Need help with damper pedals

I have solved the mystery problem with the DP-10.

I took apart the DP-10 and looked at the MIDI values generated by the potentiometer when I manually rotated it through its full range. The values ranged from 4 to 127, which was obviously better than what I was getting previously, i.e., 24 to 127.

This suggested that when the pedal is not depressed something is preventing it (and hence the potentiometer) from returning to the rest position at which its minimum MIDI value is output. It didn't take me long to notice that the felt pad against which the pedal rests was too thick. This felt pad is to prevent the pedal from contacting the pedal case when fully the pedal returns to the rest position. I will report the out-of-spec felt pad to Roland.

The solution then was simple -- I used the extended blade of a box cutter to slowly shave layers off the felt pad until it was thinner by about 50%. Goodbye MIDI-OX and MIDI Yoke! I still don't get MIDI 0, but I guess the sustain at that level is practically unnoticeable.

It could very well be a quality issue with the pot not giving MIDI 0 at zero sweep. After all they did miss the problem with the felt pad that was too thick.

About reversing the polarity of the FC3, another way is to simply rewire the pot!

If you are running PT inside a VST container, e.g. VSTHost, then you may be able use a VST MIDI plugin to invert and/or scale any channel signal values. Have a look at http://asseca.com/nicfit/ and the entry nF_CC_Scale_v2.

Reading this post has me worried, since I was about to buy the Yamaha FC3 pedal--was your problem with reversed polarity (so pedal-up sent pedal-down messages) caused by your Roland keyboard--Roland keyboards use a reverse polarity? So the FP3 would be fine with any keyboard other than a Roland? (I use an Ensoniq and an M-Audio.)

I'm thinking of getting a half-damper for use with Pianoteq.  Does anyone know what the FC3's (or other half-dampers') potentiometer resistance values are?

I need to interface with an Ensoniq TS12 keyboard which has a CV volume style input that expects 512 ohms.  Worst-case I need to replace the pot, do the pedals use standard shaped/mounted ones like you get in electronics shops?

(EDIT: actually it expects 10kohms, see below)

I don't know the answer to your questions, but I'm looking for a half-damper pedal, too, for my Ensoniq keyboard, and there are some other concerns.

Doesn't your Ensoniq have both a conventional sustain pedal jack and a CV pedal jack? I'm not sure what happens if you map a CV pedal to cc64 for sustain.

In any case, if your Ensoniq is like my Ensoniq KS-32, it needs a "normally open" sustain pedal. The Yamaha sustain pedals are "normally closed."

I hope you'll share any information you find.

Good, we can compare notes.

Yes, it actually has two convential pedal jacks, but each is stereo, so you can actually run up to 4 pedals + CV volume.

Should be fine, it's all just MIDI (0-127 range).  But I can't see a way to assign volume messages to sustain in Pianoteq, I guess that's reserved for actual volume control.

On the TS10/12 you can also remap it as a MOD parameter (not sure yet if that outputs as a MIDI controller).

Right, both momentary pedals I have here (a piano and a plastic) are normally open, there's no setting to reverse on the keyboard, nor does it sense polarity when you turn it on.  But I don't mind resoldering it, getting the resistance right is trickier.

OK, set as VOL it's Controller 7 (which can be assigned, I was expecting it to be called 'Volume' inside PT), set as MOD it's Controller 4.

EDIT: and as you can set the value range in PT, you should be able to reverse the polarity that way, and you should also be able to compensate if the pedal's max resistance is too low for the keyboard, albeit with some loss of precision (but probably not enough to make any real difference).

So assuming you only want to control PT & the pedal's max resistance <= 512 ohms, the only thing that might require soldering is if the keyboard expects a different wire arrangement on the stereo jack.

I measured the FC3 as having a 10k pot, and I'm pretty sure it was giving almost full range. Can't check it as I'm away from home right now.

Interesting, I think I also misread the TS12 CV jack specs:

"Pedal/CV Specs: 3-conductor (Tip= control voltage input, Ring=510
ohm resistor to +5 Volts, Sleeve= ground). 36 KOhm input impedance, DC coupled. Input
voltage range=0 to 3 volts DC. Scan rate=32mS (maximum recommended modulation input= 15
Hz). For use with an external control voltage, use a 2-conductor cable with the voltage on the tip and the sleeve grounded."

I don't think this tells us what resistance pot is required, but the ESQ1 uses a 10kohm linear pot according to this, so this is probably true of other Ensoniq boards, and compatible with the FC3 if mooks is right.  Can anybody confirm, or measure their Roland DP8 or 10?

