I'm going through sustain pedals like there's no tomorrow.

[EscapeRocks]

Just to add to the fray, my Yamaha FC3 is 5 years old. My two FC7's are 10 years old. They've been stomped on, run over, thrown around, used as foot rests even before I started losing my now 53 lbs. Rock solid.

 

I love the Yamaha pedals so much a have adapters and so forth to make them work with keyboards that don't like their wiring .

 

I do admit the FC3 sustain pedal can walk around on slick stages. I just use some gaffer tape in those situations. The FC7's stay put. They are connected by that little plate on the bottom.

 

I bought a Livewire sustain from GC a while back as a backup. It works fine as well, but is subjectively not as robust as y Yamaha.

[OB Dave]

Let me throw this idea out there: do you know exactly what it is that's failing on the pedal? Have you ever dissected one to see what's failed? Because based on what you're telling us, I'd like to offer the possibility that it's not the pedal mechanism that's failing but the cord, and if so, it probably has to do with how the cord is coiled up after your gig. Do you just wrap the cord around the pedal, or do you coil it in a separate loop like you would an instrument cable?

 

The correct answer is that you should be coiling it in a loop like an instrument cable. The reason is that most of these sustain and expression pedals use wire that's a lot like instrument cable, only crappier. Wire that doesn't take kindly to being bent in a tight radius.

 

I have a friend who goes through MagSafes (MacBook Pro power supplies) like crazy. The problem, I tell him, is that he's using those little flip out handles to wrap the cord around. Don't do that, take both the thick and thin power cables and loop them loosely like you would a mic cord. Thing will last forever.

 

Anyway, not having seen your pedal, that's my guess. I use those roland sustain pedals with the flip out anti-slidey thing, and haven't had any issues. The one pedal that did fail was a Korg, and it was a cable failure.

[A McLeod III]

It is weird for me. I seem to keep breaking the bigger pedals like the Roland DP-10, but little POS footswitches like the DP-2 last ten years with me.

 

No idea why.

 

 

Best and sturdiest pedal ever for me: this Ensoniq footswitch. Built like a tank, a little more weight than most footswitches so it had better grip, and it had a 1/4" input rather than a hardwired cable: brilliant!

 

 

 

+1 on the Ensoniq Pedal. I have one of those that I originally purchased in the 80's with one of my ESQ-1's.

 

[midinut]

Not trying to derail this thread, but I reminded that a while back I read here about a piano-style sustain pedal that had a "chunk" out of it so it would fit over the top of the front bar on a Ultimate Apex/Deltex stand. Can someone tell me which pedal that was? Thanks in advance!

[Joe Muscara]

I have a friend who goes through MagSafes (MacBook Pro power supplies) like crazy. The problem, I tell him, is that he's using those little flip out handles to wrap the cord around. Don't do that, take both the thick and thin power cables and loop them loosely like you would a mic cord. Thing will last forever.

A friend of mine who does Mac consulting says it's okay to use the flip out ears, but don't bend the cable immediately coming out of the power supply itself. He says that's where most of them fail. Instead, let the cord come straight out of the block for an inch or two, then bring it back around the handles.

 

Sorry for the slight OT.

[Steve LeBlanc]

It is weird for me. I seem to keep breaking the bigger pedals like the Roland DP-10, but little POS footswitches like the DP-2 last ten years with me.

 

No idea why.

 

 

Best and sturdiest pedal ever for me: this Ensoniq footswitch. Built like a tank, a little more weight than most footswitches so it had better grip, and it had a 1/4" input rather than a hardwired cable: brilliant!

 

 

 

+1 on the Ensoniq Pedal. I have one of those that I originally purchased in the 80's with one of my ESQ-1's.

 

I used my Ensoniq pedal until someone stole it off a stage in 2008, I was heartbroken, loved that thing and played 100s of gigs with it.

