Nord User Forum

Hi

In my setup of a NS3 and Yamaha Montage, I use a single sustain pedal and 3 Yamaha FC7 pedals.

I would like to make a pedal board to make things much more easy. but most important, that the pedals don't move anymore.
The only thing is the sustain pedal. I'm always standing behind my board. To use the sustain pedal, I put the heel of my foot on the floor. When the sustain pedal is mounted on a pedal board, this is more difficult.

So please, what kind of pedal boards you have and how do you use it?

I use a piece of plexiglass and I attach the pedals and DIs with adhesive velcro strips.

Plexiglass is sturdy and only a few millimeters thin. I don't actually feel any height difference. You can have a piece cut to size at your local hardware store. I also bought the velcro strips there (NL: Gamma, Karwei, etc.).

You can put adhesive rubber pads underneath the board, so it doesn't slide.

In my band, I not always play on stage, but sometimes on uneven concrete or the like. And I'm playing in a sitting position, so not totally comparable. I once tended to create a pedal board but finally haven't yet. Just a rubber or anti-slip mat below the pedals. Two Yamaha FC-7 are fixed together - they will hardly ever move; the single sustain pedals sometimes do (I've got two for two boards).

I use this Harley Benton Spaceship 60XL pedal board:

Harley Benton SpaceShip 60XL

I have mounted an organ swell and a control pedal on it, together with a Neo Ventilator II, a Dept.10 Dual Drive tube preamp and a small 3 channel Rolls mixer, but left the sustain pedal aside since I cannot use it properly when mounted on the sloping board. I use a Roland DP-10 sustain pedal with the fold-out rubber mat that you can put your heel on to prevent it from slipping away and place it next to the pedal board on the floor

I play standing up and use a Holeyboard with mini pedals. The pedals are as close to the ground as possible. Here is a link to my post about it, including additional images:
viewtopic.php?p=159998#p159998

Well... I used Floorboards for the Keys over many Years and they had changed very often depending on my requests as Solo-Artis or in Bands... I didn´t like the effort to separately built it up and pack it back again, when I had more than 2 Gigs a week... In the end the Sustain Pedal stays a problem... I had set my Roland DP-10 a little higher, so I can press it with the heel on the bottom like "matje" likes it to... But today I use one of those flat Yamaha FC5 for Sustain onstage again, since it is the easiest way for my ankle... Could also be a Roland DP-10... I just put it left from the Floorboard... Sometimes fixed with Gaffa... Maybe you´ll discover, that I put the Sustain from the right side to the left feet... It becomes much easier to me and I had no trouble using the right feet again when changing to on an Acoustic Piano... With that, I have the right feet "left" for Volume Control, in case i play without a FOH-guy and under self-mixing... With FOH I only need one Volumen-Pedal to fade Pads and Strings in...

When I use a Ultimate Tripod Stand / playing standing, I have a special Floorboard again, since my feet need to stay more near the pod...

GeeDeWee wrote: ↑05 Feb 2025, 22:43 I use a piece of plexiglass and I attach the pedals and DIs with adhesive velcro strips.
…
You can put adhesive rubber pads underneath the board, so it doesn't slide.

I use dual lock instead of velcro and a transparent rubber mat from a kitchen drawer…

Thanks for all the ideas.

In the end I used a bit of plywood and glued some carpet over it. I will put the pedals, midi interface and powerstrip to the pedalboard.
I wonder how you guys put the velcro on the pedals. The Nord sustain pedal and Yamaha FC7 pedal have those small feet. When you put velcro in the middle, it will not touch the carpet. The small feet on the pedals are to high.

Again. Dual lock is significantly thicker than velcro. Or remove the rubber feet…

matje wrote: ↑07 Feb 2025, 21:48 Thanks for all the ideas.

In the end I used a bit of plywood and glued some carpet over it. I will put the pedals, midi interface and powerstrip to the pedalboard.
I wonder how you guys put the velcro on the pedals. The Nord sustain pedal and Yamaha FC7 pedal have those small feet. When you put velcro in the middle, it will not touch the carpet. The small feet on the pedals are to high.

Remove the feet, or possibly better yet, get different pedals. I've got two FC7 pedals and neither of them actually worked properly on any of my Nord keyboards (NE3, NE5, NS3, NP5), even when set to FC7 in the settings. The issue is the FC7 never scales to zero - I don't mean the volume doesn't go to zero, I mean the range in the system settings never travels the full 0-100 range. All the pedals listed below work properly using pretty much any of the pedal type options (Roland, FC7, etc)

I can personally recommend
- DOD Mini Expression Pedal
- Dunlop DVP5 Volume (X) 8 Pedal (works as both a true volume pedal with input and output jacks or an Expression pedal with single TRS cable)
- Hotone Volume Expression (works as both a true volume pedal with input and output jacks or an Expression pedal with single TRS cable)

Pedal board for my live rig (NP5-73 bottom, NS3 compact top) Pedals size comparison - I'm using two of the Dunlop pedals in my studio rig