NORD DRUM REVIEW

Posted on Tue 01 May 2012 in entries

You can read more reviews like this, along with Tony’s productions at his personal site -> Tony Long Music.

NORD DRUM - INTRODUCTION

Announced at Winter NAMM this year was the Nord Drum: a virtual analogue drum synthesiser with four inputs for electronic drum pads or acoustic drum triggers. The Nord Drum has been designed to be extremely dynamic and provide a lightning-fast response, just as if you were playing an acoustic drum. I will be comparing this response to the more expensive Roland TD20, so it will be interesting to see how well Nord have done, considering the Nord Drum costs less than a third of a TD20 Brain.

NORD DRUM - OUT OF THE BOX

The Nord Drum is suitably packaged in a cardboard box, which itself was almost the size that I was expecting the unit to be. However, as I removed all the internal packaging, it really took me by surprise just how small the Nord Drum actually is! In fact, it is just 19.93 x 14.00 x 0.34 cm (7.85 x 5.5 x 1.34"), which is just a little larger than a DVD case, and it weighs a mere 350g (0.77 lb.).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Nord Drum"]](https://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/store/drums-20/percussion-205/electronic-percussion-2051/nord-drum-virtual-analogue-drum-synthesizer-module-47153)[/caption]

The Nord Drum has that famous Stockholm red finish that we have come to associate with all Nord products, and it is wedge shaped with a height of a mere 12mm at its lowest point (the front edge). The unit ships with a 20 page manual and so it shouldn't take too long to read to get to grips with the workings of this thing. In fact, I am told that this machine is very user-friendly so hopefully you will not need it to be any larger.

I must say that I was very pleased that the Nord Drum also comes with a 23 mm stand holder, which allows you to mount it on a stand that is equipped with a clamp. 23 mm is a size that will work with most clamps. The Nord Drum also comes with a 12 Volt DC power supply with interchangeable attachments for your world tour!

NORD DRUM - SOUND MAKEUP

The Nord Drum is very much a different beast to the Roland TD20. Roland seem to be committed to trying to create an electronic drum kit that is a perfect recreation of a real acoustic kit and whilst there is a big part of me that asks 'why?', I do understand the advantages of things like quiet practice, layering sounds and having 100 different acoustic kits in one unit, along with other percussion available at the flick of a switch.

However, much of today's music demands a greater amount of synthetic drum sounds and sometimes it is good to have both. This is where I see the Nord Drum fitting in so well. It is extremely small and compact and can accompany an existing acoustic or electronic kit to add more flavours to your palette. It is a synthesiser after all and it does not use samples nor has any physical modelling to create its sounds. To me, the advantages of this are not just in the interesting sounds that it can produce, but also in the extent of how these sounds can be changed.

There are 99 Program locations in the Nord Drum, 80 factory programs and 19 to allow you to store your own. These programs are made up of Styles and Categories. The Nord Drum contains four Styles: 'Real' (Acoustic), 'Retro' (Machine or old school sounds), 'Ethno' (World Music) and 'FX' (Weird tweaks and FX). These are then sub-divided into three Categories: 'Drums' (Kick, Snare, Tom1 Tom2 - these can be used with acoustic hi-hat & cymbals), 'Percussion' (made for 4 pads, for the stand-up percussionist) and 'Kit' (Kick, Snare, Tom, Hi-hat for use with a sequencer). I do like some of the names they have given these programs, like 'Must Bend Tolotto', 'Higgins Particle Hat', 'UnoDosKickHat', 'Vince Gate', 'Thanx to Burgees', 'King Kong Karma', 'BeatPerlife', 'HeaHihat' and 'Dull Dusty'.

I must say that I really like the sounds of the Nord Drum, which have a fantastic organic quality about them, but Nord have also (as you may well have expected) kept their sights firmly on the percussive side of things with some great Industrial metallic clanks, which are so important in today's music. It is not until you play around with Noise and the Click that you really appreciate the potential here.

