Nord User Forum

I have 2 keyboards- a Stage classic and a Stage 2 EX.
I have recently had some weird sustain pedal problems. I normally used the M-Audio pedal for both keyboards until I recently thought one was broken. The sustain would "stick" and would sustain even when the pedal wasn't pressed. The polarity switch wasn't the culprit, it would just go on and off, not work, work, stick... So I assumed the pedal was the problem. I then bought a brand new Yamaha FC4 (?) pedal. It worked perfectly yesterday. Today, same old problems as before. I would have it on an EP patch working fine, and then go to a higher octave, do a slide (without pressing the pedal) and I let go of the keys and they still sustain. Another defective pedal? Hmm. I then try it on my NSclassic, same deal. the sustain just "stays on" without touching the pedal. Must be the pedal right? I then plug it into a Roland Fantom and it works perfectly as it should.
I haven't changed any global sustain system settings, I'm trying a simple piano patch with the sustain light on the nord.
IT worked perfectly yesterday, and then today, without any settings changed, it works on and off, sometimes sticking, sometimes not working at all. And this is consistent with both of my Nords. But then, I hook it up to a Fantom and it works fine.
TO make things even weirder, I have a cheap "on Stage" sustain pedal. Its lighter and cheaper, but it works fine on both keyboards.
In troubleshooting I'm trying to pinpoint, is it the pedal, is it the keyboard? The messed up part is when I try the pedal with another brand of keyboard it works fine. ANd why does the old On Stage pedal work fine with my nords, but not my new Yamaha pedal?
I updated the Nords to the newest version 3.0. I've tried everything, and I can't really pinpoint what is the problem, but the pedal seems to work fine with other boards. So is it my keyboard? Both of them? Really strange. Has anybody ever had weird problems like this? I can't figure it out.

My Nord NS3 has and my old Electro 5 had issues with their respective switch debouncing algorithms.
This meant that some older pedals that I had that didn't switch cleanly (i.e. a single change from one state to the other) would exhibit this behaviour.
I also use M-Audio pedals, both the piano-style and small square footswitch style and, after a while (measured in months, sometimes years) the footswitches in particular would start switching in a 'dirty' way.
By this I mean that if you use an oscilloscope on such a switch, you'll see that when you depress or release the switch, the transition from one state to the other is not a single move, but instead, over a period of a few hundred microseconds, bounces back and forth between the two states until finally settling on the correct state.
To overcome this, keyboard software usually uses a 'switch debouncing' algorithm to try to ignore these glitches - usually by ignoring everything for a millisecond or two after a transition has occured and then checking the state has indeed changed from what it was and then settles that way for up to another millisecond or so.
Unfortunately, Nord's algorithms seem to sometimes have difficulties with this issue whereas other keyboards I've owned (Kurzweil, Roland, Korg etc.) seem to be more forgiving of dirty switch contacts.
I've no concrete proof, but perhaps Nord's algorithms don't wait long enough for the switch to 'settle'...

Anyway, this may be the problem you're having.

wow, that took me a minute to understand, but I guess it makes sense? Basically, some pedals will work and some won't. I cleaned the pedal contacts, maybe I should take the keyboard apart and try and clean where the pedal plugs in? Is there a contact there? possibly dirty and that's what causing funky problems with sustain pedals?
thanks for your help

Based on my own experience, I think it is not so likely to be an issue with the connector inside the Nord.

Here is a tip: For weird pedals, I normally set the pedal type to open (or closed, depending on type) instead of auto on the Nord. Sometimes it gets the pedal type wrong.

This usually fixes the problem for me (I have maybe 8-10 different sustain pedals accumulated over the years, and some of them have become a bit funky with age -- and eventually are discarded, of course -- but when I end up with one that is not stable I just do the above).

baekgaard wrote:Based on my own experience, I think it is not so likely to be an issue with the connector inside the Nord.

Here is a tip: For weird pedals, I normally set the pedal type to open (or closed, depending on type) instead of auto on the Nord. Sometimes it gets the pedal type wrong.

This usually fixes the problem for me (I have maybe 8-10 different sustain pedals accumulated over the years, and some of them have become a bit funky with age -- and eventually are discarded, of course -- but when I end up with one that is not stable I just do the above).

+1