Sustain Pedal Problems

An inSync reader has trouble with auto sensing sustain pedals. “Sometimes the Sustain on my K2000 won’t disengage after I let up on the pedal. It seems to be totally at random and only happens about every other day (but of course always when I’m playing live). I’ve tried switching different pedals but that doesn’t work.” In-house keyboard guru Dan Fisher provides some insight:”There’s a couple of possibilities. An important thing to understand is that Kurzweils always test the polarity (“normally open” or “normally closed”) of the Foot Switch Pedals each time the unit is Powered On, Soft Reset, or Hard Reset. If, for any reason, your Foot Switch is held down (or is electrically shorting or has a broken circuit) while you Power On, Soft Reset, or Hard Reset, then the Kurzweil may get the incorrect impression as to the polarity of the pedal. Thus it will seem backwards. Also, if you have a non-Kurzweil polarity pedal (I think Kurzweil uses “normally open” pedals), and don’t plug it in until *after* you’ve Powered On, then your pedal is going to work backwards. The way to fix this (without using the drastic Hard Reset) is to Soft Reset (press “+/-” “0” and “CLR”, the three buttons under “7”, “8”, and “9” and release). This will make the Foot Switch Input re-scan, but you won’t lose any of your data (even Samples).”Editor’s note: There are a number of keyboards on the market today that auto-sense what type of pedals are connected to them on power up. While this ability to auto-sense is very helpful in making the instruments easier to use, it can sometimes cause confusion because a pedal that worked “yesterday” may not work today under certain circumstances. If this happens to you try rebooting your machine to see if it corrects itself.

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