KVR Audio

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:23 pm

It would be helpful if posters hold on to their "woosh", "wow", and "gosh" type of comments and focus on reality. Reading 10 pages threads full of "Wow, this is great plug in" is not productive.
Now the technical question that may have been answered- sorry- could not find- gave up after 7 pages of goshes:

Does it have a preset midi patterns/phrases ready to be used? How many? What styles?

Can the output be routed to another plugin? For example, can I insert Spire soft synth and use Nora to create patterns for it and Spire for playback?

If not- what is used for playback? Does it come with own sounds or do we have to use hardware?

Can the output MIDI be routed to hardware input?

Thank you.

firepile · Post by **firepile** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:38 pm

Astralv wrote:Does it have a preset midi patterns/phrases ready to be used? How many? What styles?

More than 1000. Lots of dance/EDM and orchestral patterns.

Can the output be routed to another plugin? For example, can I insert Spire soft synth and use Nora to create patterns for it and Spire for playback?
If not- what is used for playback? Does it come with own sounds or do we have to use hardware?

Nora is an arpeggiator, it does not produce any sound of its own. You route the midi output to an instrument.

Can the output MIDI be routed to hardware input?

If your DAW supports it.

yellukhan · Post by **yellukhan** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:41 pm

Hi,
currently have over 1200 phrases,
(multiple genres and instruments... Ballad , Disco,Techno...Piano , Arp, Bass, so on)
you can use any of your synths or samplers with Nora ..
actually you have to do that because Nora doesn't produce any sound, its "Midi only" plugin.
( also hardware but it depends on your DAW's routing capables / abilities i believe)
also note that you can use 8 tracks ( synths , samplers , hardware) with one instance of Nora 2.
I hope this is the answer that you are looking for.

edit..
oops was too late

basslinemaster · Post by **basslinemaster** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:47 pm

Astralv wrote:It would be helpful if posters hold on to their "woosh", "wow", and "gosh" type of comments and focus on reality. Reading 10 pages threads full of "Wow, this is great plug in" is not productive.
Now the technical question that may have been answered- sorry- could not find- gave up after 7 pages of goshes:

Does it have a preset midi patterns/phrases ready to be used? How many? What styles?

Can the output be routed to another plugin? For example, can I insert Spire soft synth and use Nora to create patterns for it and Spire for playback?

If not- what is used for playback? Does it come with own sounds or do we have to use hardware?

Can the output MIDI be routed to hardware input?

Thank you.

There is a Nora 1 demo, and all arpeggiators will allow you to control Spire, etc. otherwise, how would they work? You're acting as if people have to explain arpeggiators from scratch every time they make a post on this thread.

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:05 pm

Thank you for your helpful answers! Now feel free to go back to "gashing"! (Just kidding).

I never routed any arpeggiators to another synth. Most of soft synths now days have its own arpeggiators, Spiro is the one big that does not, this is why I asked. But I do not think the soft synths that do have arpeggiators, can send notes to another MIDI tracks. I have tried this trick with almost all my hardware synths, such as Korg Triton, Motif, Virus and Novation. It is a pain. In fact- it is so frustrating- it is not worth time to set it up. So I have "Midi Transmit" set to OFF on all my gear. It is easier to visualize that Nora would send MIDI notes to hardware. I use Cakewalk Sonar. When I insert software synth, I get 2 tracks: Midi and Audio. I route MIDI Out to lets say, Spire, and audio out of Spire to the MAIN OUT. When I "Bounce" or "Print" or "Freeze" the track, the midi notes playing through the Spire and it gets recorded to the track.

Now I do not visualize this process with Nora. How do I trigger the phrases? Do I step record notes on the track, lets say 4 measures of C, and then when it plays, the arppegiator triggers? The out of Nora is routed to Input of Spire? So basically- I ignore the output of Spire's own MIDI track and Route MIDI the track with Nora to the Spire? So midi not C is playing, arp triggers, starts to play, and then Spire outputs it to main? The question is- how is this construction gets to be frozen/printed? Sonar Freeze function takes about 3 seconds to print 32 measures track. Will it make Nora play while it freezes? Will I freeze Spiro track or Nora track? I can not freeze 2 at the same time.

squaredheads · Post by **squaredheads** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:50 pm

wesleyt wrote:Does Nora 2 function as a MIDI FX plugin in Logic Pro X?

Not yet. Once we are stable with this version, we will try it.

szalonykp wrote:What's the ETA of the demo for 2.0? I'm very interested in this...

