Nord User Forum

[ltrilling]

I just got an electro 6D but I'm having problems getting any of my sustain pedals to work. Do I have to buy the pedal that nord sells?

[Mr_-G-]

And what pedals do you already have?
Are you absolutely sure that they work?

[baekgaard]

You don't need to buy Nord pedals. Most normal sustain pedals (on/off) works.

Some that have a continuous sustain (like some Roland) do not work well with the Nord.

But tell us what you have.

[ltrilling]

You don't need to buy Nord pedals. Most normal sustain pedals (on/off) works.

Some that have a continuous sustain (like some Roland) do not work well with the Nord.

But tell us what you have.

I do indeed have a roland (DP-10). with this pedal the sustain is very unpredictable. Often it sustains without me pushing down the pedal and often it will not sustain with me pushing it down. I also have a Korg DS-1H that doesn't do much of anything

[PScooter63]

itrilling, I've owned a couple of DP-10s, and experienced what you describe once or twice. Make sure that the function switch (on the left side) is NOT set to "Continuous". It should do fine if set to "Switch".

[baekgaard]

That explains it. I also have a DP-10 (as well as many other pedals) and the DP-10 is the worst of the bunch. First thing: it needs to be move away from continuous -- as Pscooter63 says -- set the switch to "switch".

But even so, it is not working well. Mine has a habit of doing multiple on-off switches whenever it is touch, so if you look at the MIDI data, it when you e.g. press it down instead of just getting a "sustain on" message, you get a sequence of "sustain on; sustain off; sustain on". If you only play the board locally, it may not be so much of an issue, though.

The Korg DS-1H is also not a conventional switch, as it supports half-pedalling (on some boards). On the Nord, you may have some luck using it in tripple pedal mode -- which means you get (one or two levels of) pedal down noise on boards that support it: nord-stage-forum-f3/nord-triple-pedal-vs-korg-dsh1-or-similar-t14083.html.

If you go into the menu and move to the sustain pedal settings, you should be able to see how the Nord recognises the pedal and the state. You can try to change between the settings, if you see no reaction -- it is also a good way of testing how the pedal behaves.

[PScooter63]

baekgard, I said I'd gone through a couple of DP10s.. what I didn't say was, I eventually ditched them. They seemed to only last about three years each, then began falling apart, much as you describe.

Yamaha FC4s aren't perfect, either. One stopped working a couple of months in, because wires had not been soldered properly. Eighteen months after repair, it began squeaking on each press and release. The metal-on-plastic rubbing noise eventually rendered it unusable in quiet venues. This squeak also happened to a second one.

I eventually paired a Boss FS-5U (sustain) with a FS-5L (latching, for rotary)... the two slide/latch together into a single unit... and that was the end of my pedal troubles.

[CountFosco]

I eventually paired a Boss FS-5U (sustain) with a FS-5L (latching, for rotary)... the two slide/latch together into a single unit... and that was the end of my pedal troubles.

This looks like a pretty neat combo. What was the thinking behind needing two pedals for sustain and rotary? I'm using a single sustain pedal to cover both functions in the sustain pedal jack. I miss out on being able to sustain an organ sound but I don't really do that anyway (you can turn on sustain and rotary on an organ program, but it will toggle the rotary when ever you use sustain, which is a bit unwieldy). I guess it increases your flexibility having the two pedals. Do you also have a control/expression pedal? Which one?

[PScooter63]

CountFosco, there was actually not a lot of thinking behind that decision

A private online seller threw the latching pedal into a sale, because he was feeling guilty about the price I agreed to pay for something else. I didn't own a Nord at the time, so I tossed it into my accessory bin and forgot about it. When my E4 came along, I saw it supported a latching pedal, and - well, I tried and liked it. The extra mass of the second pedal keeps the sustain pedal from walking away as quickly.

It's takes a little getting used to, though. The program's saved rotary speed, and the panel's speed switch, will override the pedal if either one forces a state change. Say I'm on a patch that doesn't use rotary, and I accidentally latch the pedal. The pedal's own LED lights, but nothing happens on the E. If I leave it like that, and switch to a B3 program that uses rotary, the rotary effect will not automatically be "fast", just because the pedal is set that way - the Electro's not programmed to act on that. It will be slow, if that is how the program was saved.

So in this rare case, pedal and rotary speed are out of sync until one of two things happen: I toggle the speed to "fast" on the E's panel, to match the pedal's state... or, I press the pedal again (switching the pedal's light off), matching the panel's state. After that, everything is synced up again, and the pedal resumes controlling the speed.

As to expression pedals, I've been through my share... my current favorite is Boss's FV-500L. (You actually set it to "Fatar" in the setup menu, unlike Boss's other pedals like EV-30.) Mission Engineering's expression pedal is awesomely flashy in red, but the travel's a little shorter, and it's pretty heavy in the backpack.

Add in a PageFlip Firefly to the left of the expression pedal in the center, and that just about does it for single-row foot space.

[Macko]

Itrilling. Sustain pedals go faulty when they are dusty inside. I thought I had a faulty keyboard (Roland FP9) when the sustain was not working properly, either permanent sustain or intermittent sustain and so I unscrewed the two sustain pedals I owned and flooded the contacts with degreasing fluid, lots of hot water and switch cleaner and both worked perfectly after that. Some of the sustain pedals sold have a switch on them to make the default position either sustain on or sustain off so they can be used with various makes of keyboard. The Nord one I bought recently has not got a switch on it. The Nord sustain pedal looks the same as the old Fatar one I bought 20 years ago. They've stuck a red Nord label on it and this dropped off within a few minutes of use. Many of the third-party sustain pedals are cheaper than the Nord one. Just make sure the cable they are fitted with is a good quality one which is not too thin and that the jack plug is not a tatty cheap one. Cheers for now. Macko