Korg Forums

[korg_nikos]

I own a Korg Triton Le and a Korg Triton Extreme and i have two Korg DS1H Half Damper Pedals.

Those 2 Damper pedals feature half dampering since they both have TRS (Stereo) Plugs.

To be honest i have never managed to make them work as Half Dampers. I have confirmed that both of my keyboards (Le and Extreme) feature Half Damper capabilities and in order not to have any manufacturer compatibility issues i bought Korg Half Damper Pedals.

When i am trying to calibrate both pedals to both keyboards as per their manuals everything seems to go right. After calibration i press "done" and write in global settings.

However when i select a piano program to check the half damper effect it seems it does not work. It works as if it were a simple Damper pedal (on-off without half damper)

Even supposing that either one pedal or one keyboard had some hardware malfunction (a or b)

a:(Broken Tip Ring or Sleeve contact of DS1H itself or faulty potentiometer)
b:(Broken Tip Ring or Sleeve contact of Damper input Jack on the keyboard)

it is probably unlikely that both keyboards or pedals do not work as they should because i tested both pedals to a single keyboard and both keyboards to a single pedal.

As far as the guidelines of calibration given in the manuals are concerned, i think that they are not pretty clear. The calibration screen shows a ratio bar and asks for setting of MIN/MAX.
What does it mean since the process does not allow the user to set MIN and MAX separately? Do i have to fully press the pedal down or not in this procedure?

I have also searched for a specific manual of DS1H since when i bought them new they didn't contain any document in their official packaging. Anyway it seems that Korg has not issued any manuals for this product since i can not find anything on the net as well.

I don't think that there is anything wrong (hardware-wise) as far as my equipment is concerned. I have also doublechecked polarities and even reset the keyboards to their factory settings with the most up to date OS's.

Am i missing anything here? Am i doing anything wrong as far as Calibration procedure is concerned?

Do i have to press the Damper Pedal somewhere in the middle (halfway down) in order for the keyboard to recognize half dampering during calibration procedure?

I know that this pedal sends cc#64 (Damper) varying from 000 to 127.
Normally somebody would expect the following:

MODE A
000 corresponds to Damper Off
1-126 corresponds to 126 different levels of intermediate dampering
127 corresponds to Full Damper

Is the above how the Half Damper pedal works?
If not then i guess that the keyboard responds in Value Ranges like below.

MODE B
From 000 to xxx corresponds to Damper Off
From (xxx+1) to yyy corresponds to a single specific intermediate Damper Level. ("xxx" is always lower than "yyy" and both may take values from 001 to 126 but the keyboard responds to one Specific Damper intermediate Level.
From (yyy+1) to 127 corresponds to Full damper.

An example for the above MODE B could be the following. (xxx=042 and yyy=84)
000-042: Keyboard corresponds to Damper Off
043-084: Keyboard corresponds to one specific level of Damper (Half Damper)
085-127: Keyboard corresponds to full Damper.

In this case the keyboard does not correspond in 128 different levels like in MODE A (1 "No Damper" Level, 126 different intermediate Levels and 1 final "Full Damper" Level) but it corresponds only to 3 different levels according to the range of Pedal Values (i.e 1 "No Damper" Level for the low range, 1 "Single Half Damper" Level for the medium range and 1 "Full Damper" Level for the high range of pedal inputs.

What is happening after all? How does the Keyboard respond? Does it do it like in MODE A or in MODE B?

If it does it like in MODE B then i guess that Calibration Procedure has to do with the setting of xxx and yyy values so as to determine those 3 input ranges. In this case xxx would be "MIN" and yyy would be "MAX" However somebody would expect that the calibration procedure would ask the user to set separately MIN and MAX.

If you check the below images from Half Damper Calibration Screens from Le and Extreme respectively you will see that the calibration is done in a MIN/MAX percentage. This is what i understand as an Electrical Engineer.

KORG TRITON LE


KORG TRITON EXTREME


In this case if you press the pedal and the bar goes up to 90% this mean that MIN:MAX = 0.9. This means that xxx:yyy is 0.9.

So if yyy=110 for example then xxx is 110 x 0.9 = 99.
Therefore the keyboard would correspond as follows:

000-099 (Damper Off)
100-110 (Half Damper)
111-127 (Full Damper)

So we see that the half damper range is pretty "narrow" and perhaps this does not allow the human foot to distinct it. One should be very precise and delicate to achieve that. Also the damper effect comes up after 099 which requires more than half way pedalling.

Lets check another case.
If during the calibration procedure we press the pedal in such a way that the bar goes up to 10% then thinking in a similar way like before we have the following.

xxx:yyy = 0.1. This means that if yyy=110 then xxx= 0.1 x 110 = 11.
Therefore the keyboard would correspond as follows:

000-011 (Damper Off)
012-110 (Half Damper)
111-127 (Full Damper)

This is a more convenient setting making Half Damper Range a lot more "wide" than before achievable without requiring precise pedalling.

