Nord User Forum

My sustain pedal stopped working at a very precise moment. My band was practicing one night, a thunderstorm rolled in, and before we had finished, there was a lightning strike that made the power go out for a second. Everything turned off and back on. My keyboard was unaffected except that my sustain pedal no longer worked.

I’ve tried other pedals in the input without success. I’ve checked the polarity on the pedal and on the board, I’ve changed the modes in the system settings, I’ve tested my pedal on other boards.

I’m wondering whether the jack on the keyboard or the internal electronics have been damaged. Any suggestions or other options? Are there any other ways of assigning a sustain function on the 4D?

Thanks for any help!

In any case, it's very unlikely that it's the pedal itself. It doesn't have any electronics inside except for a variable resistance. Same for the jack: It's nothing but a triple metal contact - no idea how this could be affected by an electric strike (if not visible). Could quite be a problem with the internal electronics.

Maybe, an external sustain pedal that's connected via MIDI would work as intended. But why not get it checked before trying that workaround?

FZiegler wrote: 10 Feb 2026, 01:05 In any case, it's very unlikely that it's the pedal itself. It doesn't have any electronics inside except for a variable resistance. Same for the jack: It's nothing but a triple metal contact - no idea how this could be affected by an electric strike (if not visible). Could quite be a problem with the internal electronics.

Maybe, an external sustain pedal that's connected via MIDI would work as intended. But why not get it checked before trying that workaround?

Thanks for your reply!

Yeah that’s what I’m wondering - is there an electronics problem inside the keyboard? Could a power surge or lightning strike have affected the sustain pedal jack inside the keyboard?

I’m pretty confident there’s nothing wrong with my foot pedal. Just wondering what I should focus my attention on trying to fix, what might be the cause. Is it something in the hardware of the jack or in the electrical components in the board? How might I test it, etc.

I’m searching for a repair person in my area but I’m just trying to understand the problem first lol. Thanks!

@arkin6 Hi and welcome to NUF! Sorry to hear about your problem.
Yes. From what you report, it seems like some electronics damage occurred.

I don't recall seeing the NE4 schematics online, but Nord is very conservative, so their NE4 electronics likely contain many similarities to the NE2 (whose schematics are available). On the NE2, the Sustain pedal's input gets buffered by a logical "OR" gate to encode the control pedal switch closure to the logic levels used by the Nord's microprocessor.

I suspect the equivalent part on your NE4 is damaged.

I find it a bit strange that the sustain pedal got damaged during an AC mains surge...
Do you bundle your sustain pedal cable with the AC-mains power cable?
--If those cables were in close proximity, the lightning surge on the AC-mains cable could couple onto the sustain cable which might point to a contributing cause of the damage.

Let me know what your experience is with electronics test and repair. There's not much more to be tested without opening things up - which I don't recommend for the inexperienced (the forum often sees reports of users making things worse during attempted repair).