Nord User Forum

I stand at my NS2 EX. After a while of playing the sustain pedal with one foot, one leg inevitably gets tired and I end up kicking my sustain pedal to the other foot. And then that leg gets tired and I kick it back to the original foot.

I'd love to be able to hook up 2 separate sustain pedals (one on my left side, one on my right side) that both control the sustain function of my single NS2 EX.

As a shot in the dark, I tried attaching 2 sustain pedals using a splitter cable and messing with the polarity settings on the pedals as well as the polarity settings within the NS2, but it does not work.

Is there any way to make this work?

Thanks

You need a mono jack splitter cable like this one for example LINK and of course the 2 pedals must be momentary and of the same type (normally open or closed EDIT: correction, normally closed would not work!)

If they are "normally closed", I do not think it would work with a Y cable. Opening one of the switches does nothing as the other pedal is still closing the circuit. Or am I wrong?

I think for "normally closed" the two switches have to be in line (i.e. they interrupt the same circuit line at different positions).

Thanks for the replies.

The splitter does not work.

How would I go about putting the two sustain pedals "In line" ?


Thanks

Mr_-G- wrote: 08 Aug 2024, 22:56 If they are "normally closed", I do not think it would work with a Y cable. Opening one of the switches does nothing as the other pedal is still closing the circuit. Or am I wrong?

I think for "normally closed" the two switches have to be in line (i.e. they interrupt the same circuit line at different positions).

You are right, what I suggested would put the two pedals in parallel so in fact it will only work with normally-open pedals; to put two normally closed switches in series you need a little more complex configuration of the adapter connections.

If we call T1S1 and T2S2 the terminals of the two inputs and TySy the output, the connections of the adapter should be done like this:

1) T1-Ty
2) S1-T2
3) S2-Sy

(of course, being just switches, T1/S1 and S2/T2 that could be swapped in steps 1-2 and 2-3); I don't think there is anything like this in the market, but otoh it is a pretty easy thing to do for people with some basic electronics DYI skills.

@lucasjackmusic: otoh if you say that your pedals have a "polarity" (mode in fact) switch, you should just put both of them in normally-open mode (check that with a multimeter if not clear from the pedal switch instructions) and use a standard mono Y cable, then of course set sustain type as Open on the NS2.

With a little of imagination, this is how you should rewire two "normally closed" switches: The blue boxes represent the switches. So pressing any of them will open the circuit.
One possibility is to run a cable from one pedal to the other, or if you have space, drill a hole in one of the pedals and add a 'switched jack', so when the second pedal is disconnected, the switched jack closes the circuit and the first pedal still works fine, plus there is no need to cut the plug of the 2nd pedal.

Mr_-G- wrote: 09 Aug 2024, 13:38 With a little of imagination, this is how you should rewire two "normally closed" switches:
pedalInSeries.png
The blue boxes represent the switches. So pressing any of them will open the circuit.
One possibility is to run a cable from one pedal to the other, or if you have space, drill a hole in one of the pedals and add a 'switched jack', so when the second pedal is disconnected, the switched jack closes the circuit and the first pedal still works fine, plus there is no need to cut the plug of the 2nd pedal.

Nice picture, but you don't need to drill holes, just create an adapter board with 2 input one output jack plugs and wire them the way I described (and you depicted, actually if you modify your picture to show the 2 pedals separately it is easy to show how to wire their jacks i.e the adapter).

Anyway, if the OP pedals have the mode switch, using them in normally-open + standard Y cable is the easiest solution.

I was first confused by your description because of Tn and Sn (I now realise you meant Ty Sy and I see how it can be done).
And if you add a double pole switch the adaptor can be set to work in parallel or in series

Mr_-G- wrote: 09 Aug 2024, 18:29 I was first confused by your description because of Tn and Sn (I now realise you meant Ty Sy and I see how it can be done).
And if you add a double pole switch the adaptor can be set to work in parallel or in series

You're right, I forgot to rename them in the step by step description (fixed now)