MIDI volume vs analogue volume

[I-missRichardTee]

My new age gig requires delicate changes in volume The default setting for the Fantom sucks. Unusable. MIDI volume Jumps from 40 to 100 then 127 with the slightest moment of my Yamaha F whatever pedal

Is it possible to make adjustments IN the Fantom g?

How do get musical incremental MIDI Volume crescendo decrescendo?

MIDI solution device ?

 

Thanks

[AnotherScott]

Not all expression pedals work the same way. The Yamaha pedal is not directly compatible with the Fantom, that's probably the source of your problem You could get a Roland pedal, or adapt the Yamaha pedal.

 

the adapter:

 

http://music.ashbysolutions.com/misc.htm

 

the explanation:

 

http://forums.rolandclan.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11497 (start reading with the post by markw)

 

and

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=322584

 

[J. Dan]

While it's not as good of a pedal, you could also get a Roland EV5 pedal if you don't want to modify your FC7 or get the adapter.

[I-missRichardTee]

Thank you gentlemen - yes. The Yamaha is beefier and likely has a wider throw

For subtle volume changes the wiser sweep would be better So the adapter solution for Yamaha pedal so to speak, makes switching back to a Yamaha keyboard a pita So I would likely want 2 beefy Yamaha pedals

The Roland pedal I've seen seems a bit unsubstantial plus smaller sweep.

This is an iPhone.- if the text is weird ! I will be back tomorrow

[J. Dan]

I don't care too much for the Roland pedal, either. Note that the adaptor just plugs in...you can use one FC7 and just plug in the adaptor when using it with the Roland. just leave the adaptor with the Roland so you don't have to worry about forgetting it.

[I-missRichardTee]

Does anyone know about MIDI volume in terms of user control for varying degrees of incremental volume, and pedal movement.. sweep of the pedal? Are there different settings to choose eg how the rate of change occurs over time.. over the sweep of the MIDI pedal.

The way an instrument crescendo's and so on, would seem to be an important point in an instruments " playability ".

I am asking about my Fantom, but does anyone know if eg another instrument among the "Big Five" manufacturers ( Yamaha Korg Roland Kurz Clavia ) has superior control in order to shape various volume envelopes for MIDI volume/ expression?

And this.. what is your experience with ( clumsy heavy ) Analogue pedals vs MIDI pedals, as applied to what to me, is an important characteristic?

I am a veteran musician, but I am still learning.. and I started playing left hand bass on my church gig... I am rapidly finding out that playing left hand bass requires second by second control over shades of VOLUME. not to mention other well known nuances! It never occurred to me in this "brand new" context: 10 years of playing in a Sunday band on elec bass, then suddenly switching in the same band to left hand bass... how important volume control is. I play bass parts now with my other hand on the channel volume for the bass.

Fact is, I am hoping to someday control more than the bass volume, by hopefully having simultaneous control, over eg, string swells and bass part.

 

As I am writing this, it occurs to me, that touch sensitivity must be adapted to volume, in a way I have never before given a moments thought about!

 

Second edit !! It also occurs to me would a keyboard have the potential to be split so right side could register either aftertouch or velocity that the left side would not also register! Hmm maybe the bass would have to be strictly pedal controlled volume wise and the strings or pad etc, would be on another vol pedal. If I sound like I am thinking aloud, I am!

To reiterate, simple fact is, frequent volume control is a huge factor in imitating a real elec bass part. I can't believe I took this for granted... all these decades playing left hand bass ( and elec bass and Organ ) and it required years of nothing but elec bass playing on the church gig to bring it home to me, so to speak! Oh well, live and learn!

[Analogaddict]

I have two Boss FV-500. They are built like tanks and very easy to control. The Kurzweil PC3 series offer different ranges and curves per setup, I'm not sure about Roland and Yamaha...

[Leh173]

I use an EV-5 with my G6 and it works fine. I'd stick with a Roland or Boss pedal with the Fantom.

[Leh173]

Sorry didn't see the earlier post, If you get the Yamaha pedal adaptor and it works ok let me know. I have an FC7 as well (for my DX7) and its a much better pedal.

[I-missRichardTee]

I have two Boss FV-500. They are built like tanks and very easy to control. The Kurzweil PC3 series offer different ranges and curves per setup, I'm not sure about Roland and Yamaha...

