KevinKauai
07-23-2004, 10:17 PM
One of the interesting topics to come out of today’s online IRC chat was the notion of being able to do “Key Switching” (all those nice KS instruments – both in GPO and GOS) with the help of an additional “foot pedal keyboard”. The basic idea here is to use the octave (or more) on the foot device to free your left hand. (To be accurate, the whole question of “how to key-switch” was spurred by Nicole’s question of “why does key-switching have to be done on the LEFT side of the keyboard,” to loosely paraphrase her original point.) One thing led to another and then the “foot pedal keyboard” notion was tossed out.
To me, this seems like a wonderful solution for those who key-switch. It frees your left hand to do additional playing (one hand is not always enough for a complicated line and/or chords). I have located two models of “foot pedal controllers” which would seem (on the face of it) to do the job. They are the Behringer FCB1010 (here: http://www.behringer.com/FCB1010/index.cfm?lang=ENG ) and the Roland PK5 (here: http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-ROL-PK5.html ). Street price for the Behringer is about $150 and for the Roland around $380 (before shipping).
A couple of technical questions remain: If you have a current MIDI controller, how would this second MIDI device “chain in” to your setup? I believe that you’d like it to simply act as an extension of your existing keyboard, but I am unsure of how this would be technically accomplished. Plainly, what you don’t want to occur is for the additional device to appear as a separate keyboard, unless you can have two devices communicating on the same MIDI channel (in which case it would seem to be only a duplicate).
The two pedals things are fairly distinct in design where the Behringer one is more “switch-like” and the Roland is more like what you might find on home organ. However, the Behringer has (to me) the additional advantage of having two “volume pedals” (which could presumably be stitched in through their cabling to your existing keyboard as potential Mod Wheel or other continuous controller).
Are there any MIDI gurus in the house?
tia ... KevinKauai
To me, this seems like a wonderful solution for those who key-switch. It frees your left hand to do additional playing (one hand is not always enough for a complicated line and/or chords). I have located two models of “foot pedal controllers” which would seem (on the face of it) to do the job. They are the Behringer FCB1010 (here: http://www.behringer.com/FCB1010/index.cfm?lang=ENG ) and the Roland PK5 (here: http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-ROL-PK5.html ). Street price for the Behringer is about $150 and for the Roland around $380 (before shipping).
A couple of technical questions remain: If you have a current MIDI controller, how would this second MIDI device “chain in” to your setup? I believe that you’d like it to simply act as an extension of your existing keyboard, but I am unsure of how this would be technically accomplished. Plainly, what you don’t want to occur is for the additional device to appear as a separate keyboard, unless you can have two devices communicating on the same MIDI channel (in which case it would seem to be only a duplicate).
The two pedals things are fairly distinct in design where the Behringer one is more “switch-like” and the Roland is more like what you might find on home organ. However, the Behringer has (to me) the additional advantage of having two “volume pedals” (which could presumably be stitched in through their cabling to your existing keyboard as potential Mod Wheel or other continuous controller).
Are there any MIDI gurus in the house?
tia ... KevinKauai