SYNTH ZONE
Visit The Bar For Casual Discussion
Topic Options
#156658 - 12/05/00 08:38 AM Pedal board questions
Paul Ip Offline
Member

Registered: 11/26/99
Posts: 241
Loc: Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
I use a Roland PK-5 MIDI pedal board which has only 13 keys. The octave of these 13 keys can be changed by pressing the Octave function key and depressing one of the 13 keys for the desired octave. This is not very useful during performance if I want to use the pedal board to control more than 13 keys because the change of octave requires interruption of keys. The pedal board is very useful for performing bass and sustaining high notes of strings.

Has anyone used any other pedal boards that have a dedicated one-touch octave function keys that allows easy octave changes during performance? Does anyone know if Fatar MP-117 has any configurable octave keys? Since Roland PK-5 can merge MIDI signals can I use 2 MIDI-chained PK-5s to achieve a 2-octave pedal board (any real 2-octave pedal board is prohibitly expensive, near US$2000, 2 PK-5s costs a little more than $700)?

Has anyone use Yamaha MFC-10 MIDI foot controller? Can two of its buttons be configured as "octave up" and "octave down" function keys to connect to PK-5 pedal board through MIDI to achieve what I wanted to do?

Thanks,

Paul Ip
from Texas

Top
#156659 - 12/05/00 08:54 AM Re: Pedal board questions
Clif Anderson Offline
Member

Registered: 02/17/00
Posts: 532
Hi Paul

I was wondering about foot controllers myself and appreciate the part about using the Merge on the PK-5. My guess is that the MFC10 would allow one-button octave shifts. But you do not have to guess; as you probably know, you can download the manual for the MFC10 from Yamaha.

I have been perplexed about the availability of foot pedals. One octave would seem to be too little for most applications. 17 does seem more practical, and 2 octaves ideal. But, as I remember, the PK-5 also has foot switches, whereas the bigger ones do not seem to. Maybe the two PK-5s is a good idea, if you do not mind the extra C.

By the way, Paul, why don't you use a sustain pedal or switch to sustain string sounds? Maybe then you would not have to switch octaves so often.

[This message has been edited by Clif Anderson (edited 12-05-2000).]

Top
#156660 - 12/05/00 09:06 AM Re: Pedal board questions
Paul Ip Offline
Member

Registered: 11/26/99
Posts: 241
Loc: Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
Clif,

Believe it or not, I actually use pedal board to sometimes play some accompanying slow solos (like flute). Most of the time when I play sustaining string portion, I find 13 keys not quite enough for the range of notes and thus not natural enough. I agree with you that a 2-octave pedal board setup make a lot more sense to me.

Paul Ip
from Texas

Top
#156661 - 12/05/00 01:14 PM Re: Pedal board questions
Paul Ip Offline
Member

Registered: 11/26/99
Posts: 241
Loc: Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
Clif,

I downloaded the owner's manual of Yamaha MFC10 MIDI foot controller and could not find any occurrences of "octave", only one instance of "transpose". I may have to dig deeper into what MIDI signal represents octace up and octave down. I found the only real helpful article on the Web about MFC10 is the following URL:
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/apr97/yamahamfc10.html

MFC10 foot controller looks very promising especially for the owners of Yamaha PSR9000s since it is mentioned to be the preferred foot controller for the 9000s.

Paul Ip
from Texas

Top
#156662 - 12/05/00 03:23 PM Re: Pedal board questions
Clif Anderson Offline
Member

Registered: 02/17/00
Posts: 532
Hi Paul

You may know this, but the PSR9000 owners manual also has a chapter on the MFC10 foot controller. One reason that the MFC10 foot controller works well with the PSR9000 is that they keyboard has an interface for programming the MFC10. Hopefully, that chapter will be more helpful to you.

Clif

Top
#156663 - 12/05/00 03:24 PM Re: Pedal board questions
Clif Anderson Offline
Member

Registered: 02/17/00
Posts: 532
Hi Paul

I forgot to mention that Frank Rosenthal has a Yamaha PSR9000 and an MFC10 foot controller. You can probably search this forum for his e-mail address, if he is not monitoring posts at present.

Clif

Top
#156664 - 12/06/00 07:40 AM Re: Pedal board questions
Paul Ip Offline
Member

Registered: 11/26/99
Posts: 241
Loc: Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
Frank,

I am glad that you are on this thread now.

My question is actually like this:

I want to be able to set up buttons on MFC10 to control "octave up" and "octave down" on the Roland PK-5 pedal board. Since I use PK-5 a lot for either bass or sustained high-note string sounds, 13 keys are simply not enough to do the job right. On the fly octave setup on PK-5 along requires stop playing on the keys and press down Oct/Parm function button and a key representing the appropriate octave value. This makes playing outside of the 13-key range non-stop impossible.

Since PSR9000 has not MIDI thru port (it is only available on the To-Host port), I wonder how I can set up PSR9000, MFC10, and PK-5 altogether. Since there is only one MIDI out on the MFC10, the only seemingly possible way for such connections seems to be MIDI out of MFC10 connects to MIDI in of PK-5 (for control of octave shifts if all possible), and MIDI thru of PK-5 connects to one of 9000's MIDI in (for MFC10's control on the 9000), and MIDI out of PK-5 connects to the second MIDI in of 9000 (for running bass/sustaining strings etc.). Since I have not purchased 9000 or MFC10 yet, I would like to check with you and see if it is feasible at all.

Many thanks,

Paul Ip
from Texas

Top

Moderator:  Admin, Diki, Kerry 



Help keep Synth Zone Online