Topic: +Fatar VFP3-10 triple dynamic pedal unit - user review
The Fatar VMK-188 Plus keyboard I described in this thread http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=73 comes with a single sewing-machine type dynamic pedal. No respectable pianist would be seen dead with it. Pianoteq spoils us with four pedalling opportunities, but quadruple pedal accessories are as frequent as unicorns. Next best, a triple pedal will be of interest. There follows my user review of one such rare specimen.
I am of course biased (in favour of Pianoteq!). More relevant, I paid money for these gadgets; budget was not really a constraint for me, but I decline to buy into a brand for its logo (viz J.Baudrillard: Towards a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign). I am an amateur musician whose main instrument is not the piano, and whose hands-on/feet-on exposure of famous makes is limited. Don't ask for my rendition of Gaspard de la nuit, although occasionally I try to work on the Koln Concert.
FATAR VFP-10
In summary: a cost-effective and robust triple pedal unit which works well with Pianoteq but only if it is compatible with your keyboard controller.
There is an episode in a Carlos Castenada book in which his mentors in the art of the transcendental, poor Yaqui Indians Dons Juan and Genaro, chide the post-graduate anthropology student for his persistent habit of conceptualizing his experiences. They compare him to other figures who rely on some artefact for their self-identity. The details are now mostly lost in my memory, but the similes get cruder and cruder ("like a nun without her crucifix"; "like a whore without her knickers") until the two Dons fall about in hysterical laughter. A piano, we must admit, nevertheless, is less than a piano for want of pedals. (Whether a pianist is not a pianist unless he or she doing something with their feet is something else).
Fatar, manufacterers of keyboards under their own Fatar and Studiologic brands, and suppliers of OEM keyboard units, also produce a range of accessory pedals (http://www.fatar.com/Pages/Chassy.html). Pianoteq players will be most interested in the triple sustain pedals VFP3, which are available in two versions: VFP3-10 and VFP-15. They differ only in the matter of "polarity", the 3-10 being described as of the "momentary open" type, and the 3-15 as "momentary closed". Reasoning that a dynamic pedal should generate increasing values when progressively depressed, I chose the VFP3-10. However, as you will see shortly there is more to the story than this specious logic, and while my setup would have allowed a 3-15 to work, you should not automatically assume either will work in yours.
A crucial feature is that these are passive pedal units. They are not MIDI data controllers; they do not output MIDI data; and they do not require ancillary power. They are rather simpler - which means also less to go wrong. They are designed for voltage sensing inputs on MIDI keyboards, the keyboard taking on the business of converting the pedal input into a MIDI data stream. I advise consulting your keyboard's documentation on the matter of polarity if pedal input sockets are present. I used a current Fatar VMK series keyboard which allows either pedal polarity to be accommodated via a user configuration setting. You may be out of luck with older keyboards. (For a review of an active MIDI pedal controller, hyper-jump to here http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=7.
The unit arrives in a simple box. You get the pedal unit and its captive lead. The housing is made of a heavy-duty black plastic of the non-brittle variety - it looks and feels like it will survive a kicking or three. The pedals have clip-on translucent covers that are removed easily enough but won't fall off when played. The finish on the pedal levers is bright silver(y). The action is decisive - in other words, not featherweight. There is negligible free play movement sideways, which is nice.
Two difficulties immediately confront the expectant user. First, there are three pedal but two plugs. Second, there are no instructions. I got out the electical meter and measured the resistances at the output jacks. Of the two 6.35mm jacks, one is mono and one is stereo. The mono jack measured open circuit with the pedal up, and rapidly decreasing resistance down to 19.6 ohm fully depressed. The stereo jack measured similarly, having lower limits of 25.1 ohm for the tip, and 26.1 ohm for the ring. The excellent news here is that the VFP3 is dynamic on all three pedals, which makes it potentially more versatile than a plain piano pedal emulation. For some reason I had been expecting the left and middle pedals to be simple switches, so was pleasant compensated for the trouble.
It appears the VFP3 with its two jacks was designed for an earlier Fatar controller keyboard, but my VMK-188 Plus has 3 programmable sockets (I presume other VMK models are similar). You have two choices. You can either obtain a stereo-to-mono splitter cable (and in all likelihood you will also need a stereo female-to-female in-line connector). Or you can get the soldering iron out. The idea of hanging further weight off the input sockets did not appeal, so I removed the stereo plug and soldered on two mono jacks. Gigging musicians may want to give this some attention, as the supplied jacks look to be physically the weakest part of the unit. The length of cable though is sufficient to let you have the pedal unit on the floor and the keyboard at head height - more than adequate for normal humans. With programmable pedal inputs like on the VMK-188 Plus it doesn't matter which jack goes to which socket - the meaning comes from the keyboard configuration.
