Anyone here use floor pedals? As in keyboard type pedals?

[leschirons]

I need to think about adding some sort of extra sound to fill out a few bits in the band. Whilst our guitarist is great, we are, instrumentally, just a trio and at times, things get a little sparse behind a solo where keys or a second guitar would normally be. By way of example,  in the solo of Another brick in the wall (in Em) I'd need to switch between Em and A chords. Can you even program a whole chord to play? I've no idea.

So, looking to explore keyboard foot padals or something like that to allow me to just switch between a few chords. Any suggestions welcome as long as they're relatively cheap and don't involve getting a keyboard player😂

Edited May 24, 2018 by leschirons
left something out

[Dom in Dorset]

I used to have a set but found it almost impossible due to my big  feet, I just couldn't hit one note at a time.

[Norris]

We do Brick as a trio and just miss out the keyboards. I can't say we miss them and sparse is good sometimes

[leschirons]

6 minutes ago, Norris said:

We do Brick as a trio and just miss out the keyboards. I can't say we miss them and sparse is good sometimes

It was just an example to explain what I need to achieve. Foot operated preset chords.

[Muppet]

I borrowed a Roland midi PK-6 once and tried to use it to trigger keyboard chords from a laptop.  The sound was pretty good but my timing was bloody awful and made the songs sound worse! I switched to a Digitech JamMan and some prerecorded loops. 

[KevB]

I have started in a band that does Another Brick so I got the chord progression for the keyboards under the guitar solo (we do it in the original Dminor) and programmed them into various positions on a McMillan 12 step. That's one good thing about the 12 step over, say, Roland PK5's. You can programme a particular patch on the McMillan so that any 'note button' can sound up to 5 different notes and they don't have to obey a normal keyboard layout in relation to each other either. If lechirons wants to PM an email address I can send him an invite to a dropbox where I can leave a demo of me playing them over the solo when we were messing about in rehearsal a few weeks back.

Edited May 24, 2018 by KevB

[Happy Jack]

I've looked at these a few times, but always get stopped by either the price of these things, or the Midi involvement ...

[Wolverinebass]

I used a Roland PK6 with a Moog Slim Phatty in one of my last bands. It does take a certain level of concentration to play bass whilst standing on one leg and playing pedals with the other. 

Bottom line is if you don't read a manual or don't like programming stuff, this isn't for you.

[KevB]

One thing that tends to get overlooked with this type of kit is the importance of the sounds themselves. Fortunately the quality of patches has much improved over the years but there's no point having a good triggering system if the sounds coming out of the speakers are weak. It's like paying good money for a quality bass and coupling it with a rig that can only make it sound like a wasp in a jar.

[Woodinblack]

I play with a Macmillen 12 step, and yes, the first thing I did it for was brick in the wall.

I originally played through the same iPad as I am doing the mixing with (through the xr16 and later X18) but it was a faff as it had to go through chordion and midi translate. Now I use an old Korg O5RW (that I bought 20 years ago) on a patch which is basically all the organ sounds, and the 12 step has the bottom 4 keys set to the chords, it can have 3-4 notes per note, and it latches when you press them. I just use it for the solo. Sounds great. On those occasions when I couldn't do that (when we had the problems with the iPad doing it) we would just skip the track, sounds very weak in comparison without it.

I also use it on other tracks as well.

[toneknob]

I've used Moog Taurus (1 and 3) for ages but never played chords. I don't have enough legs. Apparently the Taurus 3 is polyphonic but I've never needed/wanted to figure it out.

 

[leschirons]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

I play with a Macmillen 12 step, and yes, the first thing I did it for was brick in the wall.

I originally played through the same iPad as I am doing the mixing with (through the xr16 and later X18) but it was a faff as it had to go through chordion and midi translate. Now I use an old Korg O5RW (that I bought 20 years ago) on a patch which is basically all the organ sounds, and the 12 step has the bottom 4 keys set to the chords, it can have 3-4 notes per note, and it latches when you press them. I just use it for the solo. Sounds great. On those occasions when I couldn't do that (when we had the problems with the iPad doing it) we would just skip the track, sounds very weak in comparison without it.

I also use it on other tracks as well.

Looks like the way to go. I have a Roland JV1010 and an M1 so should be able to sort a good patch or two.

Thanks

[barkin]

At a very primitive level, I've used a Zoom b9 through my bass rig...

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, leschirons said:

Looks like the way to go. I have a Roland JV1010 and an M1 so should be able to sort a good patch or two.

I used to use the iM1 on the iPad, it sounded good.

The JV1010 will sound lots better than my O5R/W, a lot more modern (in fact I was looking for one of those at one point), although when you are gigging, anything made in the last couple of decades is good enough to fill the space.

[KevB]

I don't want to derail the thread but has anyone tried any of the 'virtual' sound modules with a 12 step? I was thinking of something like this

It's 115 Euro on Roland web site. I'm a bit old school but the possibility of running sounds straight off a tablet and removing the intermediate enhancer box is tempting.

[Woodinblack]

38 minutes ago, KevB said:

I don't want to derail the thread but has anyone tried any of the 'virtual' sound modules with a 12 step? I was thinking of something like this

It's 115 Euro on Roland web site. I'm a bit old school but the possibility of running sounds straight off a tablet and removing the intermediate enhancer box is tempting.

