I only bought this because my Yamaha pedals wouldn't work with my Roland v stage keyboard. Compared to the Yamaha pedal this one is more expensive, cheaper and plasticy feeling, and has a narrower range of movement making it more difficult to control the volume

This pedal worked for my OB-X8 when my Moog pedal would not. The range knob is different and worked perfectly. I also like the feel and grip. This is the pedal I will get if more is needed.

The pedal works well, no issue with it. I was just surprised that it's all plastic. That's all. I own an Ernie Ball MVP. But it didn't work with Earth Quake Devise. So that's why I ordered the EV-5.

Pretty much the same as my Gear EX-P pedals, a little more sturdy. It works as expected

Had one for ten years for my Roland VK-8M now and no problems. The dial on the left side I rock fully counter clockwise for the best setting with the VK-8M. I have not been that easy with it, the unit is plastic but solid.

The pedal only moves about an inch making it very hard to get fine volume adjustments. I understand the discontinued EV-7 had a swing of over 3 inches.

It works ok for what it is. Mostly all plastic but does the job. It took me a bit to figure out how to set it up but after that all was good. Wish it had a better range and a removable cord for shorter cable runs. Big thanks to my rep. Cory Todd for all his help.

Got this for my Katana and it functions well. It is all plastic but solid. Do not think it could hold up too well on gigs and such. I have some Boss 500s that are metal tanks and nothing is more solid than those. It has an attached cord that is pretty long too so you do not need a separate cable which is probably why it is so much cheaper than some. If you need a cheap pedal for the studio this will work just fine. A nice product.

This pedal works well with my Kurzweil Forte SE .

I'm more of a beginner guitarist and would definitely recommend this to anyone. I use this expression pedal with my Boss Katana Amp and turn it into a wah. But I wish you could turn it on or off without turning the volume knob on the pedal down.

Again Delvin was fantastic with advising and getting what my son needed and will work great for him for years

The EV-5 is the perfect pedal for any Rolland or Boss system. It can be used as a simple volume pedal or to bring in effects like delay or overdrive.

I bought this knowing that I would have to modify it to make it work correctly on my Roland VR-730. I did the modification and it works correctly now. The problem is a known flaw in the 730 itself.

It works like it is suppose to

I've had this pedal for at least 7 years and have used it for expanding effect pedal capabilities, used it for synths as a '3rd wheel' and a volume pedal. It has withstood hard practices, hours of studio use, and still going strong. I like the adjustment wheel which can limit ranges and the action has always stayed consistent. Anything that lasts this long with regular use deserves 5 stars.

absolutely no problems. I forget it's there which is my highest compliment. Using with a Katana Head MkII which I bought from a local store for the support of local jobs weekend, or I certainly would have bought it from Sweetwater, which is my go-to choice.

As in the title. I was expecting far longer useful life out of such a pricey little pedal, but I guess cheap manufacturing and modern lack of standards strikes again. This is extremely disappointing.

I used it for the first time playing out on Saturday Sep 18. Worked really well with my Roland 2000. Nice addition for my accessories,

Bought this to use as an expression pedal with a Juno DS along with Mainstage 3 and it works perfectly! Easy setup!

I bought this for my boss sy-1 synthesizer pedal pair together with the Expression pedal. They work great together. The EV-5 is built really well, looks and sounds great! Great buy for the money. 5 stars.

WORK WITH ALL MY GEAR!

I needed a foot control pedal for expression with my Roland keyboard. My Yamaha pedal didn't work well, but this one is perfect

I'm using this with a Roland V-Combo. I adjusted it according to the instructions. Heel down doesn't turn the sound off, and there's no change in volume in the top 25% of travel. I've tried every adjustment I could think of. There's just no way to get this pedal to go from silent to full volume.

Also, it's cheaply made. But it seems that they all are. Coming from the world of pedal steel, maybe I just expect too much from my keyboard pedal.

