Has anyone tried the Roland RPU3 foot pedal with a MOTIF XF? This is the foot pedal unit that includes three pedals, just like the 3 pedals on a grand piano. I really like the idea of having all three pedals together. But I don’t know if Roland and Yamaha might be incompatible. Thanks.

It will not work - the pedal (I’m sure if you look it up - will list all products that it is compatible with) and Yamaha are not among them. Besides the XF does not have 3 momentary pedal jacks.

If you are looking for a (gig worthy) Stage Piano with three pedals - you should look into the Yamaha CP1 - cutting edge technology, 3 pedal board included:
Stage Piano CP1

The Motif XF has two (momentary) jacks for sustain-the pedals. You can get a FC3 as your sustain pedal and an FC4 to work as your sustenuto. Visit the SHOP here on Motifator for more details.

Thanks for the info. The CP1 looks like a really great keyboard. When I’m in the market for a new one, it will definitely be on my list.

I pulled out an old M-Audio pedal I totally forgot I had, flipped the polarity switch on the bottom and tested it out in the SUSTAIN jack, ASSIGNABLE FOOT SWITCH jack and the FOOT CONTROLLER 1 jack. Here are the test results using Chorus as the assigned function:

1. SUSTAIN Jack:  Works just like a sustain pedal but without the half-pedal option.
2. ASSIGNABLE FOOT SWITCH Jack:  Pedal-up turns chorus off. Pedal-down turns chorus on.
3. FOOT CONTROLLER 1 Jack:  Chorus is on all the time, whether pedal is up or down.

So a 2-pedal unit with a polarity switch will probably work for the SUSTAIN and ASSIGNABLE FOOT SWITCH jacks. But the half-pedal option will be lost. Continuous control expression pedals are required for the CONTROLLER 1 & 2 jacks.

Just came across this while trying to figure something out to unclutter the floor.  Is there any tripple pedal config that will work with the motif and other synths?  I want to be able to have 3 sustain pedals in 1 unit for 3 different synths.  1 being the XF, the other is a Roland and the 3rd is an Arturia controller.  I was looking at the RPU but glad I came across this post before trying it out.  Why the H*LL can’t these things be standardized between manufacturers!?!

vgermani - 04 December 2011 12:32 AM

[...]Why the H*LL can’t these things be standardized between manufacturers!?!

Was that a rhetorical question?

Assuming you wanted an answer, here’s my conjecture:
Perhaps because they hope to sell their own product.

vgermani - 04 December 2011 12:32 AM

Just came across this while trying to figure something out to unclutter the floor.  Is there any tripple pedal config that will work with the motif and other synths?  I want to be able to have 3 sustain pedals in 1 unit for 3 different synths.  1 being the XF, the other is a Roland and the 3rd is an Arturia controller.  I was looking at the RPU but glad I came across this post before trying it out.  Why the H*LL can’t these things be standardized between manufacturers!?!

Perhaps for the same reason the distributor on a Ford engine won’t fit in a Chevrolet engine?
Clyde

DX7IIFD, SY77, SY99, Hammond C3, Steinway L, CP300, AW1600, etc.

I gang my yamaha pedals up on a board. That’s what the brackets are for underneath them.
Stone

wildpaws - 04 December 2011 09:58 PM

Perhaps for the same reason the distributor on a Ford engine won’t fit in a Chevrolet engine?

There’s a bit of difference between interchangability of mechanical components and standardization of ports.

The MIDI standard is fairly involved, and yet manufacturers managed to cooperate and wound up with reasonable compatibility. Something as simple as pedal ports could be standardized, if manufacturers cared to.

I’m using the Roland RPU3 with my Motif 8 XS in my studio. Had to re-solder it, switching the wires, and it works like a charm. I find it to be a superior pedal - solid chunky feel, doesn’t move around.

5pin, that’s why it was rhetorical, because I figured that was the reason.  Kind of ticks me off since the margin on these products can’t really be high enough to inconvenience their customers (not just Yamaha, but all of them).

pianokim, that’s exactly what I was thinking of doing.  I do know how to solder but wasn’t sure how easy it was to figure it out.  Are there only 2 wires on the pedal or will I need to figure out which specific ones they are?  Also, are they dynamic or just on/off?

Thanks all!

I can’t off the top of my head remember exactly - I’ll have to open it again and take a look. When I do I’ll post here.
It does work with the full ‘half-pedal’ feature on all 3 pedals

-Kim

It does work with the full ‘half-pedal’ feature on all 3 pedals

That’s interesting because the XF only responds to half-dampering on the SUSTAIN function. The Half-dampering is as much a function of the pedal being able to send 0 through 127 as it is of the tone engine doing something with that data - Sending 0 through 127 would be totally meaningless unless the tone engine is able to do something with that data.

The XF has a parameter directly related to half-dampering that adjusts the amplitude envelope at the Element level.

Sustenuto does not work with this, as far as I know, (cc066)
And the XF does not do the SOFT pedal function (cc067)

Therefore for SUSTENUTO all values 0-63 are interpreted as OFF and 64-127 as ON.

Bad Mister, I’m taking a guess here but I think Kim was referring to all 3 pedals on the RPU3 transmit 0-127/dynamic messages and not just on/off.

I would think so too. But a three pedal unit for the XF is not really going to work for the XF. And half-dampering is misunderstood enough - just because a pedal sends 0 through 127 does not make it work as half-dampering (say you have a Motif ES or an original Motif) that pedal is not going to give those keyboards half-dampering. That is my only point.

Do you mean that a 2 pedal unit with sustain + soft wouldn´t work? That would be sad because some piano libraries have soft pedal samples. Are “real” piano pedals only available on a decent stage piano?

benoit - 05 December 2011 10:14 PM

Do you mean that a 2 pedal unit with sustain + soft wouldn´t work?

MIDI specifies 3 controllers for pedaling: #64 is sustain, #66 is sostenuto and #67 is soft. The Motif XF does not respond to #67, it does respond to both #64 and #66.

So technically the answer to your question is NO, though with 2 pedals you can have sustain and sostenuto.

The pedals need to be of the proper polarity to work with the XF. Yamaha uses a different polarity than Roland, so a Roland pedal will not work properly with the XF.

Note #1: Some keyboards (not the XF or other Motifs) can detect polarity if the pedal is connected when power is applied and will work with pedals of either polarity.

Note #2: Some sustain pedals come with switches to allow you to set polarity.

Hope this helps.