I have a Studiologic SL73 with on top a Nord Stage 3 Compact. I was tired of making many connections to all my pedals. These where: Sustain (NS3 and SL73), Organ Swell, Leslie Fast/Slow switch and Synth Volume (for morphing and fading string parts and so on). Since I am keen of organizing my setup as efficient as possible, I wanted to reduce the cable mess as much as possible.
The basic idea was to have a unit on the floor where all pedals where connected to and -with help of a small microcontroller- send all the information via Midi to the keyboards. I usually work in Dual Keyboard mode, where the SL73 controls panel B and use panel A for the NS3. Another simplification is that I don’t need separate sustain and expression pedals for SL73 and NS3. It should be possible to control them from one single pedal. In the end I have only two feet.
Another cool idea that comes from the possibilities from the Yamaha FC7 expression pedals is that you can adjust an angle (say 10 degrees) above which the pedal has a strong spring that bounces back . This could serve as a toggle button to control the leslie speed. It only requires some smart software that (de)activates the switch beyond a certain threshold. (Yes, I know, it can be only be activated at maximum swell level but for me, that’s not a real problem). Another pedal+cabling gone….
Initially I was planning to put the microcontroller in a box on the floor where all pedals could be connected to, but realising the hardware was so small (Teensy LC) I managed to fit it all in the Yamaha sustain pedal housing that came with a CP33 I own as well. This is a continuos damper pedal.
You may ask: “where does the power come from?” This is where it gets tricky and may void the warranty of my keyboards. The overall power needed for the SL73 and pedal unit is so small (several tens of milliamps) that I decided to withdraw that from the Nord stage unit. Internally there is a power supply that can deliver sufficient current for as well the SL73 as the pedal unit. To that end I used the free pins on the 5pin DIN Midi input connector (only two of them are used for Midi comms) to supply the 5V to the SL73 and likewise from the SL73 to the pedal unit. So, there is only a 230V connection to the Nord. To avoid "voltage clashes" (multiple power supplies connections) I used Schottky diodes in series with the 5Volts.
Thanks to AI, the software was the easiest part. AI produced 400 lines of code in no time after I learned how to specify the system behaviour properly. I manually added the half-pedalling and pedal noise function as described by guentergunter and Klondyke77 was quite easy. Thanks for all the early research.