 

I edited my post.. but missed your post. So you are saying it is the BOARD ( the brain ) itself, not so much the pedal, that has the "power" to alter different volume envelopes? Thank you.

I have had my eye on a Kronos, and was hoping that model might offer flexibility that the Kurz offers.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

I do a good bit of LH bass in my church gig (I also played electric bass until my fretting hand started cramping). My setup at church is a Kurzweil PC361 top and PC2 bottom. I have a full set of three switch pedals on each, and a Kurzweil CC-1 Control pedal on each.

 

Left foot lower keyboard, right foot upper keyboard - feet stay on the pedals 90% of the time unless I'm doing straight piano stuff (which is rare).

 

I find the volume pedals essential for my style of playing on bass parts, and also very useful on other parts. I do some Hammond/Leslie emulation on the PC361, some synth parts, Wurly & Rhodes parts, and a lot of Orchestral stuff.

 

The Kurzweils allow a lot of flexibility, I've never played a Kronos, don't know on that one.

 

[I-missRichardTee]

I do a good bit of LH bass in my church gig (I also played electric bass until my fretting hand started cramping). My setup at church is a Kurzweil PC361 top and PC2 bottom. I have a full set of three switch pedals on each, and a Kurzweil CC-1 Control pedal on each.

 

Left foot lower keyboard, right foot upper keyboard - feet stay on the pedals 90% of the time unless I'm doing straight piano stuff (which is rare).

 

I find the volume pedals essential for my style of playing on bass parts, and also very useful on other parts. I do some Hammond/Leslie emulation on the PC361, some synth parts, Wurly & Rhodes parts, and a lot of Orchestral stuff.

 

The Kurzweil's allow a lot of flexibility, I've never played a Kronos, don't know on that one.

 

That's a total of EIGHT pedals? You said "switch pedals".. how do you use three per board ?!

Are the pedals attached to a board of some kind?

I am endeavoring on a single keyboard, to use two volume pedals and possibly alter the touch sensitivity to adapt to purely volume change for either the strings/ pads, or the bass. Man, I have a lot to learn here!

[AnotherScott]

So you are saying it is the BOARD ( the brain ) itself, not so much the pedal, that has the "power" to alter different volume envelopes?

Right. A pedal is basically a dumb device. As you saw, not all brands are perfectly compatible with each other, but regardless, they are essentially doing the same thing.

 

There is a reason these things are called "foot controllers" and not "volume pedals" - for one thing, they don't actually do anything with volume. Unlike a volume pedal for a guitar, which actually takes an audio signal in, alters it, and sends it back out, foot controllers don't process audio at all. Instead, they send a range of values to your board, from 0 to 127. What your board does when it receives those values is entirely up to the board. It could be used for volume, or it could just as easily be used for something else. Functionally, it really is not a volume pedal, but a multi-purpose pedal. Volume may be the most common use (and default operation in most boards) but workstations generally allow you to define what the pedal will do pretty extensively. You can turn it from a volume pedal to a modulation pedal or filter pedal or pitch pedal or whatever else you might want it to do, usually on a patch-by-patch basis. You can usually define the lowest amount (of whatever) that you want when the pedal is at minimum and the highest amount when it is at maximum.

 

Sometimes you do see comments along the lines of too much of the pedal's travel being over too small a range, but I'm pretty sure that's simply an indication of the same kind of pedal incompatibility we were originally talking about.

[I-missRichardTee]

Great.. AnotherScott! ( Couldn't resist !) Thank you.. so I am exclusively dealing with a flaw restricted to pedal incompatibility. I must tell you.. the WAY, volume changes as you move a pedal is surprisingly important to me.. Any Keyboard that takes the trouble to have more control.. options, over the "MIDI sweep" ( for lack of a more accurate term ) is a keyboard I must take seriously.. it is that important when emulating other instruments.. who much more naturally and easily make volume AND timbre changes. I have an abiding respect for Laurens Hammond for creating that electronic Expression pedal.. which responds to the human ears non linearity- brilliant invention, that I think is taken for granted- meaning. a B3 would not be the B3 we love, were it not for that Expression pedal which has a relatively huge sweep and a tonal change that corresponds to Fletcher Munson curve.. just brilliant!

