I know my way around guitar gear, but you crazy kids with your computer music are hard for me to follow. Here’s my problem, maybe someone can help:
I have a band, and since I’m the oldest and meanest, my bandmates assume (often wrongly) that I know what I’m doing. I recently recruited a keyboard player who knows piano but not electronic gear, and I set her up with a MIDI keyboard and a software organ called Native Instruments B4, which sounds as much like a Hammond B3 as anything we’re likely to be able to afford ever. Now she’s our organ player, and she’s great.
So far so good. Unfortunately, the MIDI controller keyboard I told her to buy doesn’t have an input for a volume pedal, aka “expression control.” I rather blithely assured her that this would be no problem; we could plug any old MIDI expression control pedal into the MIDI port of her FireWire audio interface (that I also told her to buy), and we could just assign the volume parameter to the pedal.
I still believe this to be true in theory. However, it appears that the “any old MIDI expression control pedal” I so confidently believed would solve our problem does not, strictly speaking, “exist.” All the expression control pedals I can find are designed to plug into your keyboard’s expression control port with a plain vanilla 1/4" plug, not into your MIDI box with a MIDI plug.
What we want is for her to be able to control the volume of the organ with her foot. What we don’t want is to buy a new $200 MIDI controller keyboard that already has the expression control jack. And I’m sketched out by the idea of using a guitar-type volume pedal between the audio box and the amp (though I guess that might work) 'cause it’s one more connection to go wrong in an already-almost-too-complicated setup.
It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard to control the volume at the source, the way the volume slider on the keyboard already does. But maybe it is. Any ideas?
My kit at home has a swell pedal attatched to the MIDI pedals I already have, but frankly for the amount I paid for that (don’t ask), you’d be better off finding an old Hammond and buying that.
A search for “MIDI foot pedal” produced a Behringer FCB1010 with two pedals, ten foot switches and two other switches to move up and down banks. It sells for $142.99.
Behringer is everyone’s favorite punching bag, but they sell a lot of equipment. I have a BCF-2000 and it works fine.
Go Lord NO! They weigh a ton, they are finicky as hell and the odds of finding a good one for a decent price is just about nil.
Personally, in a band situation, I don’t believe anyone alive could tell the difference between a real B3 and a good sample blindfolded.
Yeah, I’ve seen those. That’s what I’m talking about—for $150, I could just buy a new controller keyboard. I’m looking for about one fewer expression pedals and 10 fewer footswitches for about 1/4 the price.
It seems like such a thing should exist, doesn’t it? But nooo!
I’m tempted to run a 1/4" female jack directly off the volume slider pot on the existing keyboard and plug a regular expression control into that. Think the pot in the keyboard and the pot in the pedal are the same values? Seem likely they would be, but what do I know?
If you really love the pedal you bought, this item will take the output of it and produce MIDI controller information. But since it costs as much as the Behringer device, which give you two pedals and a way to quickly change patches.
Update: OK. As I said, the easy little box you want costs as much. I suppose it’s just a case of there being a magic price point where there is enough money for the wholesaler and the retailer to make a living. And that point is $150.
By the way, a $150 keyboard is a really crappy keyboard!
I have one! It’s an M series, sometimes known as the “Baby B3,” since it only weighs about as much as the planet Saturn (vs. the B3’s Jupiter). It is a tonewheel organ, though, sonically the same as the B3 except for no foldback on the upper registers (whatever that means). And yeah, it was $25 at Goodwill :eek:; so cheaper than your pedal I’m sure.
And as soon as we get big enough to tour with a full crew of extremely strong roadies, we can start using it live!
Sorry, I know most independent musicians are swimming in cash; I don’t know what I’m thinking, having the bad taste to be broke. Guess I’m just an asshole.
Sorry, that was a little snarky; I’m having a bad day. Anyway, I certainly don’t begrudge the manufacturers their $150; I just don’t have it. Also, when I say “$150 keyboard,” I mean “keyboard that cost $350 new that I can find used for $150,” like, say, an M-Audio Axiom 49.
Interesting. I can solder a little—but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that if I’m gonna bust out the soldering iron, I should:
Determine the value of the keyboard’s existing volume pot;
Take the volume pot out of the the circuit, wire in a female 1/4" jack where it was, and mount the jack on the back of the keyboard;
Mod a broken or very cheap volume or wah pedal with a pot of the same value as the original volume slider, and wire that pot directly to the pedal’s input jack;
Plug and play.
It seems to me that if I do this right, the schematic for the keyboard won’t change* at all*. It’s just that instead of the volume being controlled by a hand-operated slider pot on the keyboard, it’ll be controlled by a foot-operated rotary pot in the pedal.
It would work in a pinch, but would get very noisy very quickly. If you can built this circuit, you’d have a digital volume control and no chance of pot noise. Also, it would be a MIDI controller, and could control not just volume but any parameter the B4 software needs - like opening the louvers on the Leslie, etc.
Hmm. I’m not trying to be thick (it just comes naturally) but would my harebrained scheme not do those things also? The slider I’m talking about hacking into is an assignable MIDI controller, not a hard-wired volume control (which would be meaningless on this keyboard anyway, since it makes no sounds of its own). It’s currently assigned to volume by default, and we’ve had no call to change that, but as I understand it we could.
But it’s certainly possible that, once again, I think I know more than I actually do.
Ah, OK. I didn’t understand that was the case. I was assuming that it was an analog volume control you were talking about extending.
Feel free to try it, but I’d have to offer the following caveats:
The control is very likely to be soldered to a circuit board. You’d have to have the skill and tools to remove the solder and pull the pins of the pot out without damaging the circuit board or lifting the copper.
You’d also risk damaging other components around the pot. These circuits are wave soldered, and you might not have the right wattage of iron to remove the pot but avoid damage to the surface mounted components around it.
If you screw it up, you’d have an expensive boat anchor until you have the money to repair it.
The circuit I found is pretty darn simple and is designed with standard components that should be available at Radio Shack (at vastly inflated prices) or very cheaply on-line. The most expensive part is the $20 pre-programmed chip, which would be safe from too much heat by being socketed. Six capacitors, four resistors, one crystal, a couple of DIP switches.
Honestly, you’re going to come out a lot more ahead if you build this circuit, which should be easy, as opposed to opening up the keyboard and risking damage.
Woah, that sounds like a heavy project. I used to use B4 around the house and on a few jobs, but I had to do without expression pedal, which kind of blows if you’re really playing the organ. FWIW I use and like the Yamaha FC7 for a basic expression pedal – it has a wide sweep and feels pretty close to the real deal.
Keep updated? I’d like to know if you get creative with the electronics sheerly from interest in this kind of stuff.
Really? I’m looking at the schematic, and it looks only slightly more complicated than wiring up a Stratocaster. If you can read a schematic enough to know that the little downward pointing arrow is “ground” you’re going to be fine. I’d recommend building two if you’re going to build one, as the shipping on the parts is going to exceed the cost of all the parts aside from the processor - and you can put in the socket for that.