 

 

FWIW, I have had several of the newer square sustain pedals quit on me, it's never been the cord with any of them...had to be something inside the pedal...I didn't bother to take them apart but I'm sure it wasn't the cords

[J. Dan]

Have you considered the possibility that there, in fact, is no tomorrow? Then you'd be going through them at the appropriate rate.

[bluzeyone]

Have you considered the possibility that there, in fact, is no tomorrow? Then you'd be going through them at the appropriate rate.

 

Snap! Or...not going through them at all.

[SpaceNorman]

I'm a fan of Yamaha pedals - FC7 for expression, FC3 and/or FC4 for damper/switch controls. I've got a couple in my rig that are over 10 years old and still going strong. I've had a couple pedals go south over the years - but in each case, it's been a damaged cable and never the pedal mechanism itself.

[I-missRichardTee]

TO lend sympathy, I too was going through sustain pedals like crazy,

 

Two things I heard were, they were perhaps exclusively manufactured in an Asian country that slips my mind ( Indonesia or ? ) . Apparently the terrible earthquake in Japan was related to a back up of production in this country... perhaps one of you can confirm this?This info is a few years old.

 

The second thing, has been mentioned here... be much more careful with the wrapping of cables.

 

 

[FedzKeyz]

Not trying to derail this thread, but I reminded that a while back I read here about a piano-style sustain pedal that had a "chunk" out of it so it would fit over the top of the front bar on a Ultimate Apex/Deltex stand. Can someone tell me which pedal that was? Thanks in advance!

 

The Korg DS-2H has such a "chunk" out of it. Not many places seem to stock it, though.

[MorayM]

My FC4s have been going fine for 5 years now, save for a bit of squeaking from one of them. I'm still looking for a decent short travel momentary footswitch for patch changes/tempo tap though. I've been going through a fair few of them. I'm starting to think that it'll be easier to make my own...

[RABid]

Move your pedal further under the keyboard. You will have to reach a little more but that will cause you to put less weight on the pedal and more weight on the other leg. It may be a little uncomfortable at first, but that will cause you to not overuse the sustain pedal.

[I-missRichardTee]

Hey Rabid. "Get a load" ( old time expression ) of this. I can't deal with sliding pedals, so I turn the sustain pedal 180 degrees around! I see where you say put less foot pressure on pedal. My foot is on the housing of the pedal.. not designed for that, but it's strong!

[RABid]

Hey Rabid. "Get a load" ( old time expression ) of this. I can't deal with sliding pedals, so I turn the sustain pedal 180 degrees around! I see where you say put less foot pressure on pedal. My foot is on the housing of the pedal.. not designed for that, but it's strong!

 

LOL. I remember the first time I got one of those Roland pedals and thinking "Why do they have a big piece of rubber connected by a single bolt that lets the rubber spin around and around?" It took me a while to realize that you have an option of either keeping the rubber out of the way, or positioning it so the it is under your foot to keep the pedal form sliding away. Don't ask me how long "a while" is.

 

And for a funny story on this subject... I've mentioned several times on this forum that I battle stage fright. It started early, as in, my first piano recital. I was in the 9th grade and had a long, difficult piece to play. I sat down in front of the crowd, placed my right foot on the sustain pedal and pressed down. My leg was shaking so bad that my foot would not stay on the sustain pedal. Finally I placed my left foot on top of my right foot to keep it from shaking off of the pedal. I assume it went okay after that. Everyone applauded at the end. I don't remember a note that I played.

[ProfD]

Since nobody else has mentioned it...take off your shoe or boot when you play.

 

See if the pedal breaks while playing in your socks. If so, you've just got a heavy foot mayne.

[JeffLearman]

I've repaired a number of pedals over the years. Most of them have been the Ensoniq/Fatar style. (The Ensoniq ones are manufactured by Fatar. Older ones have leaf springs, newer ones have those little black contacts in rubber. What're those called anyway?)

 

The most common failure is a cable, which is easy to test with an ohm meter. (Any gigging musician who wants to save money should have a cheap multimeter and a soldering iron, and know how to use them.)

