Coming from a strictly traditional piano playing background, up until just recently, I never explored the idea of utilizing a 'volume pedal' for playing organ and other voices on the arranger, of which I'm sure would be most beneficial to start learning..

So how did the idea now (after all these years) to use a 'volume pedal' suddenly come up now? I just recently purchased the 'Jimmy Smith Organ Pack' voice collection for Tyros 4 from Sounds For Keys. The collection is around 180mb and substantially larger than the samples included in the premium voice pak collection offerings from Yamaha, and believe me, the Jimmy Smith Pack's impressive ballsy B3 sound reflects this. Well worth the money imo. Kudos to Richard Postma at Sounds For Keys for producing this nice B3 collection. If you enjoy the sound of a Hammond B3 as I do, this pack if for you. Compared to the Tyros 4's onboard digital drawbars , this Jimmy Smith Pack is imho a significant cut above them, much richer, fuller, sounding far less compressed than the later, plus, as much as I appeciate the B3 demos on their site, the actually sound heard when played on the Tyros 4 sounds far more impressive because the demo audio quality is only 192kbs.

Ok, to get back on the 'volume pedal' topic. My SZ buddy Ian McNeill told me he just bought a Yamaha FC7 Volume Pedal for his T4 and highly recommended utilizing one, so last night I dug thru my closet and found the Boss FV-50 Volume Pedal I had received years ago as a Christmas gift but never got around to using. I connected it up to my Tyros 4 and thru trial & error & some experimentation got some nice sounding results, but now I realize I need to learn some established volume pedal techniques to realistically emulate specific instrument voices. I've heard that some people, in addition to organ, use it for strings, pedal steel guitar, and sax voices etc, so I'm hoping people here with volume pedal experience will share tips and advice on how to best utilize it for different instrument voices. All Volume Pedal playing tips shared greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. - Scott