From ccmacdon@rogers.com Tue Oct 12 16:12:19 2010
Subject:Ocean Beach Drawbar Controller update - working great!!

Just a final follow up on my Ocean Beach Drawbar Controller. Changing 2 parameters in my C2 completely corrected the problem, which was described by NORD tech support as "the refusal to accept CC Messages in Local E mode".

The Nord C2 Manual advises you to select "E" mode if you want to transmit velocity information to an external midi device.. HOWEVER, in E mode the C2 will not accept CC Messages from the Ocean Beach Drawbar Controller, which would cause the controller to stop working. What the manual doesn't say is that IF the "Organ Trigger Mode" is set to normal, rather than fast trigger, velocity data is automatically transmitted whether in "E" mode or not. So the quick "work around" was to set local control mode back on and simply select normal triggering rather than fast triggering.

After doing so, my Ocean Beach Drawbar Controller worked correctly, and I was able to correctly transmit velocity data to my external synth module. That said, I did find that the Ocean Beach Digital Drawbar Controller now required AC power to transmit midi to an external controller. So with my configuration, the controller and C2 work fine together running just on midi buss power supplied by the C2. However, when I wish to use the drawbar controller AND control an external midi device I need to supply AC to the Ocean Beach Drawbar Controller.

So all's well that ends well.. But just to be clear... Nord considers this to be a "work around", because the C2 should be able to transmit velocity info (in "E" mode) and respond to CC information in either fast or normal keyboard trigger mode, and they hope to fix this in a subsequent OS release.

Thanks to Tomas at NORD Tech Support (who provided incredibly quick response on this issue) and also to Dave at Ocean Beach Digital for his help as well..

Craig MacDonald