Korg Forums

[Ribble]

Good evening all.

Having spent a decade on Roland and Nord stage pianos, I made the bold and expensive leap onto the Kronos series. It’s generally excellent but something has irked me.

I’ve used Roland DP-10 continuous sustain pedals for years and they’ve worked in every keyboard they’ve been plugged intoi - until now. Despite calibrating it for half dampening, the pedal acts as an on-off for the sustain. Being a classical player primarily, an on-off sustain is simply not good enough.

Does anyone else have experience of using Roland pedals with the Kronos, and as to whether they solved the issue raised here? I really don’t want to fork out £60 for Korg’s own dampener pedal...

Rob

[benny ray]

Here you go!

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiNzPur76DYAhVI0oMKHW_9BHEQtwIILjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwUmwqt-dgTo&usg=AOvVaw069BmWmVW1j9xRYw9-mvDS
_________________
K2 Kronos 88, Mojo 61, Korg CX3, Roland FANTOM 7

[Ribble]

Thanks for the reply but I think you’ve misunderstood my query. My issue is not that the pedal is backwards but more that my damper pedal is working like a footswitch.

If I slowly press the damper, the sustain suddenly kicks in around halfway down, and similarly it abruptly cuts off about halfway back up. Has anyone got experience of making their Roland DP-10 work like a half-damper pedal rather than an on-off switch?

[dfahrner]

Did you do the Global mode half-damper calibration, as described on page 817 of the Parameter Guide? That's more than just selecting half-damper or switch for the program, the calibration adjusts for the resistance value of the variable resistor in the pedal...different half-damper pedals have different resistance values, and different internal connections, too: Korg uses a variable resistance between tip and shield of the connector, while Yamaha connects the resistance across tip and shield, with the center tap (the variable resistance) connected to the ring...I don't know how Roland half-damper pedals are connected, but if your pedal is working as a switch now, it's probably just a calibration problem...

df

[voip]

The Roland DP-10 pedal, as is, won't work with the Kronos because all the "action" (i.e. electrical resistance change) inside the pedal comes out on the ring connector of the jack plug, whilst on the Kronos, the Damper pedal's input corresponding to the ring connector is not connected to anything. The Tip and Sleeve of the DP-10 plug are connected across the pedal's 10k potentiometer, so all the Kronos sees is a fixed 10k resistor in the "continuous" pedal mode.

Based on various postings across a range of forums, a likely fix would be to make a simple adapter cable, comprising a TRS jack socket connected by a short length of wire to a TRS plug, as follows:

Socket --> Plug
R --> T
T --> S

Then connect the DP-10 to the socket of the adapter, and the plug from the adapter to the Kronos. The half-damper calibration will need to be performed.

If this works, but the wrong way round, either reverse the Kronos pedal polarity setting, as described above or, in the adapter cable socket part, swap the connection from Tip to Sleeve, leaving the Ring as is.

It's worth bearing in mind that not all Kronos Programs have half-damper enabled, though on most if not all of the pianos this should be enabled, by default.

If the decision is subsequently made to get the Korg DS-1H pedal, then the half-damper calibration will need to be carried out again, because the DS-1H contains a 30k potentiometer.

[Ribble]

In reply to the previous post, yes - I did the calibration. Good suggestion though!

Now Voip - I’m not a technical man so I will get in touch with a local cable manufacturer and see what can be done. A female TRS for the pedal to go into going to a TRS jack seems like a reasonable idea.

Am I right in thinking that all this would be solved with buying the Korg-specific pedal though?

[voip]

The DS-1H pedal should work out of the box, once the half-damper calibration is done.

[KK]

[dfahrner]

I can't find any information online about Roland DP-10 internal connections, but the general consensus is that it doesn't work with the Kronos in "Continuous" / half-damper mode (set by that switch on the side); in "Switch" mode it's just on/off with no half damper effect, and I imagine that works if the polarity setting is correct...voip's suggestion for an adapter might work if the DP-10 is the same as the Yamaha FC3; I've built such adapters to use the FC3 with the Kronos, although I just connect the ring connection from the pedal to the tip going into the Kronos, and leave the tip from the pedal and the ring going into the synth unconnected...here's a far more detailed explanation from a previous posting:

"A half-damper pedal (Korg DS-1H and Yamaha FC3, anyway) has an internal potentiometer (pot) that turns as the pedal is depressed. The synthesizer then measures this varying resistance and uses this to change the sound's release time, the way a "real" piano sound would die out faster or more slowly depending on how quickly you released the damper pedal, or how far it was pushed down.

"The Korg half-damper pedal has a 25K pot connected as a variable resistor between the tip and sleeve of the pedal's output jack, so the resistance is 25K when the pedal is up and O when the pedal is down. The Yamaha has a 10K pot connected across the tip and sleeve of a TRS jack, with the ring connected to the wiper of the pot; the tip and ring are shorted when the pedal is up, and the ring and sleeve are shorted when the pedal is down*. It's easy to rewire a pedal, or build an adapter, so you can use one brand of pedal with a different brand of synth; I've done this to use Yamaha FC3 sustain pedals with Korg synths."

* Well, it's not actually shorted: with an adapter, the FC3 really goes from about 10K / up to 1K / down, a lot smaller range than the DS-1H's 25K up / 5 ohms down...it's sometimes hard for the Kronos to calibrate with this resistance range, and some FC3s can't be calibrated at all (!)...and the Roland DP-10?...who knows?

Nothing complicated about this, eeh?...the best solution would probably be to just buy a Korg DS-1H pedal, which we know will work, and seems pretty solid and reliable, too...

df

[Liviou2004]

Hello, I've tried many solutions and searched for a third party half damper. Never found ! So, finally, I've bought the Korg half damper wich is a very good quality and works as soon as plugged in.

[voip]

The DP-10 pedal's internal circuit board is labelled DP-8, according to a posting in another forum. It is an assumption that the components mounted on the PCB are the same. If someone could measure the resistance between tip and sleeve on the DP-10, that would be useful.

.

[Ribble]

OMG - This is why we can't have nice things. Of all the things to be universal, you'd think a blinking foot pedal would be one!

I really don't want to fork out £60 on a foot pedal but I think I'm going to have to. Does anyone know if the Korg PU-2 can do half damping? And whether the other two pedals in the unit could be assigned to, say, skip through setlists or trigger samples or launch the starship enterprise?

[dfahrner]

From a post on the Motifator website:

"Roland DP10 connections: Tip is WHITE (wiper of the pot), Ring is RED (+), Sleeve is BLACK (Gnd)"

...and as previously noted, in the Korg DS-1H pedal: Tip is wiper of the pot, Sleeve is ground...on the Kronos schematic, Tip is the input to a voltage divider (where the voltage across the variable resistance is measured), Ring is not connected, and Sleeve is ground...so the DP10, with a variable resistance between Tip and Sleeve, ought to work if the variable resistance is anywhere close to the DS-1H's 25K (although it might work in reverse, depending on which ends of the pot the white and black wires are connect to)...as voip said, anybody have a DP10 and a multimeter?

I think I'll get back to playing music now...

df