I received the pedal in 2 days it works flawlessly as described and it's an asset to my guitar lineup , I can't say enough about the customer service at Sweetwater Aaron is my contact man when I need to order new gear hands down the best music the equipment company out there so if you're on the fence on where to buy equipment do yourself a favor order from the best and forget about the rest!

I use expression pedals for volume control. After using Yamaha expression pedals, I found the "throw" (the foot pedal range between loud and soft) to be much narrower on the ev-5. Barely moving the ev-5 pedal causes rapid changes in the volume.It takes a bit of getting used to. Once this is established the pedal seems ok.

The staff is very nice and easy to work with. The prices are as good as I have found any ware else. The shipping is fast. I bought the Roland rd 2000. For my son who is in college studying music. He is in awe of how great the keyboard is. His other musician friends are equally impressed. My son highly recommends this keyboard. I also appreciate the quality sound.

As always, Sweetwater is great! Fast and accurate shipping.

I have been using EV-5s for over 20 years for both guitar and keyboard applications. And for some reason, I’ve had 2 brand new substandard EV-5 this year. The first died on the 3rd use and the second I purchased from Sweetwater. The EV-5 I received from recently still functions, but for some reason, the volume sweep (0-10) is more like a on-off switch. It’s odd because I can plug my 25 year old EV-5 into the same device and the volume sweep is smooth through the entire range of motion. I hope it improves with time.

Again, not a knock on Sweetwater.

For live playing it is a terrible expression pedal. Not smooth like an FC7. More of a hinderance.

This pedal is nice. Works w my DD7. Pedal has a smooth thro and seems acurite.

I gave a 4 star because I would have liked to see it made of metal and have a jack for a 1/4 inch input for the price. But it does appear to be sturdy.

Purchased 12/2018. I have a Roland RD-700 stage piano. The pedal is physically OK - plastic but reasonably sturdy. The owner's manual (one page) says to not apply 'excessive force to the unit'. Pedal travel is from about 40 degrees (off) to 0 degrees (on). The pedal has enough resistance that it does not move on its own. There is an adjustment knob on the left as you can see in the picture. The unit is zeroed to the 'on' position. The knob is used to adjust the range of control to the 'off' position (more on this below).

I was intending to use this pedal as an input to Protools plugins. My keyboard lets me assign the pedal control to any Midi Input. I was able, for example, to set it to control CC 1 (Modulation), was able to record this into an automation lane on a protools track, and to use it to control Omnisphere's modulation control. Out of the box, all the way 'on' does seem to map to a CC value of 127, but the pedal goes from 127 to 0 before the pedal reaches the full 'off' position. With the knob set to zero, I'd say it hits CC=0 at about 75% of the travel range. Adjusting the knob higher decreases the range over which travel will reach 0 (i.e. < 75% - maybe down to about 40% of the range). It seems unfortunate that even with the adjustment knob it is not possible to set the range so that the CC varies from 0 to 127 over the full range of the pedal travel. The CC value does seem to vary linearly with pedal travel through the range that affects the value.

The knob seems to have hard stops at 0 and 10 and you cannot position beyond these settings (This is as expected). I have not taken it apart yet to see whether the hard stops are from the potentiometer itself or whether there is some other mechanical interlock that limits the travel. I'm hoping that maybe there is more range on the pot and I can adjust how the knob is trimming the pot to increase the range. Another option might be to add something that will limit the range of travel of the pedal (e.g. stick something between the base and the back side of the pedal so that it stops at the point the control reaches CC=0).

It would say the pedal is usable as is, but it would be better if the available adjustment knob worked as I'm suggesting it should.

Bought new, it didn't work straight out of the box, Roland Australia were not helpful.

I live in Australia, and didn't want to pay the crazy prices for pedals in retail stores here, so I purchased a new one from eBay overseas. It is a flimsy looking pedal, light weight plastic and low grade built-in cable, made in China, and seemingly with a lack of quality control or testing. It didn't do anything when plugged in to my Roland VR730.