So, plug in, switch on, exec Pianoteq - and sweet nothing. You will need to instruct your keyboard to acknowledge the VFP3, unless by chance it has a preset which recognizes a triple pedal of identical characteristics. You will need to create a preset which, for each pedal, specifies: the MIDI transmit channel (your choice - Pianoteq can be instructed to listen on any channel, or on all channels); the Controller number (these will be the standard MIDI numbers for sustain, sostenuto, and una corda pedals that Pianoteq defaults to); the maximum and minimum controller Data values (say 127 and 0 respectively - to start with, anyway); and possibly the pedal polarity. On a VMK-188 Plus you just press the Edit button and depress a pedal, and the keyboard is smart enough to prompt on its display for the first parameters it needs - generally simpler to do than to explain. (If your keyboard requires pedals of specific polarity, you may not have the option to configure this parameter).
With the keyboard formally introduced to the pedals, I ran the MIDI into the MIDI-OX utility on the computer, and was comforted by the expected stream of Controller numbers and variable values being listed on pressing the pedals. The data stream looked a bit thin, and the dynamic part of the pedal range resulted in only a small number of Controller messages. However, it looked as if the range of data values was more or less fully represented. I do not know if there was controller data thinning going on. For a dynamic pedal, it has to be said that the amount of pedal travel available for dynamic output is quite small. That should not be a problem for una corda or sostenuto work. But it suggested that the sustain pedal would have to prove itself in the playing.
Running with Pianoteq, it was soon apparent I'd fouled up the polarity configuration. This was quickly rectified by switching the keyboard's polarity parameter. In regard to getting going smoothly, Pianoeq itself could not be more helpful (compliments!). Not only can you simulate the correct pedal effect by clicking the on-screen pedals, but PTQ also animates the pedals in sympathy with MIDI controller data it receives. (So you will know immediately if you have an incorrect controller number programmed somewhere). Wait for the on-screen pop-up hints, and you can also specify controller numbers and values should you need to.
What this means is that if your keyboard has a non-standard implementation of pedal MIDI data, Pianoteq can still make use of your pedals. And it goes into listening mode to get the controller numbers being used - no need to find the keyboard manual (which disappeared long ago anyway). You might also need to specify to Pianoteq what data values represent pedal activity. Does all of this mean you could get away with using pedals of the "wrong" polarity? For pedals which operate musically as a binary switch, the answer is yes. For a variable ouput pedal however you would have an inverted dynamic function. That is, slight depression of the sustain pedal would produce the greatest sustain effect from Pianoteq - it would be like wearing inverting spectacles. To fix this you would need to resort to a software MIDI data translator utility to map the data values to the inverse in the range 0..127. (Or maybe Pianoteq is already equipped to perform this inverse function - can someone confirm?).
It would seem I have had to do a lot of work to get these pedals going. In honesty, the time was no more than that expended winding up to this stage of the review. MIDI is notorious for requiring molly-coddling anyway. But now that we have Pianoteq's on-screen pedals dancing in perfect time with our feet, it's time to consider the sonic result.
Clearly Pianoteq is less than a piano without pedal input. Sostenuto works as expected. Una corda can be adjusted in Pianoteq (due corde? mezza corda? un po' di corda?) to taste. The moot issue is the effectiveness of the sustain pedal action. And here I confess to a lifelong exposure to knackered "loud" pedals on knackered pianos. If there are pianists reading this capable of a controlled tenth-pedalling, you will have to ascertain the expressive adequacy of the VFP3 for yourselves. While the data range it produces can be tweaked using a utility like Bome's MIDI Translator to whatever mapping you require for expressiveness, the factor is rather the pedal mechanism itself, and whether it has the matching degree of operating finesse. I found it satisfactory. Here the price might affect the picture.
The VFP3 can be bought at a good discount at present over the Internet by searching for prices. It is a no-brainer if you want a functional triple pedal unit for Pianoteq and your keyboard has the requisite connectivity. It seems robust. It works. Concert pianists with fastidious footwork may want to research the field further. If you are an amateur pianist and don't mind the lack of domestic aesthetics, I can confirm it does the business. At the worst you will have something you can throw repeatedly in the direction of the cat/fox/coyote/dingo which is messing in your back yard. More likely you will get to charm it like Orpheus with sweet music (just avoid Klavierstucke XI).
