Zaxcom Nomad - operating questions, plus tips & shortcuts

[Jack Norflus]

I can't get the Mirror On retention setting to work. I turn on Nomad, turn on mirroring and then select the feature to retain mirroring setting after power cycle but when I repower Mirroring is still turned off.

It's working on my machine. After you power up it takes a few seconds for mirroring to turn it self back on.

So in the mirror CF menu you went to the mirror options and you set "after power cycle" to ON - and its not working?

[ncsoundmixer]

Jack

Yep. Tried it four or five times with power cycles. I'm not discounting the fact that I might be doing something wrong, but I definitely turned ON the feature and made sure mirroring was turned ON in its menu, then powered down and then on again.

The only variable I can think of was that last nite I deleted sound files off the mirror card in order to do the software upgrade - this morning when I powered up and turned on mirroring the Nomad was "catching up" by mirroring 52 takes from the primary card to the mirror card.

Maybe my Nomad needs to be "caught up" before the toggle will stick.

[Jack Norflus]

This is totally a software driven feature - so there is no reason why it would not work in your machine.

Instead of waiting for the mirroring to catch up you can just change folders and try it.

[Christian Spaeth]

can someone please send me the measurements of the cut-out where the inputs are? I want to have a bag custom made but had to send my Nomad back to the factory.

[Clacker]

Jack

Yep. Tried it four or five times with power cycles. I'm not discounting the fact that I might be doing something wrong, but I definitely turned ON the feature and made sure mirroring was turned ON in its menu, then powered down and then on again.

The only variable I can think of was that last nite I deleted sound files off the mirror card in order to do the software upgrade - this morning when I powered up and turned on mirroring the Nomad was "catching up" by mirroring 52 takes from the primary card to the mirror card.

Maybe my Nomad needs to be "caught up" before the toggle will stick.

Jack,

I was having a similar issue with my Nomad not mirroring even though I had the "after power cycle" mirroring option turned ON too. In my case I discovered that my Nomad would default back to the lowest alphabetical folder for the MIRROR folder after each power cycle. So if I had PRIMARY folder and MIRROR folder set to folder z003, after a power cycle the MIRROR folder would reset to z001. Thus my machine would not mirror since the two folders no longer matched! As long as my primary and mirror folders were both set to the lowest alphabetical folder, mirroring worked flawlessly after cycling power. Admittedly this is not a comprehensive experiment, but wondering if others have had similar experiences. Definitely a little buggy... definitely loving my Nomad. I'm sure they'll have this sorted soon or soonish!

Steve Clack

[Jack Norflus]

Sorry about the crude drawing - all measurements are in inches.

Also where i wrote 1 7/8" for the side piece it should read 1 3/8" on the left side piece and 1 3/4" for the right

[Jack Norflus]

Jack,

I was having a similar issue with my Nomad not mirroring even though I had the "after power cycle" mirroring option turned ON too. In my case I discovered that my Nomad would default back to the lowest alphabetical folder for the MIRROR folder after each power cycle. So if I had PRIMARY folder and MIRROR folder set to folder z003, after a power cycle the MIRROR folder would reset to z001. Thus my machine would not mirror since the two folders no longer matched! As long as my primary and mirror folders were both set to the lowest alphabetical folder, mirroring worked flawlessly after cycling power. Admittedly this is not a comprehensive experiment, but wondering if others have had similar experiences. Definitely a little buggy... definitely loving my Nomad. I'm sure they'll have this sorted soon or soonish!

Steve Clack

I just noticed that something is going on where Nomad may not necessarily go back to the same mirror folder - but Zaxcom is aware of this already and a fix is on the way.

But for me Nomad is turning on Mirror after power cycle - its just that it may not always go back to the same folder.

[Christian Spaeth]

Sorry about the crude drawing - all measurements are in inches.