I spoke to Zach and Andrew at Roland Australia. Initially I was told to just buy another one! I was later told I can return it and only if he eBay seller was an authorised Roland distributor they could help me. There is no way for me to know that, and they refused to help find out. Quite simply... I bought a brand new pedal. It doesn't work. I just wanted a pedal that worked.

It was not a pleasant experience, and I have heard similar stories of a complete lack of care and support by Roland Australia from other musicians.

So my Roland VR-09 is a great stage axe and thus gets tons of use, the volume control pot getting noisy and unreliable. Will change it out, but needed volume control for immediate gigs. A standard volume pedal (like a Yamaha FC -the best in the business) won't work due to Roland's proprietary electronics. So I called up my trusty Sales Engineer Clint Branstetter at Sweetwater, and he go me an EV-5 over the fourth of July in 3 days, in time for the gigs (Thanks Clint!).
This is a volume pedal and it works, but that's where it's functionality ends. It is extremely sensitive and logrythmic- and thus very difficult to get levels right during live performances. On strings, for example, it goes rapidly from zero volume to full bore, with the middle ground (where you need it) difficult to maintain - its just so overly sensitive. Also volumes and operation of the pedal widely vary depending on what patch is pulled up.
This is one of the poorest products I have ever seen Roland put out - normally they are great. So they force you to buy their over-priced pedal due to their proprietary design, and it is mostly not useable for live performances. Needless to say I'm going to replace the panel volume control on the VR-09 quickly and maybe get a refund from Sweetwater as I am that unhappy with their costly EV-5. Sorry Roland, gotta tell it like it is. Dissapointed.

Cons: Cheap construction - High price.

Pros: Works exactly as it should - looks good.

Summary: There are lower priced pedals that do the same thing - But what do you really want a expression pedal to do? Express your feelings to the music and this pedal does that!

this is the first pedal I have purchased and it appears to be working just fine. I have to get used to 'foot' work

Pedal does what it's supposed to. Purchased to use as a vol control pedal for a digital OD. Worked well. For me, however, there isn't enough resistance in the throw. Moves entirely too easily. Kinda feels a bit too plastic(ie) under foot, as well.

Compact, lightweight, does the job.

Works well with My PX 560 after running the adjustment routine in its setting.
Great value for the price

The EV-5 Expression Pedal works great with the Roland combo VR-90.
I’ve had the pleasure of purchasing items since 2009. And as always, quick shipping service and follow up calls from Zack Neels and the Sweetwater crew.

This expression pedal is not very expressive! (at least not compared to the Yamaha version that is half the cost) Bought this pedal because the Yamaha expression pedal wasn't playing nicely with the new Roland RD-800 keyboard I bought, so I thought I had to stick with the Roland brand pedals. Hope to get this figured out soon. Even the build quality is cheaper compared to the Yamaha!

If you read my review on the DP-2 pedal then you can only imagine how I feel about this unit. The DP-2 is made entirely out of plastic. It will certainly fail with heavy use but since it's cost effective to replace that's no big deal.

This unit on the other hand is nearly four times the price of the DP-2 and it's made entirely out of plastic as well. That's totally ridiculous for something that costs this much! What the heck Roland? I don't mind spending money on quality gear. I already spent good money on your FA-08 Keyboard which is excellent by the way!

How can a company that makes such a fantastic keyboard allow such a sub standard product as the EV-5 enter circulation? I would gladly have paid twice as much to have a unit that was made out of aluminum or something more durable than cheap plastic!

The life of a control pedal is going to be spent getting stepped on. How long do you think this thing will last? I sure as heck hope it's a long time for what it costs! Needless to say when this thing does eventually fail, I'm going to find a better quality pedal to replace it with, even if that means I have to build one.

I will not be buying this unit again in the future and would not recommend this unit to anyone else. It's not a good value (at least not at the current price) but it's at least working for now. For how long only time will tell.

