Nord User Forum

Well the results are in. It's pilot error !

My Yamaha pedal works just fine. It helps when you plug it into the Sustain pedal jack, not the Controller pedal jack!! I've had too many birthdays .

Thanks everyone!

I use the Yamaha FC4A Sustain pedal with my NE5D & my Yamaha Motif XF8. It has worked flawlessly with both & I recommend it highly.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... tcQAvD_BwE

Thanks for the info, drraw. I love Sweetwater. Trouble is, in order to buy from them, we need to pay the crazy exchange rate, shipping, and the outrageous Canadian duty and taxes! My current Yammy pedal works well (thanks goodness).

Lee Batchelor wrote:Well the results are in. It's pilot error !

Good to know that it's all well And don't worry, we've all done this (or at least, I have). I even once plugged in the sustain pedal in one of the outputs and wondered what was going on there... I'm yet to send a signal from the board with phantom power enabled across the terminals back into the controller pedal input, though -- but I'm worried what would happen then!

LOL, baekgaard!

I think phantom power is only sent through one leg of an XLR wire, if I'm not mistaken. You should be safe. I did, however, send phantom power to my Roland RD 700 piano XLR inputs, which were hooked up to two XLR channels in my SoundCraft mixer. Interesting crackling sounds through the PA, but no damage. I was lucky !

Lee Batchelor wrote:LOL, baekgaard!

I think phantom power is only sent through one leg of an XLR wire, if I'm not mistaken.

Afraid you are mistaken. Phantom power is supplied across both balanced lines (pins 2 and 3).

Thanks for the clarification, cgrafx. I wasn't sure how that was done. Phantom power is not sent through unbalanced 1/4 inch lines, correct?

An XLR wire has three pins. The (balanced) signal is sent as a differential signal between pins 2 (+) and 3 (-). Ground is at pin 1. If you sum up the potential on pins 2 and 3, they are supposed to cancel out (i.e. the + value on one should be equal to the - value on the other, ideally). Further details can be found elsewhere on how this works, otherwise this post gets too long

Phantom is usually sent "back" vs. the signal direction, and is applied as a +48 V bias on both pins 2 and 3 (in equal amounts) vs pin 1. The balanced signal is normally AC coupled to the pre-amp (either via capacitors or maybe inductively coupled), so the phantom power will not be visible to the preamp (apart from a slightly changed impedance).

Thus, when you use XLR cables as intended, it is not really "harmfull" to the way they are normally used/wired.

But oftentimes, if you don't use a line driver, people make XLR to jack cables that "transforms" the unbalanced signal to balanced by wiring the jack tip to XLR pin 2 and the jack sleeve to XLR pin 1 AND 3. I've done this, and it will normally work (although it takes out 6dB of the level). But it also means that if you (accidentally) apply phantom power to the XLR, there will be +48 V on the jack tip vs the sleeve... though luckily with a 6.8 kOhm impedance. Hence the max current is low, and I've yet to see anything "fry" as a result of this.

Thanks baekgaard! Very thorough explanation. Now I know why my Roland survived.

You're right, we are drifting way off topic. We'll stop here...best...

Things certainly can fry from phantom power on wrongly wired mic cables:
- Certain types and makes of microphone (some even on correctly wired mic cables).
- Certain phantom power supplies (usually on cheaper mixers).