 

[AnotherScott]

have an abiding respect for Laurens Hammond for creating that electronic Expression pedal.. which responds to the human ears non linearity- brilliant invention, that I think is taken for granted- meaning. a B3 would not be the B3 we love, were it not for that Expression pedal which has a relatively huge sweep and a tonal change that corresponds to Fletcher Munson curve.. just brilliant!

I wonder whether he specifically designed the pedal to work that way, or if it was just another one of the many "happy accidents" that make a tonewheel organ sound the way it does! But you're right, the pedal on a Hammond is definitely doing more than just volume, and I don't think any of the workstations really have a pedal setting to specifically duplicate its effect (I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm wrong). That's one of the nice things about the current Hammonds (SK1, etc.), they address that. I actually don't know if any of the other clones do. Nord, Numa, Mojo... anyone know off-hand? Not just increasing overdrive with volume, but altering tone as well?

[MoodyBluesKeys]

The eight pedals are:

Two volume (most of the time - these are plugged into the CC-1 jack of each Kurzweil, which defaults to expression, but can be MIDI changed on any patch to other functions, such as filter sweep, wah, etc.).

 

Six pedals - three on each Kurzweil - plugged into SW1, SW2, and SW3. I have a pair of triple-pedal units - Fatar originally made these and sold them in Europe, but I have not been able to find them in the US; so I made them. Kurzweil has changed their pedals - now they are made in Asia. The older design was made in Italy (probably by Fatar), and was available in single and double designs. The double design looks like the pedals on a grand piano. I took apart a couple of single pedals, cut out the needed area in the center of the double pedals, and made them into triple pedals. So - it is like a miniature pedalboard, with the three all joined.

 

For piano sounds, they operate as: 1-Sustain, 2- Sustenudo, 3- Una-Corda. (Only a couple of the Kurzweil patches have all three functional). For most other non-organ patches, I only use the first for sustain, although I can program them in any individual patch for whatever functions I desire. Example: For a cantata, I setup the Kurzweils using the Quick Access mode, which allows me to set up ten sequential patches that can be made from either programs or setups. I then set switch pedal 2 & 3 for forward and backward, so I can change patches in the middle of the song without taking either hand out of play. If I need more than 10 patches for the cantata, I manually switch to the next bank of 10.

Finally, in the Kurzweil's KB3 organ mode, the first switch pedal becomes slow/fast Leslie, and the other two are usually not used.

 

Week to week, I don't usually get involved in much special programming, but I love having two boards - because I can be playing one and setting up the other for the next needed patch. (Also, frequently I don't play the same patches in the service as I did in any rehearsal, because the mix of musicians may change, and I need to do something different).

 

I don't know of any other keyboards that have the amount of MIDI control that is possible on the Kurzweil performance controller series. The PC361 has nine sliders, plus the modwheel and pitchwheel, and a number of panel switches that can be changed in function.

[Delaware Dave]

".. I don't think any of the workstations really have a pedal setting to specifically duplicate its effect .."

The Kurz PC3 does. The 'PreampResp' on the MISC page was specifically designed to do this. A pedal with a long throw like the FC7 draws out the varied frequency response and de-emphasis curves.

[I-missRichardTee]

".. I don't think any of the workstations really have a pedal setting to specifically duplicate its effect .."

The Kurz PC3 does. The 'PreampResp' on the MISC page was specifically designed to do this. A pedal with a long throw like the FC7 draws out the varied frequency response and de-emphasis curves.

 

"Come again"! Can you run that by me again, please.. think keyboard electronics for dumbies!

[Delaware Dave]

In other words the CC pedal function of the PC3, while in KB3 mode, was designed to mirror the expression pedal intricacies of the B3.

[Leh173]

Fact is, I am hoping to someday control more than the bass volume, by hopefully having simultaneous control, over eg, string swells and bass part.

 

As I am writing this, it occurs to me, that touch sensitivity must be adapted to volume, in a way I have never before given a moments thought about!

 

Second edit !! It also occurs to me would a keyboard have the potential to be split so right side could register either aftertouch or velocity that the left side would not also register! Hmm maybe the bass would have to be strictly pedal controlled volume wise and the strings or pad etc, would be on another vol pedal. If I sound like I am thinking aloud, I am!