I combine this pedal with my Roland RD-800 Stage Piano. I cannot imagine not using the EV5 with the RD-800. The EV5 offers such versatility to the RD-800 that to play without this combination is a waste in my opinion. The two go hand in hand. I also, use the EV5 Pedal in conjunction with the Seymore Duncan Vapor Trail Delay Pedal. Again, the two together lend each other very well for the wet mix.

I wasn't going to write anything aqbout this pedal, but now that the pricw is a wopping $122.50, I just couldn't resist. Having had this piece of trash for 3or 4 years now I can say without a doubt that it is the worst volume pedal I have ever used. I have used Yamaha's, KORG's, and M-Audio's. The M-Audio was great until it got soaked with water and then it stopped working correctly although I have to say, the M-Audio ($30) worked better after getting soaked with water (until it just died after a few months) than the Roland. The Roland NEVER worked well. When I firt got it it didn't control the volume smoothly, i would say it was more like volume jumps almost like you were turning a switch with detents. Them it started making noise. I found this strange because it is not in the Audio line but a controller, never the less, it mad a crunching noise as well as a wining squealing noise. Thats when it got put in the bin where gear goes that I can't seem to throw out yet doesn't work well enough to use. I have tried to lubricate the pot inside, I even had a profeaaional technition look at it and he said he cound not do anything but replace it. He suggested I get a different model as he has seen these problems in more than one of these pedals. I got a Yamaha $50 pedal that work ok. Then I bought a Korg XVP-10 I actually got 2 of them one from another online company in NYC and another from Sweetwater. The one from Sweetwater had a noise issue when I used in it the Audio line but not as an actuator. I am considering sending it in for credit as KORG no longer makes them, the other one is a work of art. Quiet, smooth, works, works as both an actuator and in the Audio Line. The NYC place has one left and I may just get that or I could be lazy and use the one I have for an actuator only. Well this is about the Roland. I definately would use something else, especially for $122.50 for a plastic piece of junk basically

I got two of these pedals for my Cube 80gx. I created a "pedalboard" that consists of the Roland foot pedal (GA-FC) and the two EV-5 pedals. The EV-5 can connect directly to my Cube 80gx, but they also connect to the GA-FC.. These pedals control VOLUME. Instead of going to the amp, I can step on the pedal to control volume. I have two because 1 is for MAIN volume, and the other is for DRIVE volume. The bottom line is, instead of turning knbs on the amp (which is very difficult when you are in a "live" situation. I just step on the pedal. The GA-FC switches the clean channel, the lead channel and the effects. The EV-5s control volume. This maximizes the utility of my Cube 80gx.

I've been using this expression pedal for a few months now. Every time I go to fade out on a patch such as Strings or Organ I struggle to get an even decrescendo. The issue with this pedal has been mentioned in other reviews. From 0% - 50% you get minimal volume gain. From 51% to 75% the volume increases from minimal to maximum. Everything after 75% is full volume. Do not use this pedal for live or recording purposes. It's going to fail you every time.

Light weight , simple to use. Feels sturdy enough, I don't expect any problems using this pedal. It serves it's purpose well.

Seems pretty well built, at least given the plastic chassis. And the gray knob on the side for setting a minimum volume is a nice touch. But even though it's a 10k pot, it's pretty touchy on my old Alesis QS7, with most of the adjustment happening in the last 1/3 of pedal travel. I suspect this uses a logarithmic pot, and that the Alesis is looking for a linear pot. Still, does the job well enough.

I bought this as a recommendation from my Sweetwater guy. It has the right polarity for the Kurzweil PC3K8. The top appears in the photo to be rubber which would make it none slip. It's plastic. It's very light so it's easily knocked about. The footprint is small. Good for a munchkin, not a human. Here's the bad part. The first two thirds of the pedal travel does nothing. Then it goes from soft to max loud. I'm used to a Hammond. When I sell my old rig I'm throwing this in with the deal.

