Hi Guys

I just had a interesting conversation with Scott when for some reason we started discussing joysticks pitch bend wheels, I mentioned that I actually use an expression pedal assigned to pitchbend which frees up the left hand to play chords a lot easier.

Scott was not aware that this could be done. I only have experience with Korg keyboards and assumed that all boards could utilise an expression pedal this way.

Does anybody else use this method or is it just me ???

The one small snag is, you can only bend up or down but not both, as guitarist's normally bend up unless they use a whammy bar it is not a massive problem.

Kind regards

Col

Whammy bars explained, Col can you play like this
this guys crazy. he's a double whammy



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp80T9H-QIo

I use the expression pedal for pitch bend on the PSR-3000, you can assign it to R1, R2, L, or all three. I use R1 only for pitch bend for obvious reasons. You can also set up the amount of the bend in function/controller. You can save the setup with an appropriate right hand voice in a registration for instant recall.

I also use the expression pedal to 'kick in' the leslie effect on certain organ voices, and again save that setup to a registration.

I'm sure there are other ways to use the expression pedal, other than for volume expression...who does that?

I have two peddals in my setup, you can assign them to any midi controllable parameter when using softsynths..

2 peddals, 3 switches and a halfdamper peddal... it gives me much more controll....

-Volume of the right hand
-filter cutoff
-morphing sounds
-Delay
-Sustain
-Attack

All depending on the parameters i want to controll... Just have a look at the Alchemy videos i posted in another thread and you can see what i want to controll with them...

Bachus...can't seem to locate your videos on foot pedal control...a little help please.
Thanks
Larry

I used to use the expression pedal quite a bit for pitch bending, back when I was using PSR-S910/S900/3000 etc. and like Col, I had it set to bend up.

Now that I have the Tyros4, and incredibly expressive and responsive SA/SA2 voices, I've assigned the FC7 to "expression" (volume) and use my right foot on it (as I did with the Electone/Hammond organs), and use my left foot on the sustain pedal.

I love having foot control of the Right Hand volume, especially for instruments that change volume after the note is sounded, like a Sax, Trumpet or Organ.

I use the pitch wheel for both bending and modulation, in the same way as I did with my previous synths, such as the Mini-Moog and DX-7.

I never liked joysticks and bender levers (although I can use them if needed) and prefer the wheel.

My T4's mod wheel gives me filter control over the many pads and synth sounds, and fast/slow Leslie on the SA organs.

Overall, it's a pretty cool setup, and awesome for "live" play.

Ian

Colin, many thanks for the heads up about being able to assign the expression pedal to pitch bend on the microArranger.
Interestingly enough, I wasn't previously aware that this is possible on Yamaha arrangers too.

It's been a long mystery to me how guys like DonM and Ian McNeill are able to pull off such realistic sounding pitch bend emulation solos using the control wheel, when playing in auto accompaniment mode, while having to concurrently(?) trigger chords with their left hand. Because I nearly always keep the Left part voice 'enabled' (piano), I've since learned that Ian (and as I recall DonM as well) "mute" the left part voice, and merely utilize the left part to trigger chords only. I've now starting doing the same muting the LH voice, and making nice progress playing the PB wheel this way. In addition, I can understand now how dedicating the expression pedal to controlling volume (instead of pitch bend), and with the two (PB wheel & vol control pedal) working 'together' produces an even more realistic & impressive KB guitar emulation.

Thanks to a recent Skype voice chat with Ian, he shared a couple of useful controller wheel techniques w/me and demonstrated them to me on his KB live as well. Thanks Ian.
I even got a demonstration how he uses the PB wheel to emulate that classic whammy guitar sound.

Scott

The post was on synthesizer controll, and everything you can do with a knob or slider scaling 0-127, you can also do with a foot pedal.

WOW
Left hand to trigger chords and pitch bend wheel.
Right hand to play voices, switch variations and registrations.
Right foot to control volume.
Left foot to control sustain
...and you want to sing and concentrate on song lyrics too?

I need a break after all that work


Bachus...I still can't find the video

Didn't we all use to play organ, left hand, right hand, foot peddals, volume peddal, flanger with my knee and a sustain peddal for those piano voices..



The video is not about foot pedals, but about controlling softsynths through knobs sliders and pads in real time. The post is still in the top of this forum.