First demo version will be 2.01 which fix a bunch of bugs (some of them critical), and it will be released next week.

squaredheads · Post by **squaredheads** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:09 pm

spirit wrote:There's a big list of presets which basically just split up whatever chord you play into rhythmic subsets of that chord. You can put different chunks together in the pattern editor and randomize them as well. And that's the core of what it does. Or am I missing something fundamental here?

Yes that it's how Nora works. But with more spices: pattern changes, 8 arpeggiator modes, quantizer, and a long list. It generates poliphonic arpeggios or phrases, but it's not only the result what does matter, but the way to reach them. Or, we would continue using the piano roll instead common arpeggiator.

And if mysticvibes is here, an analogy for him: we would continue using fire instead heating in our houses

Maybe Nora isn't the best arpeggiator (and I'm not aiming to that) it is just.... different

squaredheads · Post by **squaredheads** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:14 pm

vespesian wrote:Love this plug, the timing improvements are noticeable first thing - but have noticed one small niggle - drag copying (ie., ctrl while moving) doesn't seem to be working in Cubase 8 (worked ok in 7.5).

Did you tried other modifiers like Alt key (= ignore snap)? This could happen if the host does not send the keyboard strokes to the plugin. Most hosts have an option to send them to the plugin.

elassi · Post by **elassi** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:47 pm

Astralv wrote:It would be helpful if posters hold on to their "woosh", "wow", and "gosh" type of comments

Prefer pics?

squaredheads · Post by **squaredheads** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:01 pm

Astralv wrote:Now I do not visualize this process with Nora. How do I trigger the phrases? Do I step record notes on the track, lets say 4 measures of C, and then when it plays, the arppegiator triggers? The out of Nora is routed to Input of Spire? So basically- I ignore the output of Spire's own MIDI track and Route MIDI the track with Nora to the Spire? So midi not C is playing, arp triggers, starts to play, and then Spire outputs it to main? The question is- how is this construction gets to be frozen/printed? Sonar Freeze function takes about 3 seconds to print 32 measures track. Will it make Nora play while it freezes? Will I freeze Spiro track or Nora track? I can not freeze 2 at the same time.

I don't know all the host in the marketplace, but we have clients that are working with Sonar without any problem. The basic concept is that you must route the Nora MIDI Out to any synth or a group of them. It does not matter if they're software or hardware. I'm using Nora with my x0xb0x.

There is two ways to trigger the arp, it can be automatically triggered, in sync with the host as default, or it can be triggered by notes, like a classic arpeggiator. Both modes are very useful. 1.4 demo supports them, you can try it.

About freezing. It will only work if you're able to freeze Nora & VST simultaneously. ie Reaper can freeze easily. I'm not sure if Sonar support direct MIDI routing for plugins, or parallel freezing, but in case it doesn't support it you have two options:

- Record in real time the Spire output.
- Record Nora Output and use it's output in Spire track, then freeze normally. Nora will be able to self-record its output in 2.01 and export it to a MIDI file, which will be avaliable the next week.

squaredheads · Post by **squaredheads** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:07 pm

Funny pic, elassi

Spitfire31 · Post by **Spitfire31** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:15 pm

squaredheads wrote:Funny pic, elassi

But the reclining Adam doesn't show the expected excitement…

/Joachim

yellukhan · Post by **yellukhan** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:21 pm

synzh · Post by **synzh** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:55 pm

Astralv - you are right, the initial setup of an arpeggiator into the instrument chain may not be intuitive; it wasn't for me either the first time (had used a lot of soft synths and effects prior to that but had not figured out how to route arpeggiators either for a while.)
If you take a little time to figure this out, it is the same for almost any "arpeggiator" plugin, you will be able to use it again for any others.
In my case I'm using FL Studio, it took some researching around but it's actually very simple;
You put something like Nora into an instrument channel, then find where the "MIDI out" port setting is in your host; set that to a number of your choice, I think usually between 1 and 12, then load up another instrument in another channel, say, Spire; then find where the "MIDI in" port setting is, and set that to the same number as the Nora MIDI out port you set.
Now you make Nora the active instrument and play notes, chords, etc. and you can change the phrase presets and have fun!
Again results may differ with other DAWs but I'm guessing it's close to the same procedure

elassi · Post by **elassi** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:20 pm

Spitfire31 wrote:But the reclining Adam doesn't show the expected excitement…

That's because he had no chance to demo it yet.

SquaredHeads Nora: Arpeggiator (2.5 Released!)