 

The second most common failure is the leaf springs or contacts. With leaf springs, bending them can often fix them short term, but once you start that they'll generally break soon.

 

I've never had any luck repairing the little round black contacts. I've noticed that the ones that fail, there's usually something not quite right about the rubber boot they sit in, so those were flaky to begin with; I just didn't know it.

 

Most of them have interchangeable parts, so I save the broken ones. I recently bought a new pedal very cheap on ebay and it turned out to be New In The Box but defective but I was able to use its good parts to revive an older failed pedal. At the price there was no point returning it; and it took me less effort to fix than to ship.

[CEB]

I'm using a couple of Moog EP-3 CV pedals in my rig. Moog pedals have a 1/4" jack and you run a TRS cable from the pedal to your CV input. I never understood why more companies don't do this.

[WesG]

Rabid, have you tried drinking? (No I'm not kidding)

 

BTW, the advice about the cable-break location is spot-on. I have a friend who takes care of everything. It all goes back in the back when it's traveling to the gig or otherwise not in use. His m-audio pedal broke because of the sharp corner it faced in the box. I cut a relief hole in his box the last time I fixed it.

 

Wes

[I-missRichardTee]

Hey Rabid. "Get a load" ( old time expression ) of this. I can't deal with sliding pedals, so I turn the sustain pedal 180 degrees around! I see where you say put less foot pressure on pedal. My foot is on the housing of the pedal.. not designed for that, but it's strong!

 

LOL. I remember the first time I got one of those Roland pedals and thinking "Why do they have a big piece of rubber connected by a single bolt that lets the rubber spin around and around?" It took me a while to realize that you have an option of either keeping the rubber out of the way, or positioning it so the it is under your foot to keep the pedal form sliding away. Don't ask me how long "a while" is.

 

And for a funny story on this subject... I've mentioned several times on this forum that I battle stage fright. It started early, as in, my first piano recital. I was in the 9th grade and had a long, difficult piece to play. I sat down in front of the crowd, placed my right foot on the sustain pedal and pressed down. My leg was shaking so bad that my foot would not stay on the sustain pedal. Finally I placed my left foot on top of my right foot to keep it from shaking off of the pedal. I assume it went okay after that. Everyone applauded at the end. I don't remember a note that I played.

 

I feel for you... I have never suffered this issue... but neither have I played a hard piece of classical music... not easy at any age.

I played jazz solo in high school, I do not recall great fright, because jazz does not have every note under a microscope.

 

Drinking eh!

[OB Dave]

Zombie thread alert!

 

OK, so I have several Roland DP-10 sustain pedals. This afternoon when I went to practice, the one on my practice setup wasn't working. Weird. Swapped pedals and moved on.

 

Now I have it apart on my workbench and I see where it failed. One of the wires broke off inside the cable inside the molded strain relief near the connector. This comes as some surprise, as this is a right angle connector and frankly it just doesn't see that much strain. Lopped off the molded connector and soldered in a metal Switchcraft connector and all is well. Weird.

 

So for those of you going through pedals, I guess this confirms my earlier hypothesis about the cable, now that I've fallen victim to it.

 

Bonus fun fact: this very sustain pedal was lent to Jon Cleary in San Diego two days before he won his Grammy.

[nadroj]

Zombie thread alert!

 

OK, so I have several Roland DP-10 sustain pedals. This afternoon when I went to practice, the one on my practice setup wasn't working. Weird. Swapped pedals and moved on.

 

Now I have it apart on my workbench and I see where it failed. One of the wires broke off inside the cable inside the molded strain relief near the connector. This comes as some surprise, as this is a right angle connector and frankly it just doesn't see that much strain. Lopped off the molded connector and soldered in a metal Switchcraft connector and all is well. Weird.

 

So for those of you going through pedals, I guess this confirms my earlier hypothesis about the cable, now that I've fallen victim to it.

