- Hello and welcome to My Keys To Music.
My name is Marc, your host
for this particular video.
Today we're talking about the Nord Stage 3
and its ability to imitate
music and sounds and songs,
whether they be famous or not so famous.
This one is famous, it's
from the group, Queen.
The name of the song is
called "I Want to Break Free"
and what I like about
that particular selection
is that it has an amazing keyboard solo.
It has just a unique sound.
And it's kinda interesting to
the way it's performed too.
So we're gonna actually really explore
that aspect of this song in great detail.
This entire video is
dedicated to that one solo,
on that one song.
Now before we get started
in the actual training,
I wanna talk to you
quickly about the channel
and about some things and
give you quick updates.
So first of all the channel
has been mostly focused
around, obviously, keyboarding,
My Keys To Music.
And also things like the
Nord Stage 3, the Nord
Electro 5, Nord Electro 6,
we go heavy on those keyboards.
We talked a little bit
about the Korg keyboard,
the Minilogue XD.
All right, now if you're
interested in getting
some pro training on all the stuff,
I do make online courses available at
mykeystomusic.com.
And I also have a Patreon account,
if you feel like you want to donate.
Whether you just wanna say thanks
or just wanna check some things out
or if you're interested in
getting additional postings
that aren't listed here on YouTube,
a little bit of behind the scenes
and some updates that other people
don't necessarily get here on the channel.
Okay, with that said, let's get started.
Now this video will be
broken into three parts.
Part one is how you're
going to get that sound
on your Nord Stage 3, right away,
using the Nord User Forums.
And you're going to be able
to download that program
directly to your Nord Stage 3.
That's if you're in a hurry,
you just want the sound,
you don't need training
on how to play the solo.
You don't care about how
the solo is constructed.
You don't care about how
the sound is constructed,
you just want to get the sound and go.
That's fine, that'll be
part one of the video.
Now, part two will be the
actual performance of the solo.
We'll take it and rehearse it
together at different speeds.
And then part three
will be the actual construction
of the sound from scratch,
if you wanna see every knob and button
and bell and whistle, how
it all comes together.
That will be part three
and that'll be towards
the end of the video.
So this is kinda a longer video.
What you're learning here
will help you for other sounds and songs
that you wanna take advantage of.
This is from Queen, it's
called "I Want to Break Free".
So the first thing you need to do,
is you need to get started
by heading over to the Nord User Forum.
If you use the link down below
in the description of this video
you will be able to see what
I'm seeing here on my screen.
This was posted by a guy named Ivan.
And Ivan is a sound designer
of sorts, I would assume.
I don't really know him
or anything like that.
But what we can do here is
he's made his sounds available
or this particular sound,
he calls it Break Free,
and it's right here, .ns3f.
So if you become a member
of the Nord User Forum,
I don't think it costs any money,
but if you join the Nord User Forum,
you'll be able to do searches
and be able to download
things right from here.
And it's a terrific
resource I highly recommend
if you own any Nord
keyboard to head over here
and really take advantage
of this great information.
Now I'll click the BREAK_FREE.ns3f
and that should come to my
download folder here, it is.
Here, it is BREAK_FREE.ns3f.
And that's really part A of part one.
We've downloaded the sound,
we have it on our computer,
we're ready to go.
The next step is you need
the Nord Sound Manager.
And if you wanna learn all
about the Nord Sound Manage,
I'll put a link up here in the video
or a card where I actually
spend a good amount of time
training you on the Nord Sound Manager,
every button and feature that it offers.
And I think you'll really enjoy
that particular training session
because the Nord Sound Manager is quite
a powerful little tool here.
But essentially when I open
up the Nord Sound Manager,
which is available at the
Nord Keyboard website,
nordkeyboards.com.
Click on the program option here, area,
and you can see all the programs
that are loaded on your Nord.
Now in order for you to see this stuff
you actually have to plug
it in to your Nord keyboard.
You have to connect your Nord
keyboard to your computer,
turn it on and then you'll
see all the sounds within.
So here's the BREAK_FREE, all I need to do
is drag it over here to the program area,
and you'll see that it's broken
up into panel A and panel B.
Now panel A constitutes the sound
or the part of the song that is
the beginning part of the song
and throughout most of the song.
Panel B is the solo part,
and that's the part we're
focusing on this particular video.
We're not even gonna touch panel A,
you can do that on your own
and take advantage of that
if you wanna play the
full song from Queen.
Panel B is the solo part.
And that's it.
So we've just downloaded and/or uploaded,
wherever the case may be
and it's now located at Bank M, slot 34.
The name of the sound or
the name of the program
is called Break Free and we're going to
now go to the stage three
and play this through
and start to enjoy this particular program
and see what it's all about.
So join me there and thanks
for hanging with me so far.
We're already done part one,
let's head into part two and three.
(piano clanging)
Okay, I have the Nord Stage
3 set up with the sound,
already loaded.
And I've got Capo ready
to go in the background,
we'll play it once at regular speed,
then we'll play it, the
second time, at half speed,
the third time at 3/4 speed
and the fourth time at
regular speed again.
