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The Eat at Joe's Kawai K5000 Message Board Digest
Poor Expression Pedal Performance


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Expression pedals
 Monday, 21-Sep-98 01:21:52 

      203.18.148.100 writes:

      Has anyone used the K5K with an expression pedal? With my setup, I've monitored
      the MIDI output during expression pedal movements and the number of discrete
      positions sent is very minimal. Thats is, the K5K seems to 'sample' the
      position of the pedal quite slowly which results in audible jumps.
      Also, with the default settings for most of the patches I've used, the pedal
      starts attenuating the sound only at the very end of the pedal's 'swing'.
      Anyone got any suggestions for improving pedal performance?
      Thanks,

      Paul 

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Re: Expression pedals
 Monday, 21-Sep-98 15:43:00 

      130.91.50.18 writes:

      I have a Yamaha FC-7 plugged into my K5000S. It seems to work fine although
      mostly I use it to send MIDI to my UltraProteus and that has no problems. I
      would see if you could borrow a diferent pedal from your local music store
      to test out. I tried several pedals, and found the feel of the FC7 the best.
      (The location of the hinge point makes a big difference--the Yamaha is not in
      the center, but a quarter of the way up the pedal) 


      Geof 

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Re: Expression pedals
 Monday, 21-Sep-98 16:20:21 

      206.234.68.7 writes:

      I use a Roland expression pedal connected to my Roland keyboard, which controls
      the K5000R. (I set it to CC71 or CC80 for E/O or User1.) I've noticed a lack of
      smoothness in response to the pedal. I can easily hit precise values on the
      display on the Roland, but the K5000R display and response seem just a little
      jerky and maybe a little slow. Sometimes with very steep filters I have to
      really work on getting a smooth sweep.

      I wonder if this is the same thing you're noticing. 

      Mitch 

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(To Geof and Mitch) Re: Expression pedals
 Monday, 21-Sep-98 18:28:01 

      203.18.148.100 writes:

      Geof,
      You've raised a good point; the resistance 'path' of the pedal that it moves
      through as you depress it is probably important. The path would be determined by
      the hinge position (and whether the pot is a log or lin type, but I'm assuming all
      the pots are of the linear type). Like your Yamaha FC7, my (crappy, overpriced,
      plastic) Ensoniq CVP-1 has its hinge about a quarter of the way up.  Could you do
      me a favour? The potentiometer used in the pedal may be important so if you have a
      multimeter, could you measure the resistance between the ring and sleeve of the
      pedal's jack for me?

      Mitch,
      Have you also noticed that nothing happens until the pedal is depressed at least
      half way? If you have done a comparison with the same pedal on another instrument
      and the Kawai performed worse then it would suggest it's the Kawai problem, yes?
      Also, have you noticed that if the pedal is sitting within its 'useable' range
      that the K5000 sometimes spits out control changes even though you haven't touched
      it? I think we have another contender for the next OS upgrade...

      Paul. 

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Re: (To Geof and Mitch) Re: Expression pedals
 Tuesday, 22-Sep-98 08:08:51 

      206.234.68.7 writes:

      I did some more tests, mostly by picking up the pedal in my hands and watching
      the displays on the Roland and the K5000R. It's a nice pedal, a Roland EV-5, but
      it has a dead spot at the bottom which can't be removed with the adjustment dial.

      Apart from that, with the tests I was doing, movement seemed fairly smooth. But
      in real use, there is some occasional jerkiness, maybe when I first press the
      pedal. At this point I can't put my finger on it. 

      Mitch 

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Good Questions
 Wednesday, 23-Sep-98 15:08:18 

      156.56.126.157 writes:

      I have had no luck getting my Kurzweil expression pedal to do its trick with the
      K5ooo. It worked great on my Xp-eighty, but I can't get it to do more than very
      minimal changes on the Kawai. For the most part, it seems somewhat useless, which
      is an immense shame. 

      Andrew 

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Re: Good Questions
 Friday, 25-Sep-98 08:03:34 

      206.242.150.66 writes:

      What would really be interesting is the pedal's resistance values at different
      positions (i.e. fully up and down, and at half and quarter intermediate positions).
      It might well be that the K5K responds differently to changes in pedal resistance
      than the other devices mentioned before. In other words, the positions of the
      pedal are converted to other controller values. Another possible problem might
      be the speed at which the pedal values are processed. I did however notice on my
      K5000S that editting values on the display can be quite unresponsive while the
      device is playing from an external MIDI source. Perhaps sampling of the pedal
      position has a similarly low priority internally?

      Anyway, I don't have a pedal with my K5000S yet, so I can't help you in this. I
      do plan to purchase one, so I'll keep my eye on further developments in this
      discussion. 

      Kees 

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More on expression pedals
 Friday, 25-Sep-98 23:28:38 

      203.18.148.100 writes:

      I've done some more experiments with the expression pedal and the results are
      very strange. It appears as though the way Kawai have implemented the electronics
      is non-standard (surprise, surprise) and the K5000 doesn't just 'read' the voltage
      on the pot's wiper. I believe that it was designed to ONLY work properly with the
      V-20X pedal listed in the manual. This is a shame but I'll buy their damn pedal
      if means I can use the feature. I've sent an e-mail to Kawai Australia asking if
      they could clarify the situation.  I'll pass any info they give me to this message
      board (my optimism amazes me sometimes).

      On the other hand there may be two expression pedal 'standards'. Geof's Yamaha
      FC-7 may be similar to the Kawai V-20X and that's why he is happy with its
      performance. Any ideas?

      Paul 

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Re: More on expression pedals
 Thursday, 01-Oct-98 21:30:49 

      12.79.2.217 writes:

      Hi,
      I initially tried a Roland expression pedal. It did not work. The Kawai Pedal
      works reliably. 

      The Expression Pedal is one of the nicest parts of the K5K because you can map it
      to a lot of different functions independently for each source in your patch. 

      It is too bad that the pedal voltage is proprietary, but on the other hand, the K5K
      is such an amazing instrument that I can't begrudge Kawai anything regarding it. 

      You can get one from Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center. They also have very
      inexpensively priced K5K's.

      Pete 


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