As I said in the post before yours, I used to use the Korg iM1, which is a virtual sound module of the M1. It sounded great but was a faff.

The real module works out much easier.

[deepbass5]

As a four piece after we lost our Keys player thought it a good idea to get some root chord tones going under my bass lines

bought a bass organ pedal unit you know the sort of thing about an octave came in a suitcase - that lasted about one rehearsal and a few weeks at home trying to rescue some cred.

Then down the secondhand music shop it went  -  toneknob comments spot on you need three legs as well as two heads

[KevB]

That's the beauty of the 12 step with it's associated editor software, you don't have to follow the standard conventional keyboard layout at all. You could have completely unrelated (in terms of how a normal keys layout would be) chords mapped to adjacent buttons, you just have to get used to remembering where each is. For instance if your song backing happened to need (purely randome off top of head) Am then Gmaj then F#7th then Cmaj you could programme each of those in turn on just any 4 adjacent 'buttons' and you just tread on each in turn as it's needed in order. I'm not a techie nor do I have any real theory behind me but I managed it.

[KevB]

14 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

As I said in the post before yours, I used to use the Korg iM1, which is a virtual sound module of the M1. It sounded great but was a faff.

The real module works out much easier.

Sorry, missed the ref to iM1. Curious if anyone's tried virtual sound canvas though. Theres a limited function 14 day trial version available if I get time I might download a copy and see if it could do a job. I do like the dependability of my JV1080 in a rack case but it's a lump of kit to haul about and I have to use the little expander box with it too. Some very nice patches on it though.

Edited May 25, 2018 by KevB

[Woodinblack]

The sound module itself was no problems, the iM1, it worked fine, the problem was everything else. The iPad is also used to run the mixer (a X18), which I need to do a few tweaks on occasionaly, so it is set to the mixer. Running the iM1 (or any full time synth module) hammers the battery, so it isn't likely the power survives all the way through the gig (our gigs are long), unless I manage to sneak some power in during the break (which also aren't long and I forget), so you need a power lead and a usb lead connected at the top, as well as the output lead, which is very messy up a microphone stand (where the iPad is).

The midi goes from the floor pedals and is picked up in MidiFlow on the iPad, that translates the notes to a different key so I can separate different patches for different songs. Then the output of that is connected to chordion, which takes the notes and converts that to chords that drives the M1.

Sometimes MidiFlow if interrupted will fail to see the 12 step, so you have to remove and re-add it. Sometimes if you don't start the M1 before chordion it will reset its output to its internal sounds rather than the M1, and you have to reassign them all again manually. 

And on two occasions I have failed completely to get them to talk to each other or didn't have the time to faff so we missed out on the songs entirely. 

When it works it is really good, but I must say I am loving the reliability of 12 step -> Midi interface. Midi Interface -> power. Midi interface, midi lead -> sound module. Sound module -> power. Sound module -> mixer. Press button, sound every time (except one time when my usb lead had broken!).

But the O5R/W is a half size module which helps.

I must say there is no way in hell I would pay €110 for a virtual sound canvas when you can get a real one for a lot less.

Although what I would really like (and maybe I should make) is a half rack sized box which contains the sound module, wireless headphone sender, midi interface and wireless microphone (that I use to see what it sounds like at the back of the room) with one power plug!

Edited May 25, 2018 by Woodinblack

[KevB]

The thing that I liked about the sound canvas is that it seems to contain a lot of patches. My JV1080 has expansion boards fitted for 60s/70s keys, vintage synths and orchestral and all my 'patches' are actually in performance mode where I've mixed multiple patches to get the sound I like, so the sound canvas having 1600 or so of the original Roland sounds on it would make it very easy to recreate my current sounds from a virtual version. If there are potential reliability issues with set ups like this then I'll probably stick with what I have (though I wouldnt be using the tablet for anything like PA mixing which would probably eliminate some of the issues you have had). Thanks for the report.

[Woodinblack]

Well, sound canvas's you can get for about £50, but they have nothing like the sound quality of the JV1080 as they came out much earlier. I don't know if the virtual one is better, but that seems a lot for virtual modules, compared to the sort of things that korg do.

Having said that, they are all good enough for live, where the impression is better than the exact sound.

[KevB]

Looks like there is a virtual JV1080 available as well but it's not clear if it is just the equiv of the basic original unit or if they have included patches from expansion boards. The online blurb just refers to 'over 1000 waveforms' which isn't all that helpful, may look into it further when I get chance.

Edit it looks like they are selling at as a 'cloud' downloadable on a monthly subscription which works out way more than I'm prepared to pay so think it's back to the hardware vs for me.

Edited May 25, 2018 by KevB

[jonsmith]

I've used a Roland PK5 in several bands and it's about to make a reappearance as one of my originals bands expands its palette a bit.

I tried using software based stuff about 13/14 years ago, but found it just wasn't reliable enough in a live environment.  That situation may well have changed in the meantime. 

I used a Roland Fantom XR as the source for the sounds and it was programmable enough that with a bit of thought I could play chord sequences with single key presses on the PK5, as well as monophonic lines, samples and sequences.  This setup was 100% reliable.  One of the bands I did use it in was a Rush tribute and there were all sorts of parts I ended up playing with my feet.  Some of this was initially quite tricky to perform, but with a bit of practice it became much easier.  Feels a bit like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time sometimes.