Midifying an old Hammond C2 pedalboard

[mtier0067]

Hi all,

I am gearing up to midify an old Hammond C2 (vinatge one... not the Nord C2) pedalboard for studio and live use with my Nord C2 and with the hammond and my stage 2 when i bring that out. I am wondering if anyone on this forum has done this kind of conversion, and if so how they did it, what to be aware of etc... I want to keep the pedals intact and just add contacts to each pedal and house in a small custom wooden enclosure with a expression pedal (yamaha fc7) attached to the top of it. I have done some research and think that there are a few options on my plate but wondering if anyone can offer some much needed advice. I am fairly handy in a woodshop, can solder fairly well, but haven't had any experience in programming large matrices or doing things completely from scratch... more of a build the box and wire it up, not program and plan the entire system type of guy...

The first option seems to be a magnetic reed contact system bundle with a pcb board from midi gadgets boutique. It has a prewired cable that looks like you connect the magnets to the tips of the pedals (toe side of the pedals) and attach the reeds to the housing for the pedals at the front of the pedals. This creates a midi note signal when they come in range of each other and sends it to the encoder. That bundle can be found here and retails as a full set up for about $250 USD with shipping.
http://www.midiboutique.com/products/pr ... d_id=12603

The second option is another magnetic reed contact system bundle with a pcb board from a polish company called midi hardware. It has a reed magnet system that is attached onto a pcb with a ribbon cable integral. http://www.midi-hardware.com/index.php? ... D32&R2=USD
I think that this would then need to be connected to a pedscan board that is found here http://www.midi-hardware.com/index.php? ... ct=PEDSCAN and then a midi cable is soldered to that board and would go to the nord for the sound generation. Seems to be around the 175 price range

The last option is to get the midi cpu board from Highly liquid and wire in each contact (which look like these http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... =CT2032230)
http://store.highlyliquid.com/products/midi-cpu This should cost around 100 or so to do but it will be much more involved with the soldering iron...

Here is a picture of what I am working with on the antique hardware side of things...


Any help would be much appreciated!

[vanderhill22]

I went the highly liquid route, was able to do the entire project under 200. Soldering is definitely more involved but the highly liquid people will provide you with diagrams/programming help no problem. All you need to program is a midi interface (like a MOTU fast lane) and a computer. All the software you can download for free. Here is a link to the discussion in this forum which has another to the highly liquid thread…

http://www.norduserforum.com/nord-c1-c2 ... t4055.html

[flmc59]

Hi - I have done this projekt a couple of years ago and it works well.
The top housing bottom board extends a bit and have slots for handles.
Two wheels on the bottom makes the whole thing very easy to transport.

Contact system is reeds and magnets. The magnets are in wholes drilled at the pedal ends. The original tabs at the end where removed.
Mess me and i can send you some pictures. Midiboard was the one from doepfer electronics in germany.
I have used this board about three years with very few problems.
Regards frederick

[flmc59]

Ps. Reeds and magnets are the way to btw. No wear.

[vanderhill22]

Agreed!

-mv

[mtier0067]

Hi all,

THanks for your responses! So it sounds like the easiest way to do this is with the midi gadgets boutique kit that has the reed contacts, magnets, and the encoder as a bundle. Take off the angle metal contacts at the end of the existing pedals and make a new housing for the front (toe) end of the pedals with whatever wood I desire then mount the encoder and all of the reed contacts into that housing. Attach the magnets in holes drilled into the front end of the pedals and then make sure that the travel path for the pedals puts the reed in line with the magnet for each note? Does anyone know what the internal arrangement of the housing for the reeds/encoder should look like? Should the reeds be mounted vertically on the face of the housing? or on the bottom in a parallel orientation to each pedal? Should the magnets be installed on the bottom of the pedal or on the vertical front face of each pedal?

Thanks for your help all! I am a complete newb to this so I appreciate any help, no matter how elementary it may be!

MT

[mtier0067]

Here is a thread that I started at Highly Liquid. I went the DIY route and am using a MIDI CPU and momentary switches mounted in the same assembly as the original hammond contacts. Should make it slick to install and keep the original hammond's look should i choose to play out with the full hammond+Leslie+pedals+stage2 in the near future...

http://forum.highlyliquid.com/showthread.php?t=1221

[The Franchise]

Sounds like we're on the same page regarding abilities, i.e., woodworking / fabricating skills, but not so much w/ the programming aspect. Here's what I just completed: Started with a set of Hammond A100 pedals (25), and a used set of StudioLogic MIDI pedals (17). Unless you're playing some serious organ pedal stuff with both feet, and need all 25 pedals, 17 is waaaay plenty. So what I did was, cannibalize the StudioLogic pedals which I bought for $200 used. Removed the circuit board which included the rubber topped contacts, plus the ribbon connector to the MIDI socket and DC power plug. Both were on the same mounting plate. The circuit board was also mounted on a metal frame which was mounted in the plastic StudioLogic housing. The Hammond pedals have support pieces strategically placed between notes, including one right after note 17.

I cut away and removed notes 18 - 25 from the Hammond pedals. Also then cut the right side of the Hammond box (hinge compartment), shortend the box to now accommodate 17 pedals, and re attached the side. Looks just like the original, only smaller (narrower) .
Next, I built a "box" to house the contact circuit board and connector mounting plate (which had to be cut out of the St.Log. plastic housing. One issue was; The Hammond pedal "fingers" are 'fanned' at the end, while the MIDI contact board is straight and evenly spread across the 17 notes. The two "almost" lined up so I simply bent the metal pieces attached to the ends of the wooden Hammond pedals - to exactly line up with each of the MIDI Contacts. The metal brackets were also "bendable" to exactly tune in their height position so as to correctly affect note on/off performance. I cut away most of the metal frame from the picture below.
Next, I constructed mounting pieces for the metal frame/MIDI circuit board, in the exact position within the 'box' that attaches to the Hammond pedal frame piece. The long screws the keep the Hammond pedals together as a unit, were replaced with long bolts the now connected them to the new 'box'.

I used 3/4" pine for the box top, front, and bottom. I cut pieces of the heavy gauge plastic from the St.Log pedals to enclose the ends of the box. Plug 'r in, fire it up, and voila - works like a charm, and feels like the real deal Hammond Pedal action. ('because it is!) . A little walnut stain on the box and it's looks cool. I also fashioned a heel rest from one of the left over maple pedals. End result is a set of 17 Hammond pedals that look just like they fit a B3.

Quite the involved project from a construction aspect, but very little electronics. Just moved all that stuff from one "thing" to another.

[mtier0067]

Looks like a really great project! I decided to wire this matrix up the old school way with momentary switches, diodes, and a 5x5 matrix of data/select line. I wanted to learn how to solder and get my "chops" so this was a great opportunity to get a good amount of experience and do it on the cheap. I bought a midi cpu ($45) a bunch of cable that will last me 10 projects ($15), 30 momentary switches ($25) and a few other components. I just used the same chassis as I had with my hammond. Total costs come to about $100 USD and about 10 hours of work (for a newb) to get it put together. Much better than a set of hammond pedals. They are just like playing a vintage organ, same height, felt covering the switches, used the same wood, steel sheets, and the exact same holes of the original contacts were located in. Just enlarged them by 1/32" with a drill.

Super rewarding project so far. I learned how to solder, wire things in a matrix and I think that I have a really nice looking set of vintage pedals to bring with my nord stage2/hammond or my stage2/c2 rig when I gig out on organ heavy sets.

Here's the flickr gallery that I made throughout the process thus far
https://www.flickr.com/photos/122340773@N07/