Another take on a "Custom Nord Stage Pedal Board"

[guentergunter]

I don't believe I've shared this here and saw the other thread as good inspiration. I have used some version of a homemade rolling and tilting keyboard stand for over 25 years and have it dialed in for use with my multiple NS2 and NS2 EX boards. I'll focus on the pedal board now and get more into the rest of the stand later.

Here's a picture of the rig where you can see the pedals. I have mounted the following pedals from left to right:



- Speed switch control for offstage Ventilator
- Organ swell pedal (Yamaha FC-7)
- Sustain (Nord pedal)
- Control pedal (Yamaha FC-7)

Not quite as many as the other board, but this gives me what I need. I have these pedals mounted with screws and all of the cables feed through a chase into a project box. I have a multi-pin snake that comes from the keyboard, feeding into the project box and then a separate multi-pin 30' snake going from that to my offstage rack. I have this much cabling so I can easily roll my stand around stage during performance.

Here's a picture from the back that shows the color-coded connectors from the Nord and clean appearance of the pedal board.



Here's a close up of the pedal board and project box where the multi-pins connect.

[guentergunter]

Thanks for sharing your project. Nice to see, that others also try to go for a compact on-stage experience

Is your stand in a height for playing while standing? Standing I have the general problem, that it’s hard to use more than one pedal simultaneously.
Also your stand looks, like you can tilt it.

And since you mentioned: That’s one hell of a clean appearance
Also mentionable the 90° plugs for 100% stage suitability.


Actually, I never thought about building my own stand, maybe some future project

[...] saw the other thread as good inspiration [...]

Not quite as many as the other board

Mine was built with the Stage 3 in mind concerning the number and types of pedals, but needed to be compatible to all keyboards via generic MIDI
Now also the problems from too many plugs, like mix-up and duration of plugging, dissolve.


By the way: You could also add an arduino to your „project box“, since most of the work, like mounting the pedals, is already done

I have mounted the following pedals from left to right:
- Speed switch control for offstage Ventilator
- Organ swell pedal (Yamaha FC-7)
- Sustain (Nord pedal)
- Control pedal (Yamaha FC-7)

I also thought about buying a second FC-7, since it’s just amazing compared to the Korg EXP-2. But imperfectness sometimes has it’s own style

all of the cables feed through a chase into a project box. I have a multi-pin snake that comes from the keyboard, feeding into the project box and then a separate multi-pin 30' snake going from that to my offstage rack. I have this much cabling so I can easily roll my stand around stage during performance.

How many pins do you have and how are they wired? Looks like a heavy duty plug you’re using to attach that 30’ cable.
For moving around by the way, I use a game controller (click) with wireless MIDI (click)

[ericL]

Thanks for checking out my project! My custom stand has been an evolution starting way back in about 1988-1989 when I was playing a gig and forgot to bring my keyboard stand. I ended up using my guitar player's flight case for his Mesa Boogie amp - I literally taped my Roland JX-8P to the top of the case on wheels and ended up rolling around on stage with that rig, though it was a bit top heavy. That was the birth of my inspiration to have my keyboard on wheels. I do have some pictures that surfaced from that era (WAY before smart phones) that I still need to scan into digital format.

Here's a picture of one of my earliest rolling/tilting stands from about 1992-1993 timeframe. I had a basic x-style stand mounted on a rolling furniture dolly and it was a lot of fun! I used several different versions of this over the years.



Here's a similar stand from about 5 years ago when I was still using an x stand mounted on wheels with my NS2. I like to move around and jump on stage.



As you noticed, the stand does tilt. So I can have my band members do that for me.



Or I can do it myself.



Here's the most recent generation, with the NS2 EX that is a bit lighter than the NS2 88 and my stand has almost a full 90 degree tilt angle.



I have always played gigs standing up and I have the height of the stand dialed in for perfect comfort based on the 25+ years I've been gigging with a similar stand. As for your questions about the pins, I had help from a friend to build that part of it (I think he may also be on this forum and could chime in, paging Bill aka vonnor). I believe we used 9 pins...there are 4 audio from the Nord, plus sustain, swell, control, MIDI, and the Vent remote switch.