I won't play it perfectly
on any one of those times,
but it'll be enough for you to learn from
and for you to see how
I've interpreted this
in terms of performing it.
So I'm rewinding Capo here,
I'm just using the left arrow key
and then the space bar to hit play.
And we'll do regular speed.
(upbeat synth music)
Okay.
So before I play it slower,
you'll notice some of the
techniques I'm using here.
And I'll kind of zoom
in on this pitch bend.
When it comes to pitch
bend, if you learn this song
you'll really end up one upping your game
on pitch bend, for sure
because you have to just
use it ever so slightly.
And it'll be exciting on
the tail end of this video
where we talk specifically
on how we set this up
because we take advantage of
that new feature they added
to the pitch bend which is to bend it
more than two semitones on
the left side, going down.
And that's how we get that last note
to go a full octave down.
Yet, the higher notes were
only using plus two semitones
and we're not even using all two.
We're basically using just one plus,
or I should say half
plus, somewhere in there.
So if you look at my hand here you'll see
that when I'm playing, for
instance this this high note.
(synth keyboard blaring)
Now if I hold it, you won't
hear that neat effect,
but if you just add just
a little pitch bend.
(synth keyboard music)
And that's how you get away with that.
And same with this down here.
(synth keyboard music)
And then those bends down.
(synth keyboard music)
So it's really good
practice for the pitch bend
and this song really brings that out.
All right, let's play
it now at half speed,
so I'll rewind Capo here.
And half speed is two arrows down.
One, two, space bar.
And we'll play this again and
I see if we can rehearse it
and understand how to play
this a little bit better.
(synth keyboard music)
Okay, I apologize there,
messed that up a little bit at the end,
but you get the idea.
In that second part of it or
that last part of the solo,
it's kind of tricky it's
really hard to hear.
I think when you're performing this
you can pretty much
improv that a little bit
and fake it if you will.
I think as long as you get
that low note at the end
and work your way down.
I've worked at this for about 20 minutes,
maybe 30 minutes so far,
so I'm sure I could get
a lot better if I keep working at it.
But that'll all be up to you.
But I think, as long as
you get those high notes
and that melody, that last
part there you can kind of
mold it through.
So let's play this again, this time
one notch quicker than that.
That was at half speed,
we're gonna go 3/4 speed now.
All right and here we go.
(synth keyboard music)
All right, and now let's
do it at full speed.
And I just wanna bring up one other thing
on this technique here.
You'll see that this
if it starts by going.
(synth keyboard music)
The second time through it
hesitates ever so slightly,
it's behind the beat.
(synth keyboard music)
I think that's a real
important subtlety to get,
although I'm getting that subtlety,
but I'm missing a lot
of the other subtleties
due to the sloppy playing there,
towards the end of that solo.
But I'll bring out what I can
and I'll do what I can to get this right.
My playing of this is
not the important thing,
you're playing of it
is the important thing
and you're understanding it
and getting the sound down.
Okay now we did that, let's do full speed
or regular speed I should say.
All right, one more time through here
and then we'll talk about
how the sound is constructed.
(synth keyboard music)
Okay, there you have it.
Now the construction of this.
(piano clanging)
Let's take a look, 'cause it's
really, really interesting.
So we'll take it one step at a time,
we've got the Synth Engine on.
I'm only using one panel,
so in that aspect it's very simple.
And I guess we'll just start at the left
and go through the settings one by one,
I'll try to explain a
little bit as we go along,
but it would probably
take too long of a video
to really talk about every single knob
and what it does to this song,
but I'll do what I can to highlight it.
Okay, starting on the left side.
Obviously there's no splits.
I've got the volume on full.
I'm only using one
panel, that's on panel B,
happens to be.
And then my LFO, let's see what that is.
LFO is 0.81, so I'll
set this dial to 0.81.
There we go.
I'm using the triangle type LFO pattern.
There's no arpeggiator, KB Hold.
The pitch stick and the
sustain pedal are both invoked.
Okay, then over here on this envelope,
this is the modulation envelope.
We'll need to see what that's all about.
We've got a 49 milliseconds
for the attack on this.
And then this is full sustain,
so that'll be all the way to the right.
Then the release on this is
going to be 1.05 seconds.
0.05 seconds,
almost straight up and down.
No velocity.
Then over here for the mono
legato for the synth voice,
make sure it's on mono.
Then for the glide amount we have a 0.5.
I actually like it at a 1.0,
the original sound was 0.5,
so I like to put it at a 1.0
just to accentuate those glides better.
Unison was not part of the original sound,
but I put a one unison on there,
I think that adds a
little bit more thickness.
Okay for a saw wave,
well first we're in the
classic oscillator here
and you want the classic
saw as your oscillator type.
Right here.
That's gonna be mixed
with a synth oscillator,
so you'll hold the shift button
and go to synth oscillator here.
And then the amount on that,
which is this knob here,
you're going to want, let's
see what this is, this is 1.0.
So 1.O is right about here, okay.
About between one and two on the knob.
Then the LFO modulation envelope,
that actually has a
setting as well, I believe.
Yeah, 3.3.
So you want this out of 3.3.
And then that takes
care of the oscillators,
and there's no arpeggiator.