To reiterate, simple fact is, frequent volume control is a huge factor in imitating a real elec bass part. I can't believe I took this for granted... all these decades playing left hand bass ( and elec bass and Organ ) and it required years of nothing but elec bass playing on the church gig to bring it home to me, so to speak! Oh well, live and learn!

 

I think you need to take advantage of a number of programming options in Live Mode on the Fantom G. You could also use 2 expression pedals. The Fantom will allow the pedals to be whatever you want too, so if you need their behaviour to switch you can do that. If bass is the main thing you want to control, keep that on one pedal, then the other one can control your string swells etc. The Fantom will allow you to split the keyboard and have certain parts ignore controllers if need be ( so a piano won't be affected by the expression pedal). Your second pedal may need to control another CC such as volume instead of instead of expression too so the two pedal don't end up doing the same thing. I'd also recommend taking advantage of the Fantoms seamless sound switching in Live Mode so you can move through a song using different Live Sets and you can change the parts you play for different parts of the song, and change what the pedals control or do. It can all be programmed in a live set. Currently I use the G with a sustain pedal, expression pedal and a footswitch (basically another smaller sustain) used to advance live sets, so in a song I can tap my foot on the footswitch and the live set will advance. Handy for changing sounds during songs, and there are no glitches. It's worth diving into the Fantom, as it's highly customizable for live playing and very flexible. Hope these ideas help.

 

Maybe stick with Roland pedals too just for compatibilites sake.

[I-missRichardTee]

[Handy for changing sounds during songs, and there are no glitches. It's worth diving into the Fantom, as it's highly customizable for live playing and very flexible. Hope these ideas help.

 

Maybe stick with Roland pedals too just for compatibilites sake.

Do you have any thoughts/ experience about the way MIDI VOL or Expression for that matter, changes over time? I don't particularly want to get a Kurz but it sounded as if Kurz has different options in the WAY the MIDI volume changes.

Also, you think stick with Roland Pedals eh? The Yamaha ( I own both, though I have not used the Roland in a while ) is more substantial.

The largest sweep, the most customizable sweep, and the ease of using the foot on a pedal for purposes of musical expression, are all factors in which pedal.

My friend / musician owns the G6 and his thought was for bass let it be sensitivity to make keyboard bass vol changes- for strings he said a pedal.

I have never in my career dealt with these issues, so if I am rambling, it is not intentionally! Thank you for feedback.

[AnotherScott]

The largest sweep, the most customizable sweep, and the ease of using the foot on a pedal for purposes of musical expression, are all factors

Largest sweep: Sweep is always max 0 to 127. A long throw pedal can space those values out over a longer span than a short throw pedal, though.

 

Customizable: You can tweak some pedals so that they don't throw the full range, that's about it. Anything beyond that is something you would do in the board (i.e. what should the board do when it sees a certain value)

 

Ease of Use: There's not much more to do than plug them in. Maybe there's a pot trim for minimum level, that's it.

[Leh173]

Also, you think stick with Roland Pedals eh? The Yamaha ( I own both, though I have not used the Roland in a while ) is more substantial.

 

Only to take out the "WTF?" factor with non Roland pedals behaving oddly. I agree the Yamaha is better pedal, but I've gotten used to the EV-5. It works. Anotherscott describes it's operation.

 

There's a lot of programming tricks you can use on the Fantom to make the pedals do different things... It may be possible to change the way an expression controller works (like limiting a range, customizing the sweep etc) but I've found experience with it has been the key. Working out how it responds and adapting my playing. But you probably can do what you want in Fantom somehow. It's possible to route any controller to the pedals not just expression, so you could use those, but it would require patch edits and working out what you want to control and how and where.

[J. Dan]

If you like the Yammy pedal, just get the adaptor and be done. The roland pedal is OK with rolands. I know what he means about travel. Physically the yammy pedal sweeps a longer distance, which really does help with control. But I've used Roland pedals with Rolands for other things besides Organ and found them to be OK. I have both EV5 and FC7 pedals. The EV5 doesn't work right with my Kronos, but I use it anyway at home when I leave my FC7 at practice. I use it more as and on/off, for the parts that need to be switched between in my layers, but I can get a blend if I have to. B3 kind of sucks with it in that context, but I can get by for learning songs, knowing I'll be practicing with the FC7 at rehearsal and using it live. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an adapter to go the other way - EV5 to FC7 - who would want it? I could make one, but it's not worth it.