If you’re knowledgeable about sustain pedals, please help me understand. I have several sustain pedals I have acquired over the years. Think the most basic pedals you can get, some with polarity switches, some not. I want to use one as a Next pedal, through the System Actions plug-in. I have set the pedal behaviour as Momentary. Now I have checked all of my pedals through the MIDI message window, with these results.
Exactly one of them sends momentary, CC64-0 / CC64-127 MIDI at pedal press, to step forward only ONE rackspace/song at a time, and it’s the one I’m using.
Others send MULTIPLE CC64-0 / CC64-127, as many as 4, with ONE press of the pedal, advancing by corresponding 2-3-4 items instantly (useless for my need).
A couple of others send NO messages, BUT switching polarity via the back switch sends CC64-0 or CC64-127 messages, only once, no other messages are sent at pedal press.
Can you help me understand how the things work? Thanks.
how are they connected? Directly to MIDI ports? To USB, perhaps via audiofront interfaces? To Keyboards? To analog ports of a MIDI pedal board? Which ones?
I don’t think they are midi pedals since they were listed as simple “sustain” pedals. If I understand what you mean, they are not the kind of “Captain midi” button pedals, not programmable, but they do send whatever signal as CC 64. They are connected via the damper input in the top 61 key, which can be a Korg Keystage or a Komplete Kontrol, and assigned to System Actions 34 - Next. The brands are Proel, M-Audio, Korg, Lead Foot (the working one) plus another I can’t place because it only has a logo and the box was long since lost. They also look the same, except the Korg which is smaller and square-shaped, very light (too light). I’ll send the midi command tests asap. However, they are relally the most basic kind of sustain pedal you can buy.
Since they’re not actually generating MIDI themselves, it is your keyboards to which they are connected that are generating the CC 64 MIDI messages. If your keyboards support multiple zones, then It is absolutely possible that when you press a sustain pedal, your controller sends out the CC message on multiple channels, or multiple times on the same channel.
Your controller can most likely be configured to change that behavior. On the other hand, if your controller only supports a single zone but you’re seeing the same message multiple times when you must press the pedal once, then you may have a glitchy pedal.