wanna go to zero, I can
just turn off the sound engine.
Now another little modification
you can do here is,
I'm blending it with this
12 semi oscillator effect
on top of the choir.
And you might say, "Well,
how come it doesn't sound
"like a choir at all?"
For the most part, to do that,
I'm just taking a lot
of the frequency out.
As an example, if I add
more frequency here,
(dense synth music)
you will hear more of a choir.
But still, that's not quite the choir.
So there's a lot of other
things happening here.
I've got some drive on.
I've got a certain filter.
And I'm introducing a phase
effect on top of the choir
which then gives it that airy feel.
And the rate on that is very low.
And the amount is also fairly low.
But without the phase,
(choral synth music)
there's the choir.
Now the reason you hear that
effect going on top of it
is because it's mixed
here with this oscillator.
So if I take out that oscillator mix,
now you're starting to
hear more of the choir.
If I kill the drive,
that's almost the original choir.
You still hear a phase going on.
That's the LFO.
Let me take out the LFO
so that's no movement or no modulation.
And that's essentially
the original choir sound.
Now I added a lot of
attack and a lotta release
on top of that too, to give it
some elongation if you will.
So all of that in combination
gives you the effect.
Again, here's the original,
(panel keys click)
the original choir with no effects
and no particular envelopes happening.
(simple choral keyboard music)
Here's those same notes with the original.
(D and A piano music)
That's what it sounds like
in it's raw form.
And again, with all the embellishment,
here's what it sounds like.
Put on the hold.
(deep and mellow synth music)
Hard to believe that that's
even the same beginning piece
or the beginning sound.
But it just goes to show you
the strength of the effects
on top of the strength of
all the power of the synth
and all the different things you can do
to take a simple sample and
then embellish it in a way
that makes a whole other sound.
So that's that part.
And I think you pretty much get that now.
And again, I'm not gonna
show you every little bell
and setting because you're
gonna be able to get
this sound in its complete entirety.
I'll put the link for download of this,
and then, you can use
the Nord Sound Manager
to load this sound.
And then, you can experiment on your own
exactly how it was created.
Okay, so now on Panel A,
which by the way, I
never play Panel A and B
at the same time on
this particular program.
I'm actually just starting
B, have that KB hold.
I flip over to A, and B just
does its thing the whole time.
The only thing I'm doing
with B is the control pedal
is moving the volume up
and down, here and there.
So on Panel A, which again,
plays independent of B,
I have a split going on.
And it's split in two areas.
You're gonna love this, the way I do this
or the reason why I'm doing it.
Okay so, obviously, I
have the piano playing
throughout the whole keyboard
all the way, the entire range,
because all four zones
are illuminated here.
And you'll see here that
on the synth engine,
I have just the one zone in the middle.
And that middle zone is right here.
That's the only way you're
gonna hear the choir
is if I play any note within here.
(deep choral keyboard music)
So believe it or not,
I'm actually using the
exact same starting sample,
Small Choir Male ah or Male oh.
This time, I'm mixing it with a bell.
And on this particular
side, on this panel,
I've got the wheel morphing.
The oscillator control,
so I can add more bell
as the wheel kicks in.
And I also morph it to
the frequency cutoff
which brings more frequency in.
So the net effect is, it
gets a little bit rounder.
At the same time, it gets brighter.
So the bell gives it that rounded sound,
and the frequency gives
it the brighter sound.
The net effect is just more enhanced,
makes you feel like the
choir's coming up in volume
and gives it kind of an emphasis.
So let's listen to that choir.
Okay, let me reset the sound here,
and I'm just gonna turn off the piano
(panel keys click)
and just have the synth playing.
(mellow synth music)
So again, a very subtle choir,
but watch what happens
when I add the wheel.
(intense synth music)
You can hear those voices come in
at the same time that
the bell is coming in.
Now you'll notice, it never really gets
to a full, open voice
because I morph it only
to a certain effect
or to a certain amount, I should say.
Let's just check out how
much I'm morphing that wheel.
So I can do that by holding the monitor
and toggling this.
So my frequency is from
262 hertz to 1.7 kilohertz.
So if you look at this,
1.7 is right about here.
It's about, you know, just
a little bit beyond halfway.
And if I had opened it up all the way,
this is what is would sound like.
Let me reassign that this
time to the full frequency,
and you'll hear the difference,
just in the morph of that wheel.
So let's do that now.
(panel keys click)
First, let's see what it was.
So 262 to 1.7, so I'll start at 262
and then, have it go all the way.
So 262 right here,
so this is where I start the
morph, somewhere around here.
There we go.
I'll hold the wheel button here,
and I'll morph it to all the way.
Now watch what happens
when I play the same choir
with the wheel,
and it'll open right up.
(mellow synth music)
Let me take off the piano again.
(deep and mellow keyboard music)
Almost too much.
So those are some of the
things you can play with
after you download the sound for yourself.
So that's the choir part
and then, the piano part.
Now you might ask yourself,
"Why wouldn't you want to have the choir
"on the whole keyboard?"
Well, there's a couple
of reasons for that.
The first one is, I really
wanted to have the choir
only really as a pad.
I didn't want it to be a melodic thing.
So by putting the split here,
I still hear the piano on that first note.
But if I hold the choir,
(choral synth music)
I can play the right hand
without re-invoking the choir
(piano keyboard music)
because the choir
isn't up here.
So I can have my melody up here
while the choir holds down here.
Now I am holding the sustain pedal.
That's a necessary ingredient.
But what an effect it is,
especially when you add
that background on Panel B.
It's like having three hands
when you only have two.
And then, while that's being held
again by the sustain pedal,
(deep choral synth music)
you can bring it in and out.
The other thing about playing the piano
with the sustain pedal is that
(piano and choral keyboard music)
eventually, the piano notes will drop off,
even though I have the sustain pedal on.
The other thing is, I don't want the choir
to be down here either
so that I can play that low D
(low D and choral keyboard music)
when I come to that part of the song.
So let's do one other thing.
Let's go back to Panel B
and change our oscillator or
our second oscillator here to
White Noise.
And let's listen to the difference.
Now first, let's play the original one,
so you understand what it was.
Okay, so here's the original sound.
(deep and oscillating synth music)
Put the volume up.
Sort of, almost like a
spaceship kind of a thing,
kinda airy.
Now watch what happens when
I change the oscillator
to White Noise.
Same thing, just change it to White Noise.
(dense synth music)
This time, you get kind of
a windy sound, in a sense,
or a breathy sound.
Listen to this.
(dense and oscillating synth music)
Very effective
and gives it nice variety,
something easy you can do.
You can just be playing on Panel A here
and doing your thing.
(mellow keyboard music)
Hold the sustain pedal,
(panel key clicks)
throw Panel B on.
Everything's gonna hold.
Everything's gonna keep going
except the piano, of course.
Quickly change your oscillator
from one to the other.
You don't have to do
anything other than that.
(smooth keyboard music)
And you'll have
a whole different effect
in the background.
So those are some of the tricks you can do
while you're playing along with this.
And again, the Nord is
known for this on-the-fly
sonic variety, if you will,
through the buttons and things like that.
And then, if you wanted to
just take off the hold button
and just play the piano,
take off the synth engine,
you can do that as well,
(mellow piano music)
during a quiet part of the piece.
Something like that.
Or you play just the choir, like this.
(choral keyboard music)
(choral and piano keyboard music)