There are 27 click types to choose from in the Nord Drum. If only the TD20 had a Noise and Click control! However, when considering the Nord Drum, it is not just the controls, but also the immediacy and quality of the results that you get. You don't have to edit deep menus to achieve an awesome crack or the wet, loose low-fi sound that the noise control can introduce. I added a bit of Snare Buzz to start with and then turned it right up until it smoothed itself into lush white noise!

I have decided that these are my favourite controls on the Nord Drum and I sincerely hope that future drum machine/brain designers sit up and take note. These two controls form two-thirds of the elements that make up the sound, with the third element being the 'Tone', which provides the main body of the sound.

The 'Tone' can be edited and you can select different waveforms from the nine Drum waves, five Percussion wave and three Analogue waves (sin, saw and square), each providing the quality that you would expect from such a respected manufacturer.

Sound shaping doesn't stop there though, because you can also perform further editing by filtering and morphing the sounds to make them better fit in with the style of your kit. This makes me think of a talented American drummer that I saw a few years ago, who had the creative flare to bolt and weld various metals of differing sizes onto his acoustic kit and hardware. He used them like a hi-hat or cowbell and I was amazed at the variety of sounds that he produced and how powerful they sounded.

With the Nord Drum, you can also throw in some Punch, which adds a short attack to your sounds, and you can use the Decay to control the length of the tone. For some added fun you can also play about with the pitch of your sounds. This control is divided up into quarter tones and it gives you a range from B1 to D7.

In general, the factory sounds use channel 1 for Bass drum sounds, channel 2 for Snare, channel 3 for Hi Tom and channel 4 for Lo Tom. Plus, I nearly forgot to mention the Mixer section and this is so important, because you can use it to set the balance of each of the three sections - Tone, Noise and Click. This just adds yet more tonal possibilities because the sound can be dramatically different if it had say more noise than click coming through the output, for example, or very little Tone at all.

NORD DRUM - WILL MY EXISTING PADS WORK OK?

Nord used a variety of drum pads to test and develop the Nord Drum. Pads other than those they have used (see below) will also work, but you will have to try different Trigger Types and settings to find out what is best for you.

The Trigger types are: 'Pad1' for Roland Rubber Pads (e.g. their PD8 and PD9), 'Pad 2' for Yamaha pads (such as the TP65), 'Pad 3' for Mesh Heads, 'Acoustic 1' for where an acoustic trigger is used on a Bass Drum or Snare Drum, 'Acoustic 2' for where an acoustic trigger is used on a High or Mid-Toms, and 'Acoustic 3' for where an acoustic trigger is used for Low and Floor Toms.

However, the Nord Drum is not a machine whereby you can just plug in a pad and away you go. You do have to set up the pads before you can start using them.

First of all you need to set up the 'Input Sensitivity'. This is very easy and you start off by hitting your Pad, whilst listening and looking at the 'Input Trigger' LEDs, which show you how strong the incoming trigger signal is. You then need to hold down the 'Shift' key and press the 'Inp Sens' button on the Nord Drum panel. The red LED above the button will start to blink. Strike the pad again and adjust the Input sensitivity by turning the dial. There is also a Dynamics setting where you can adjust the linear response to the velocity on the pads. You then just need to press the 'Trigger Type' option a second time and select either Dn1 or Dn2. Dn2 will give you a 'hotter' response. I tried it with PD125 and PD120 mesh head pads and it had a great response. I have to say that although the Nord Drum response was very good, it was not quite of the TD20 quality (which picks up every single nuance of your playing). Having said that, it was every bit as good or better than other drum brains at this price point!

NORD DRUM - PANEL LAYOUT

The front of the Nord Drum consists of just two knobs, 13 buttons and a small LCD. One of the knobs is for the Master Level and the other is a dial simply to select programs and to change the setting of a selected parameter. To the right of the Master Level control is the 'Program/Store' button for you to select one of the 99 programs or to save one in the user area - Programs 81 to 99. Your selection is of course displayed in the LCD.

