OB Dave

It's kind of a combination of the two. The keyboard does poll the pedal input periodically, and then has rules about when to "notice" a change. I say this because there is always some amount of noise on these inputs. A lot of modern keyboards use something like a 10 bit analog to digital converter to read these pedals. So the keyboard "sees" a value between 0 and 1023, but there will be noise on this input. The keyboard might read 412, 413, 412, 413, 412, 413 etc. The keyboard's software will typically have some threshold values so that the value needs to change a certain amount before deciding to interpret that as a pedal move. But in the end, the keyboard is reading a voltage coming back from the pedal, and noticing when the value has changed enough to consider the pedal to have moved. That's exactly correct. If you were to connect the two pedals via Y-cable, both pedals would be loading the circuit. If the sustain pedal was wired the same, and if it was a switched type instead of a continuous type, AND the pedal switch is open when the sustain pedal is in the up position, it might even work. An open switch isn't going to load the circuit at all. But you would still have the issue of a piano voice thinking the sustain pedal is stuck down, if the volume pedal happened to be in the wrong position. In the case of a continuous sustain pedal, AND if both pedals are wired the same, hooking the two pedals in parallel would mean having both pedals loading that circuit at once. So moving the volume pedal through its full range might only give you half the volume values, the sustain pedal may not be able to make a big enough voltage swing to be interpreted as pedal-down, and so on. Hope that made sense.

Ah, but that's not how these pedals work. They don't "send" anything, ever. The pedals present different electrical resistance to the keyboard's jack circuit, and the microprocessor inside the keyboard takes periodic measurements of that resistance. More specifically, in the case of a the expression pedal, the keyboard supplies both a reference voltage and a ground reference to the ends of the potentiometer, and then measures the voltage at the wiper. This voltage varies depending on the position of the pedal, and the keyboard's internal microprocessor and performs this measurement repeatedly, perhaps ten times per second. So if you don't move the pedal, it's not so much a case of the "pedal not sending anything" but rather, the keyboard doesn't measure any difference in voltage at the wiper so it decides the pedal has not moved. The sustain pedal does something similar, and you've already determined that your sustain pedal is also a continuous device like the expression pedal. Here's the problem: the expression pedal at its extreme position "looks" exactly like the sustain pedal to the keyboard's periodic measurement. So if you leave the expression pedal in a position that "looks like" sustain down, and you have a piano sound selected that's expecting a sustain pedal, the keyboard will interpret what it's seeing as a sustain pedal held down. It cannot tell the difference. You don't even need a Y-adapter to test this, simply select a piano type voice with the expression pedal plugged in, and try moving the expression pedal while you play.

It miiiiight work, depending, but not very well if at all. Some sustain pedals are switches, and some use a potentiometer for continuous sustain pedal. Yamaha and Roland have different wiring schemes, and expression pedals similarly use different wiring schemes between manufacturers. If you use a continuous sustain pedal, and the pedal just so happens to use the same pinout as your expression pedal, the sustain pedal will still load the circuit. You'd probably have better results with one that is switched rather than continuous, and that again depends on what TRS connection standard is used. It's impossible to answer this question without knowing exactly which pedals, and exactly which keyboard. And even then, the answer is likely to be theoretical. And if you happen to leave the expression pedal at one extreme or other, it's likely to look like a stuck sustain pedal when the jack is expecting sustain input.

In my dotcom days I had an Aeron because it was The Thing To Have, and to be honest I didn't really like it that much. I ended up selling it. I'm a big fan of the bungee chair that The Container Store sells. It's pretty inexpensive as office chairs go, and I find it to be really comfortable.

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For those of you who couldn't watch it before, ABC has unlocked the episode. If you're outside the US you may need a VPN to view this.

I spent waaaay too long playing with one at NAMM a few years back. Such a cool instrument. Some of the voices are amazing and do cool things when you slide back towards the back of the key. Thought it'd be fun to gig with in a band situation but I guess you've actually worked with it at some length and came to a different conclusion. I guess I'll have to go back to dreaming about a clav with the ken rich whammy bar.

Not a keyboard, strictly speaking, but: Muse Receptor. What a poorly-engineered, expensive, finicky piece of shit that was. Was very very happy to unload it while it still had some residual value.

Aw man, I got tied up and was unable to watch. I see that you’re rocking Jake Cronenworth’s uni number though!

Mmmm... Hammonds. Old VWs too. They should make an aftershave.

I should have patented the drawfader. 😛 I took so much heat for it, yet here we are.

So far looks good. Nice work. everyone! edit: oh dang, my avatar renders nicely in a circle. edit 2: ooh, let's see how long this lasts:

I don't think you'll be able to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from a Monterey Time Machine backup to Mojave. Hopefully you didn't re-enable Time Machine after the upgrade. If you did, you likely polluted your Time Machine archive with stuff Mojave won't know how to deal with. Maybe there's a way to scrape off the most recent layers, not sure about that. As a general rule, whenever upgrading Operating System major versions, I 1) Force a time machine backup, then turn off time machine and leave it off for a week or two to make sure everything is cool with the new OS 2) Before doing the upgrade, use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable copy of the existing install onto a USB SSD drive. That way, if I find that the upgrade has irreparably broken something, I can boot off the the USB drive, run disk utility to nuke the internal drive, then run CCC to clone the external USB drive back onto the internal drive. Restart the machine and you're right back where you started with minimal pain.

My first real job was programming on a VAX 11/780. This will probably get the thread shut down but I'm just gonna say it. VMS was a pretty awesome operating system.

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I'm really enjoying the documentary. Much of it hits close to home, having quit bands, and having been in bands that fell apart. So, watching the greatest band of all time falling apart, it's emotional. I'm fine with Peter Jackson's approach - rather than try to create a narrative, he did his best to document the whole thing day by day as best he could with whatever material he had available. I respect his decision. Is some of it tedious? Sure, but who among us has not been in a tedious rehearsal situation? In a way it really humanizes the band. Poor George just seems sooooo unhappy though much of it. John is partially checked out at this point (holy hell is Yoko's constant, constant presence very strange and clingy), and Paul is just trying to make something happen. And yeah, the poor techs, engineers, and stagehands. Such an interesting dynamic. The Beatles changed everything. Everything. And it's a remarkable gift to finally be able to see this rare footage, warts and all.

Congrats! Well done, Dave! My browser is secure and happy! [video:youtube]

Have to confess, I am not familiar with the man or his music but I loved this clip. Thanks for sharing it! I am always stoked to get turned on to new stuff.

Contrarian view, but I hated mine. I bought them on recommendation and to my ears they sounded way too tinny and strident. My mixes all came out way too dark and muddy as a result. Perhaps I'd gotten used to the AKG K240, but this is a much less expensive headphone that I think sounds a lot smoother and better balanced.

Cannot wait. This band changed everything.

That's been my experience as well. My rep is Carson McClain - I think he handles much of the West Coast - and I might get one or two calls a year. Never pushy, just checking in, and most of the time they roll to voicemail anyway. I will say that every purchasing experience with Sweetwater has been super smooth, and their customer service is top notch. And I've seen the other side of the equation as well: when I was manufacturing the drawbar controller, they were my main US dealer, so I got to experience them from the vendor side, and they were great on that end too. They have a really nice B2B portal for managing purchase orders and invoices, and they always paid on time, every time. Just never any issues with them. Easy peasy. When you add all that up, I have never felt anything less than that they are a really well-run company that treats both their customers and their vendors well.

Joe broke it.

I've got a song, ain't got no melody. I'm gonna sing it to my friends

What an enormous loss.

This description really doesn't tell us much. Did you try the specific experiment I suggested?