Also where i wrote 1 7/8" for the side piece it should read 1 3/8" on the left side piece and 1 3/4" for the right

Thank you Jack. I need one more number:

Your drawing is looking at the unit from the bottom end. If you look at the cutout from the top, so that you could read the Zaxcom logo and Input numbers, what is the length of the cutout's side (must be around the length of an XLR plug)? Its width being 6 5/8 ".

[glenn]

Petrol has a Nomad and will have a bag soon.

Glenn

[Jack Norflus]

The hight of the opening is 2 3/4" - enough room for an XLR.

I modified some Neutrix XLR's to make the fit just a bit easier. I removed the rubber boot but retained the strain relief. The mod saves about 3/4 of an inch.

[Jeff Wexler]

That's a very cool "mod" to the Neutrix XLR, I never thought of that one.

[Jack Norflus]

That's a very cool "mod" to the Neutrix XLR, I never thought of that one.

I looked into the existing modified XLR's and they were pretty expensive. Plus I didn't want to epoxy the cable into the shell. This way the original chuck strain relief stays in tack - and the connector can be re-opened if necessary. The commercially available modified XLR's are slightly lower profile but for my purposes this is totally fine. And it takes less than a minute to modify with just a screwdriver a pair of pliers and a razor. And no additional cost.

[ncsoundmixer]

Jack, after "catching up" the Mirror card files to the Primary card, my Nomad is now correctly powering up with MIrroring set to On with the retain mirror setting-after-power-cycle feature activated. I'll watch for the correct file to be mirrored as noted in your post.

*Update*

Now it's not retaining the MIrroring setting after power cycle. Cr*p. Guess they'll get the bug worked out at some point. It just did this correctly once and now won't do it again. It is set to mirror the correct folder.

*Update*

I did a full factory reset and now mirroring is operation correctly. However, restoring all the settings and routings is pretty tedious. Should have dumped them out to card...

[Mark Orusa]

I'm building some TA5 cables for the Nomad. Can someone give me the pinouts for the TA5 connections? I assume it's the same as their other products with TA5 connections. Also, when using unbalanced connections do I leave the (-) phase pins open or grounded?

Mark O.

[Eric Toline]

I'm building some TA5 cables for the Nomad. Can someone give me the pinouts for the TA5 connections? I assume it's the same as their other products with TA5 connections. Also, when using unbalanced connections do I leave the (-) phase pins open or grounded?

Mark O.

For unbalanced connections to balanced input or outputs the ground gets connected to the negative pin and the ground pin. i.e.: In an XLR the ground will feed both pins 1 & 3 and the signal to pin 2.

Eric

[Jack Norflus]

I'm building some TA5 cables for the Nomad. Can someone give me the pinouts for the TA5 connections? I assume it's the same as their other products with TA5 connections.

Nomads TA5 pin outs are slightly different than what Zaxcom does for the STA and IFB-100

Nomads TA5 wiring:

Pin 1 Ground

Pin 2 Left +

Pin 3 Left -

Pin 4 Right +

Pin 5 Right -

The STA and IFB 100 flips pins 4 and 5.

[Jack Norflus]

Now it's not retaining the MIrroring setting after power cycle. Cr*p. Guess they'll get the bug worked out at some point. It just did this correctly once and now won't do it again. It is set to mirror the correct folder.

Brooks,

Not sure why your Nomad is not going to Mirror after power up - my machine is going into Mirror Mode 100% of the time - not necessarily to the last mirror folder but it is going into mirror mode. I tried every conceivable thing I could think of to not get it to go into mirror after power up and the only way I could not get it to go into mirror is if I pulled the mirror card - is your mirror card seated correctly and formated correctly?

Is any one else experiencing this?

[ncsoundmixer]

Jack -

The Mirror card shows up as present when the Nomad boots and I am able to Mirror the Mirror card when I turn on Mirroring in the menus, so I expect that it is seated properly. I have tried all combinations of Mirroring On, Continuous, and setting retain Mirror Status after power cycle (or whatever the function is called) both before and after turning Mirroring on, just to run through the different possibilities of selection sequences.