The panel is fairly easy to get used to and it doesn't take long to become familiar with its 13 Buttons. I found myself constantly pressing the red 'Program/Store' button to start with as this brings you back to the programs, acting kind of like an Exit button.

The next button along is the 'Channel Select' control and this quite simply allows you to select either Chanel 1, 2, 3 or 4. The next eight buttons after 'Row Select' have multiple functions and are used in conjunction with the Row Select. As soon as you touch one of these you are thrust into Edit Mode. 'Row Select' toggles between the first and second row. The top row has the Noise and Mixer Parameters, which are Colour, Filter, Sweep and Decay (for the Tone, Noise and Click for the Mixer). The second row has the Tone and Click parameters and there are Wave, Filter, Sweep, Decay, Pitch and Bend options for the Tone and Type, and a Decay control for the Click. For both of these rows the LEDs will show where you are and some of them have some alternative parameters (shown in red lettering). With these it states on the panel to 'Hold Button for Red Parameter'.

There is also a Third Row under the buttons for Copy, Paste, Program Dump, Midi Channel, Midi Note, Trigger Type, Input Type and Input Sensitivity. To access these you need to hold down the 'Shift' Button.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Nord Drum Front Panel"]](https://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/store/drums-20/percussion-205/electronic-percussion-2051/nord-drum-virtual-analogue-drum-synthesizer-module-47153)[/caption]

NORD DRUM - MIDI

MIDI is fairly basic on the Nord Drum and it can only receive on one MIDI channel at a time, but it can dump and receive SysEx data via its MIDI output and receive MIDI Program Change messages. It also has a couple of interesting features called 'MIDI Channel Learn' and 'MIDI Note Learn', which assist you with your MIDI setup without the need to go through pages of deep editing.

NORD DRUM - CONNECTIONS

If you look around the back of the Nord Drum, you will see the four quarter inch Trigger Inputs, MIDI In and Out on 5 pin DIN connectors, the DC input (DC 12V 250mA) and a really big shock for me, which is just one singular audio output (a mono quarter-inch unbalanced 6.35 mm jack socket). I had to be sure that what I was seeing was correct, so I double-checked the manual, and yes that is what it is - what a real shame.

NORD DRUM - CONCLUSION

There is a lot to love about the Nord Drum, particularly with its sounds, which can either take you right back into the retro-eighties, or transport you forwards with a range of futuristic drums, plus a lot more in between!

However, there are also two main things that I think could have been improved, which I think Nord are already taking some stick for (sorry about the pun). The world seems obsessed with making everything as tiny as possible, but I believe Nord could have easily made this box two inches longer and had six inputs instead of four. This would have provided a better sized kit, but I suppose that if you are adding this to an existing setup this is not so much of an issue.

However, to create a great sounding, easily tweakable drum synth that is incredibly portable, pack it with a load of Nord quality and then fit it with just one mono output in 2012 seems a little short sighted to me. Yes, I know that many people prefer to keep drums in mono, but still, there are those of us that like break the mould! So, in my opinion this becomes one of those 'weighing up the pros and cons' type of purchasing choice, unless of course the number of inputs and outputs does not affect the way that you work.

As Nord have mainly aimed the Nord Drum at the 'live' player (although it would also be at home in a studio) and depending on how you integrate this into your existing setup, the singular mono output may not be as much of a problem as it first seems though - after all, most live rigs are set up in mono anyway! Plus you could for example, make different panning decisions between the Nord Pads and your other electronic pads. I for one would not simply dismiss this product because of the singular output, especially when the cost is so low. You really need to hear it and tweak it for yourself to appreciate it sonic quality; it is very hands-on, has a great sound and is a fantastic price to add some new percussive flavours to your setup. If you're after some new synthy percussive sounds, then check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYhVkBL5LvM

For more information on the Nord Drum, click the link below or give us a call on 01202 597180.

Nord Drum - More Info/Buy