September 22, 2010

Prepping the pedalboard electrics

Over the past few days I've begun the work of MIDIfying the pedalboard. I ordered a 64-note encoder from Largonet, which appeared to be the most economical practical alternative. Perhaps I will be able to map notes 33-64 to other Hauptwerk functions. All told, it came out to just under 100 USD. It uses an 8x8 scanmatrix, which requires each note to have a diode. I found those easily at RadioShack.

I started work on the pedalboard's contact rail last night. When I demounted the rail from the pedalboard upon acquisition, it looked the the mounting had been redone/butchered - I will have to fix that up. Now, I took the pressboard cover off the top of the contact rail. It seems that there was a bit of water damage to this pedalboard, based on the finish, rust on the screws, and the fact that the glue is loose on the 5 contact blocks in the bottom of the concave arc. Maybe it was in a dank or flood-prone basement for a while. No biggie.

I cut away the old cabling, and wiped everything down with some cleanser. The pressboard plate was very dirty. The contacts themselves are in okay shape; a few are a bit bent. I'm sure there will be some contact regulation in my near future. There are ten available contacts per note; it turns out that several are unused on this board; I will try to make use of these so I won't have to bother with desoldering the old connections. I will cut the buss bar into sections of eight notes for use in the scanmatrix.

Next: solder the diodes onto the contacts, and wire up the positive side. But first: to practice!

2 comments:

  1. You are clearly talented *and* brave. My Rodgers pedalboard now plays reliably and on every note and with the same pressure and velocity and depth ... and it didn't use to! I've thought about adding the MIDI stuff to it, but the newer models come with it built-in and a used one is not so much. And, besides, I'm scared that something will happen. You are brave.

    Cheers!
    Michael
    michaelsmusicservice.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey - if it ain't broke, don't break it. I've experienced that the hard way enough times.

    ReplyDelete