I did have to do a format of the Mirror card in my Mac in order to get the Nomad to read the Mirror card with the new software. After the successful update the Nomad was able to Mirror the Primary files back to the MIrror card without any further formatting, but again would not "retain" the Mirror setting after power cycle even though I selected that function.

I will try to reformat the Mirror card today and see if that makes any difference- even though the Mirror card is displaying that it has Zaxcom files on it from Mirroring off the Primary card after the software update. I'm pretty sure I had to reformat the card in Nomad after the software update to remove the new software from the card. I will check on that.

Thanks for your help.

*Update*

"Restore to factory defaults" seems to have done the trick. Thanks for the tip, Jack.

[Jack Norflus]

After updating the software - did you do a "restore to factory defaults"?

If not try that.

[Frogpole]

When my Nomad arrives, I'm going to Dremel out six notches on the top lid just above each of the soft keys. So, you can run your index finger along the cut outs, and then, use your thumb to activate each soft key without looking for it in the dark. There might be other ways of marking, but I can't wait for the opportunity to ruin the new machine with my very weak Dremel skills.

At the recent AES convention in NYC, I talked to Glenn about this mod. He seemed to like it. Hopefully, he will offer a factory mod that will keep me from destroying my machine. I also really liked the the bright face of the Nomad for use in dark environments. I'm really tired of looking at black face plates on field mixers. I've lost way too many little flashlights. Perhaps, a future mod would be a small, well placed LED to illuminate the the face and side plates?

Ciao, Sully

[RadoStefanov]

http://www.petrolbags.com/node/1159

[Abe Dolinger]

yeah, I think the mirror folder should always match the primary. It would be uncommon for me to ever want them to be different folders.

[Sndspd]

Hi all, this is an email response from Jack when I asked about the panning feature.

"The Pan feature is basically a short cut to the output assign bus. The output assign bus routes your inputs to the 10 XLR and TA5 outputs. XLR 1 = bus 1 XLR 2 = bus 2 etc . . . and the same is true for the TA5’s. So if you assign something to bus 1 that same signal will be outputted to both XLR 1 as well as TA5 1.

So when you are in the “Pan Matrix Home Screen” and you assign an L, R, C to an input channel you are essentially telling Nomad to send that input to what is essentially your Left, or Right, or Center (both outputs).

The odd number output (1,3,5) will always be considered your Left and the even number will be your Right (2,4,6). Now 3,4,5,6 is only routed provide you tell Nomad to copy pairs 3 /4 and or 5 / 6 to the panning feature. To add outputs pairs go into the Mode menu and when you scroll down you will see two menu items “Pan Copy 3 / 4” and “Pan Copy 5 / 6”. If you set these to on you are now telling Nomad that the additional pairs are to follow the “Pan Routing”

So for example you are in the “Pan Home Screen” and you have “Pan Copy 3 / 4” set to off and “Pan Copy 5 / 6” set to on and you put a L in channel 1 and a R in channel 2 – you will be sending the microphone that is plugged into input 1 to XLR 1 and TA5 5 and the microphone that is plugged into input 2 will be sent to XLR 2 and TA5 6.

Lastly if you see any item in red in the Pan Routing Matrix – that means something isn’t routed correctly. Such as you turned on “Pan Copy” after a L or R or C has been selected so that is not being routed correctly – it’s a failsafe feature."

[Jack Norflus]

Hi all, this is an email response from Jack when I asked about the panning feature.

Did that make sense?

[Sndspd]

Your explanation, it seems to make sense but when I tried it in practice I still got a little confused. I would probably need to actually talk with you about some minor confusion I had. For my applications, I don't think I'll be using the panning feature so much so I ain't to concerned with it. Thanks again for the explanation regardless.

Gabe