I have used the Roland EV-5 pedal with two different sequencing programs (Digital Performer 5 and Sonar 8.5) to control volume levels on a single virtual-instrument track (either in real time OR to edit a pre-recorded track). Sometimes it works great, but other times it causes volume changes to MULTIPLE tracks even when only ONE track is record-enabled!! The worst part is, these multiple-track volume changes cannot be undone (Even when clicking on "Undo" in the edit window of EITHER sequencing program, the unwanted volume changes remain. The only "solution" is to do a "Revert to Saved"... but even THIS doesn't really help the situation unless I had saved the song file RIGHT BEFORE the multiple-track volume change anomaly occurred; yes, doing a "Revert-to-Saved" corrects the volume-change issue, but I often end up having to re-compose/re-record lost material). I would STRONGLY caution anyone considering purchasing this pedal for use with sequencing programs.

I set the star rating to great simply because I had owned an EV-5 and know of the quality of the unit. I purchased 1 Roland EV-5 expression pedal as a replacement for one I had worn out after say six+ years of use. A few days later I purchased a second EV-5 for organ swell for the Nord NS2 HA88. I have one pedal for control of horns, pads and synth parts over Piano and Organ zones and the second for the Hammond swell. This by far the best control pedal I have used for my equipment. A solid, well engineered pedal that will give you that Wow factor of 5 stars on your first purchase. Highly recommend the EV-5 to all you control freaks.

A solid volume/expression pedal from Roland. Adjustment knob stays put, and the pedal does not move around. Haven't used it on a smooth surface like tile, but the rubber feet should grip well. This pedal takes a bit more foot pressure to move up and down, which is a good thing IMO, as the cheaper knock-off was loose and could easily be moved unintentionally.

Works great with my Kurzweil PC3x.

In short, an OK expression pedal. This pedal is made for "In your house use" and should not be used on stage (live). The cord is cheap wire, casing is plastic and not durable for touring. I like some boss pedals but this one needs an upgrade!

I have rather complicated guitar rig that utilises both dedicated outboard gear and software on a laptop. I currently use 12 of these pedals (and yes I DO use then) to control parameters of all sorts. They hardly ever fail, and when (and if) they do it tends to be after a decade or more of hard service. Don't leave home without 'em.

I got this pedal to use/tweak my Boss RE-20 Space Echo, (great echo btw) It's just not what I expected. It's plastic for one, which I don't like.
I was expecting something a bit more beefy, more like a Wah. Mine seems flaky as well, It may have been used before. I'm not 100% sure.

Gosh, I think I now have 6 of these units. I use them on the Eventide SPACE, Time, Mod and Pitch Factor pedals, as well as on my Strymon delay pedals. Perfect, faultless. Plastic, yet rugged and lightweight. Ample length on the cord. Never had an issue.
I prefer these units for guitar pedalboards due to their light weight and compact size. I haven't tried one on my Master Midi Keyboard as I have a metal BOSS unit and the additional weight keeps it in place when I fumble around with my feet.

I've used these pedals with a variety of keyboards for many years and never had a problem with them other than the cords eventually wearing out where they attach to the pedal - which can happen after a few hundred one-nighters! I currently use them as volume and control pedals for a Kurzweil PC3. I especially like the low profile and ease of action.

I have five of these units, one on each of my four Eventide pedals (TimeFactor, PitchFactor, ModFactor and Space) and one on my portable pedal board connected to a strymon el capistan. Range of motion and range of control suits all these units perfectly. Additionally, though they are light weight, they are sturdy - which really helps on the portable pedal board that I take when I fly.

I was told by a friend that this is the volume control I need to get. I'm sure it is, but the one sent to me is buggy. It causes my keyboard to drop at odd times, and I can't bring it back up unless I pull out the cable and reset the keyboard (Kurzweil PC3X).