nord-usb

Talk to a Nord keyboard over USB from Rust. The protocol Nord Sound Manager speaks, worked out from captures, with backends for the desktop (nusb), the browser (web, over WebUSB), and recorded captures (replay, no hardware needed).

⚠️ Alpha software driving real hardware. Back up your instrument first; Nord Sound Manager makes a full backup. What is supported says which operations have been verified on an instrument.

Usage

use nord_usb::{op, Device, Location, ObjectClass};
use nord_usb::transport::UsbTransport;

let mut device = Device::new(UsbTransport::open_first()?);

// The instrument's own numbering: 7:4 on the panel.
let at = Location::from_user(7, 4);

// `read` hands the closure a read-only session. A write does not type-check here.
let (info, file) = device
    .read(ObjectClass::Program, async |s| {
        Ok((op::info(s, at).await?, op::read_program(s, at).await?))
    })
    .await?;

Writes go through device.destructive(class, …), which hands the closure a session that can write. Both brackets close the transaction whether the closure succeeds or fails, and that matters: an abandoned transaction leaves the instrument stuck on its progress screen until it is power-cycled.

Learn more

• docs.rs
• USB protocol: what works where, the frame layout, and the layering.
• Testing: the replay suite.

Building

cargo test -p nord-usb --features replay from crates/ in nix develop. Without replay, no wire encoding is tested. The web feature needs a flag that crates/.cargo/config.toml supplies, so build it from crates/.

Disclaimer

Not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by Clavia DMI AB. "Nord", "Clavia", and "Electro" are trademarks of Clavia DMI AB, used here only to identify the hardware this protocol belongs to. All reverse engineering is of traffic to and from hardware the author owns, for interoperability.