Sustain pedal?

I threw away my clonky old master keyboard and want to have only one keyboard: my Voyager. However I did not see a Sustain Pedal input on it !!! Where do I plug my sustain pedal?

Thanks,

wicked

The “Red Jacks” on the Voyager serve as CV/expression pedal inputs. Plug your pedal into one of them and pedal away :slight_smile:

Thanks for your reply !

However I tried every single red jack and none of them made the Voyager transmit any MIDI Sustain Pedal ON/OFF data out to the MIDI Out port. Are there extra step required, for example changing some setting within the Voyager?

Hmm…I don’t have an expression pedal to test so I’m not sure about transmitting the midi data to a sequencer. But have you enabled in Master Mode, Midi On? Make sure you’re sequencer is set to receive Midi data on the specified Midi Out Channel in Master Mode. It should work. Foot Controller is Continuous Controller (CC) #4 and Expression is CC#11.

This would be my best guess at this point. Hope this helps.

An expression pedal is not equal to a sustain pedal !!!

The first is a source of variable control voltage (received through the socket) to give you a continous variable control ofer modulations and parameters.

The sustain pedal is used to hold the played note in its sustain phase until you release the pressed pedal. The pedal is either a normally closed or opened switch. Not variable at all.

In the real world of pianos - remember, there is no sustain phase on these - this pedal will lift of the dampers from all strings and keep them either ringing till the tone fades away, or start the strings ring by means of harmonics shared with other strings ringing.

I have no clue on how to make the Voyager transmit sustain pedal information to connected synths.

So is there any way to hold the last note indefinitely and play with the knobs (or touchpad)? How Emerson did it with the ribon controller?

There is a moog switch pedal. What do you use it for?

Change the front-panel ENV. GATE switch from ‘Keyboard’ to ‘ON/Ext’. Make sure the Volume Envelope Sustain control is fully clockwise (=255). This will sustain the last note you played and allow you to use both hands to adjust knobs, touch pad, and pitch/mod wheels.

Of course, you could always thrust a few daggers between the keys for theatrical purposes. Not sure if that voids the warranty, though. :wink:

I’ve been using that switch for several patches, and usually it works fine. But sometimes the notes just fade away after a few seconds. Why won’t the envelope gate switch sustain longer on some patches?

MIDI sustain pedal messages will work on the Voyager.

Not sure how to implement it directly on the Voyager though. Try the GATE input under ENV. You might need a special pedal because this GATE expects a voltage, not a closed switch, to hold the EGs open.

Ah, I didn’t read carefully. The Sustain is the key to make it work.

Swithcing the Keyboard switch to “on/Ext” results silence unless a cable is inserted into the Env/Gate plug. But if there is something pluged into it, the Env gate switch really holds the last note (regardless the Env. Sustain knob position). Is it normal or my Voyager is acting up?

No that’s not normal. Some old patches don’t work right with the EXT switch. To play it safe, always start a new patch with INITIALIZE PATCH (or something like that) from the EDIT menu.