Final case
Lets suppose that we set the bar at 50%.
This means that xxx:yyy = 0.5 This means that if yyy=100 then xxx= 0.5 x 100 = 50. Therefore the keyboard would correspond as follows:

000-050 (Damper Off)
051-100 (Half Damper)
101-127 (Full Damper)

I wonder how someone could set the absolute values of xxx and yyy. If my thinking above is correct then it is not clear how the keyboard sets xxx and yyy which determine the ranges of different response.

Could somebody please advise?[/b]

[Hanon_CTS]

Hello korg_nikos,
Not that this post is going to be helpful at all, but...
I noticed odd behavior with my DS1H used with my M3.
Unlike your scenario, mine actually triggers as a half damper, it just never repeats the same effect at the same position.

As a test, I configured a patch that would allow CC#64 to control OSC frequency so I could better hear what the DS1H control signal was doing.
I was surprised that the signal from a brand new pedal jumps all over the place almost like it has a bad potentiometer.

I've since stopped trying to use it and went back to using a standard switch type pedal.

I guess my point is that you're not alone in your disappointment with this device.

Cheers, Hanon
_________________
I used to play Korg instruments, then I took an arrow to the knee.

[korg_nikos]

Hi Hanon_CTS,

First of all thanks for your reply.

What i did yesterday was to connect the DS1H to my Korg Triton Extreme Damper Input and then send Midi Out of Triton to Midi Input of my Audio/Midi Interface (RME).

After that i launched a Midi Monitoring Software so as to check how the Midi Values vary according to Damper Pedal Pressure.

What i observed was the following.

1. Even with very slight pressure on the pedal (achieved by delicate pressure by hand in order to be more precise) the Minimum Hex Midi Value i could see on the Midi Monitor screen was 26 (HEX) which equals 38 (DEC). That means that in a scale from 000 to 127 the minimum achievable value above zero is 38. That means tha the potentiometer in the pedal is very abrupt. It feels like exponential or high slope linear variation.

2. Then i tried to see how much pressure would correspond to Midi Value 7F (HEX) which is 127 (DEC). It seems that the Damper value reaches 127 (Full Damper) when the pedal reaches (mechanically) around halfway. Therefore as you guess beyond halfway the pedal does not vary any value.

This gives the following ranges (roughly)

1. ACTION: Pedal Unpressed. RESPONSE: No Damper at all
2. ACTION: Pedal Slightly Pressed (10%-30% pressed). RESPONSE: Half Damper but quite difficult to achieve it by foot. It needs precision because as we know the Damper Pedals have a low arc (angle) displacement .
3. ACTION: Pedal Pressed above 30% up to 100%. RESPONSE: Full Damper.

I have tried to calibrate the Pedal several times. The result is always the same.

So what i actually have is a Pedal which connected to an instrument results to a very rough and abrupt response from 0%-30% and beyond that up to 100% it gives the same response.

However i really don't know what to blame for this. Shall i blame the potentiometer of the pedal itself or the way that the OS of my Triton responds to it?

I have tried both Triton Extreme and Triton Le with 2 DS1H pedals and the results are the same.

[Hanon_CTS]

Hi Nikos,
your results match mine, but in a much more scientific way.
I took my pedal apart to see if there was any adjustment or mechanical calibration "there isn't".

I'm thinking of testing mine with an ohm meter to see how linear the sweep is.

I'll post back the results.

Cheers, Hanon
_________________
I used to play Korg instruments, then I took an arrow to the knee.

[Hanon_CTS]

OK,
so I tested mine with an ohm meter and found that it reads
30K between Tip and Sleeve while un-depressed, or 0%
3K between Tip and Sleeve fully depressed, or 100%

There doesn't appear to be any circuit between Tip and Ring, or Ring and Sleeve. The Ring is only connected to chassis ground.

As I thought earlier, the travel isn't smooth at all and appears at several points in the travel to change resistance readings very erratically.

I am concluding that my pedal is defective.

{edit: there is a type of calibration adjustment. There's a Philips head screw that applies pressure to the potentiometer frame. This screw is visible looking straight into the pedal front opening, but requires the bottom to be removed from the pedal if the screw is to be turned CCW as the frame won't follow the screw back out and the frame must be bent by gentle prying. after doing this my pedal range has expanded, the resistance values are 0%= 32K 100%= 1K My pedal is still erratic, but the Half damper point is closer to the middle than the bottom.}
_________________
I used to play Korg instruments, then I took an arrow to the knee.

[korg_nikos]

Thanks for the confirmation Hanon.

However i dont think that our pedals are defective (meaning that our particular pedals do not operate well). I have tried with a third one and the results are the same.

Therefore I guess that it is due to bad design from the factory. In the beginning i thought that it was the OS of the keyboard that responded erraticaly to resistance variation but after your trials using an Ohm meter it seems that it is the potentiometer itself to blame for this response.

I dont know if Korg used logarithmic or linear pot.

Anyway thanks again.