Don't forget about the Pedal Controller box from Midi Solutions:
http://midisolutions.com/prodped.htm
You can often find them on sale at various music stores.  Rock solid.  Has parameters that you set via a simple computer program.  No batteries or soldering required.  (Aside to Webteq:  Wouldn't hurt to link to these products on the F.A.Q. page with the other pedal info - JMHO)

$119.95 at Zzounds.  Not cheap, but what's the alternative ?  Sure -you can build your own if you know basic electronics and can solder.  JTBC, if we are talking about adding continuous damper control to a keyboard controller that lacks that feature, I don't know of a cheaper/better solution.  If you have another MIDI control interface you can hack into it and tap the contacts of one of the knobs or faders and solder them to a quarter inch female phone jack -I've done this successfully with an old J L Cooper Fadermaster.

ReBased:

By the way, why do you want to use the cv pedal or the cv input? Why not just attach a normal continuous sustain pedal to the Ensoniq's sustain pedal jack? Pursuing the lusty thrill of experimentation with a solder iron?

Because it only has switched inputs for sustain (it calls them 'footswitch' inputs), so the CV input is my only (cheap) half-damper option.

They're pretty old keyboards (Ensoniq went out of business a while ago) but the TS12 I have does have nice weighted keys.

I was thinking that the name "foot switch" on the keyboard jack was just a name that corresponded with the name of the old pedals that were only switches: the switch is in the pedal, not the jack. (Otherwise, I'm more in the same boat than I realized.)

Anyone know--do older keyboards register and correctly use a continuous velocity pedal? Or could someone test one on an older keyboard?

Yikes. Does that mean that all older keyboards are unable to use a half damper pedal? Seems as though that would be information that we'd have run across often in various forums and in ads for the pedals.

We need someone to test this, just in case. Anyone here have an Ensoniq keyboard that he or she could hook up to their half-damper pedal?

That's kind of what I meant.  If you could find a used CVP-1 you could then easily retrofit a continuous damper style pedal to the simple wiring of the pedal.  You want the physical nature -the piano styling- of the continuous (or half) damper and not the expression pedal styling of a gas pedal without spring-back -sorry to be putting words in your mouth, but I'm trying to understand.  Albeit a bit cryptic, there's a technical description of the CVP-1 on page 20 this DP4 manual:
http://www.stanford.edu/~dattorro/DP4_manual.pdf
"We now return control to you..."

Apologies for possibly hijacking the thread, but this page is the best I found when searching for information on connecting a half-damper pedal (continuous, variable, spring-loaded) to the expression input of a keyboard.

What happens when one connects a half-damping pedal to the expression input on a keyboard?  Doesn't that just work, perhaps with a bit of rewiring? 

Can this MIDI data then be used for the sustain pedal parameter in Pianoteq?

I must be missing something, but I'd like to know before I buy any kind of pedal.  I have a pretty basic master keyboard (Studiologic sl-880) with a continuous 'Volume' pedal input, which I'd like to use with a continuous damping pedal in Pianoteq.  It must be possible!

Thanks for any pointers (including to other threads/sites!)

That all sounds good!  Having to replace a pot with one of different capacity falls under the rewiring job in my book, so if that's all it takes, I'll do it.

Would be nice to hear from people who do have a half-damper pedal and have tried this experiment.  I'm surprised there seems to be so little info out there on this simple(?) trick...

Great!  Sounds like all I need is to get a half-damper to be 'read' via the expression input, perhaps with some range remapping e.g. via Midi OX, and I should be good to go.

Can anyone confirm this works?

Thanks!

Ah, wait a minute!

Sometimes people say that expression-type pedals can be polarity reversed by rewiring the jack - and that's usually countered with 'it won't work, but resoldering the pot will' (and that seems logical if you know some electronics).

But it turns out rewiring the jack would work on the FC3!  The resistance is reversed across the center and outer contacts:

ring->tip: 0-10k
ring->sleeve: 10k-0

(Jack connections)

Sweet.

Edit: So it looks like an expression/half-damper pedal is just the 3 terminals of a pot wired directly to the stereo jack.  It would be easy enough to DIY a polarity switch that just flips tip and sleeve.

Yup, I have a Roland DP-8 plugged into the expression jack on my CME UF8. Didn't have to mess with polarity, though I did have to tell PT to respond to CC#11.

The sustain jack on this keyboard does not support continuous pedals unfortunately, and programming the keyboard to send CC#64 breaks it... I use Linux, so I'll probably end up writing a little tool to convert it to CC#64 in software, so that non-reprogrammable soft synths can use it too.

One thing I noticed is that the graphic of the sustain pedal seems to have a limit to the speed it moves. I have no idea if this affects the internal operation though.