The filter is an LP M,
that's the low-pass Moog filter.
And then the KB track is at 1/3.
The drive is at one,
although the original sound
had no drive, again I had
a drive for my own taste.
Then the LFO amount here,
which is for the frequency cutoff is zero.
So there is no LFO in terms
of frequency cutoff there.
The frequency itself here
is 117 Hertz, so 117.
So only about a three on that frequency.
Then the velocity versus
the modulation envelope
setting here, that also has to be a 5.7.
So 5.7 is gonna be
right around here, okay.
And then the frequency or
the resonance I should say,
in this case, resonance is 4.7.
Okay.
Good, let's take a look at,
the vibrato is actually on here
and it's set for the Aftertouch,
which I didn't really use
during the performance,
but listen to this.
If I push and hold a key
and really push hard on it.
(synth keyboard music)
So what I did ,is I just
pushed hard on that G#
or that Ab or however
you wanna look at it.
I think it's a G# in this case.
(synth keyboard music)
And again, here on the G# down here.
Just pushing harder.
And then up here, no pitch bend.
So it's very effectively,
it plays tricks on the ear
because it's actually doing
a pitch bend, as a vibrato,
that's what the Aftertouch is doing.
Compare that to the pitch bend.
(synth keyboard music)
Now on the original recording
I hear it more of a pitch bend
rather than a vibrato,
but that is totally up to you now you.
Now, you could also just
flip this over to the wheel,
if you wanted to, and
forget the Aftertouch,
just use the wheel and
bring the wheel up and down.
Let's see what that looks like.
(synth keyboard music)
So that's another effect that you can do
or another technique you can
do, depending on your taste.
All right, now let's take a
look at the final envelope here.
For the attack it's a
0.5, so that's fairly low.
That's nothing, essentially
it's all the way down to zero.
'Cause zero attack doesn't
have a zero, it's a 0.5.
And then here, that's up a point,
it's a 36 milliseconds here.
So that's fairly low decay.
Okay, somewhere around two on the knob.
And then the release
here is 3.0 milliseconds.
So that's gonna be fairly high up.
Okay, there we go, no velocity.
Okay, for effects you can
definitely hear the delay
going on there.
So let's take a look at
what that looks like.
For the delay we have,
tempo is 104 beats a minute.
So that's gonna be right
about here on the knob,
right around between a two and a three.
Ping-pong is on.
Analog mode is on, with a HP filter.
The feedback is set to zero.
And the dry wet setting is set to 2.3.
That's the delay, without the delay.
(synth keyboard music)
Makes a big difference.
Okay now, over here,
we have the amp and EQ.
So we'll look at first the treble,
the treble is a -9.2.
Frequency is 333, 333 hertz.
The mid is -3.5.
The drive is a 1.0
and the bass is +15 dB.
And of course it's set to synth,
along with delay as set the synth.
Now the reverb is set to bright, hall 2.
No compressor and the amount
for dry/wet on the reverb is at 2.4.
Okay, let's not forget
the pitch stick settings.
You have to change the settings
from the default setting.
And incidentally, if
you download the sound
from the Nord User Forum
you won't get it this way.
So you actually have to take
the extra step and do this.
Hold the shift button, push sound
and locate page four of 11,
which is going to be your
synth pitch stick range,
this is where you set that.
And you'll want to adjust this up
until you get to the option that says +2,
so it's 2 semitones to the right
and a full octave down on the left.
And that's how this
song should be arranged
so that you can play that last note,
where it goes down a full octave.
Thank you so much for joining me
on this Discovery Series video.
It seems like we covered a lot of ground.
We took a famous group called Queen
and a song from that group called,
"I Want to Break Free".
We found out where we can get that sound,
where you can get it
on the Nord User Forum.
We've downloaded it, we put it
into the Nord Sound Manager.
After we put it in the Nord Sound Manager
we actually explored
it on our Nord Stage 3.
We rehearsed the keyboard solo.
We had help from a program called Capo,
which runs on the Mac and
allows you to slow down
or even speed up songs.
It makes it great for rehearsing,
I have a whole nother video for that
which you have here in the card window,
as well as in the description below.
After we rehearsed it we
actually reversed engineered it
to see what all the
components were consisting of
within the Nord Stage 3
synthesizer or synth module,
or the synth engine, if you will.
And we went through every
button and every knob
and every effect to see how
that sound was recreated.
So I really enjoyed learning
this and exploring it,
this is a song that I've
always found interesting
and I wanted to see
what was under the hood.
To be totally honest this idea wasn't new,
someone contacted me through email
and asked if I could do this.
It just so happened I had a moment
where I could do this
particular sound and song.
I don't get to all the requests,
and I apologize in advance.
I know a lot of you
have a lot of good ideas
and I've put a lot of stuff on the list,
and I'll continue to look through those
and figure out what makes
sense for me and for you
to the best of my ability.
Anyway thanks for
joining me in this video,
we will catch you on the next one.
Consider subscribing
if you haven't already.
Lot more to come.
Thank you.
(smoke puffing)
(computer mouse clicking)
(bell dinging)
(smoke puffing)