 

Bonus fun fact: this very sustain pedal was lent to Jon Cleary in San Diego two days before he won his Grammy.

 

Heh, funnily enough I took the advice from yourself and others about wrapping the pedal differently two years ago after I started this thread and haven't had any pedal issues since. Maybe it's because I upgraded to a Yamaha FC4, which is built like a tank, but I suspect the way I look after it helps. I also stopped hammering the pedal as much as per Tim's advice and am always aware of how much weight I'm putting on the thing.

 

Also, as per J-Dan's 2 year old advice I went for one of those tiny Roland DP-2s for my upper tier around the same time I got the FC4, and lo and behold it's pretty much indestructible. Only problem with it is if it somehow rotates live it can be tricky to trigger due to it's smaller pressure point, but with velcro stuck on underneath it it's a winner.

 

Anyways, thanks for necroing the thread, OBD! 'Tis living proof that advice on this forum works

[Griswold]

I was frustrated using pedals with my Ultimate Apex stand at first. I turned the sustain pedal sideways against the leg but it still kept moving around. I finally picked up the Korg DS-2H which as mentioned has that curvy cutout at the back. I have a roll of black, rubber shelf liner that I use for almost everything & I lined that indent with this. It took some velcro to hold it in place but now I slide the pedal over the Apex leg & it is rock solid.

 

I have a heavy, metal expression pedal (Boss FV-500L) which I also stuck this rubber to & it straddles the other Apex leg. The extra weight & grip holds it in place.

[Bobadohshe]

Interesting that this thread comes back to life at a time when I find myself going through pedals like there is no tomorrow. I have only gotten a couple months out of my latest couple. I am doing something wrong.

[RandyFF]

Color me surprised, I would not have guessed that failure of the cord was so common. I have two FC7s, and one of them started acting erratic. I was finally able to locate a spot about 4 inches beyond the case of the paddle. Last night I replace the cord and the TRS quarter inch jack, and it works just fine now.

 

I also have 2 MGear sustain pedals, both of which have failed on me. I replaced an obviously faulty cord on it, and it turns out one of the cheap ass wires pulled out of the plug itself. I've never seen that happen before.

 

After installing microphone wire and a new plug, it still doesn't work. I tested with a continuity tester and all of my connections are solid. It looks like the only two pieces that have any functional value within the pedal itself are 2 spongy contact switches in contact with the pedal. I can think of no way of testing these contact switches.

 

Turned out to be a big waste of my time!

[I-missRichardTee]

It's been maybe 5 to 10 years back

I believe there was some issue with the giant tidal wave in Indonesia that took 240,000 lives, that was related to a ( sole ??) manufacturer of pedals either running out of a raw material or some other reason why I could not even get a decent pedal for a while, because I thought I was told a particular Asian country was the main if not sole provider of pedals.. any way, I had found out about this story from a now defunct music store. The reason I was asking about pedals was because I went through 4- 7 pedals in a short time. Forget about a year or two, but losing pedals in mere months.

I ended up with the Roland pedal that has a piece of material ( rubber ) ) that you are supposed to step on, to hold pedal in place. But THAT pedal(s) ( and maybe one or two others by Roland ) has finally given me relief from the "this damn piece of junk pedal " urgh. It was driving me crazy all the malfunctioning pedals .

But rest assured you are not alone.

I recommend that Roland pedal DP-10, if your board is compatible with it.

[Aidan]

Is there any way you can angle your pedals so you are not effectively standing on it so much? The thing is, the mechanisms of neither acoustic piano pedals, nor their electronic imitators, are designed to be 'stood on' they are designed to work with a modest heel/toe rotation.

 

I get that some players here prefer to stand to play or in some cases, are required to do so but it doesn't surprise me that putting all that extra weight on the mechanism causes pedals to give up the ghost more quickly than those used by their seated brethren.

[theGman]

I have never quite figured out how to change the pedal angle from a sitting angle to a standing angle.