First things first

If you haven’t already got a switch, you’ll need one (that’s stating the obvious). Most good music shops will have them, alternatively we have them here at "Carillon Studio’s". For KN keyboards they need to be a push to make contact switch, this just means when the switch is depressed (no it’s not fed up), it will complete the electrical circuit between the end of the jack and the metallic sleeve behind it. It should be noted that some foot switches have a polarity switch on them and if this is set the wrong way the switch will be triggered when you release the pedal not when you push it down. Have no fear though no damage will be done if it is set wrong, just flick the switch to the setting you need. There are quite a few different types of switch on the market, depending on your budget. Everything from the cheapies at around a fiver to the very solid gigging type that you could run a truck over, at around thirty pounds. We sell a nice one in the middle price bracket, called an NT14, this is two switches joined side by side (there’s a nice amount of room between the switches so you’re not so likely to press the wrong one) and is very good value as it is priced at £22.99. Once you have your switch, the next thing is to plug it into the back of your instrument, into the hole where it says foot switch (its all clever stuff).

So just what will they do?

The two most obvious uses of a keyboard foot switch are probably a) as a sustain pedal for such things as piano sounds and b) for control of the rhythm fill in’s. These seem like a good place to start so here we go. We need to set the foot switch to make it do what we want, so press "Memory and Control" then select "Foot switch and pad setting", move the lit up white box to "Foot Switch 1 Setting" and using the cursors, change the setting to "Sustain" (other models may use a slightly different way of doing this so you may need to check with your manual). The are probably very few of you that are trained in playing the piano and use of the sustain can at first be awkward to get the brain around. The principle is quite simple, on a real piano when the sustain pedal is pressed, felt pads (dampers) are lifted off the strings enabling the string that has been hit to carry on vibrating and thus continuing to sound. The trick to making this sound effective comes in the timing of when the pedal is pressed, and more importantly, when to take your foot off. The chords and phrase that are being played govern the process as the sustain pedal has two main functions. The first is to combine the notes of a chord, the second is to link notes where it would be impossible to do so using the fingers alone and some time will need to be spent learning the two techniques. Next time you are practicing and find yourself using a piano sound try setting a foot switch to sustain and experiment with the following exercises. i) Play a note and listen to the way it finishes when it has been released. Then play a note and press the sustain pedal before you release it, keep the sustain pedal down and release the note and listen to the way the note decays. O.K. so far nice and simple, so on to the next exercise. ii) Press the sustain pedal and slowly play a scale of C, you will hear it just becomes a jumble of notes all sounding together. Next play the same scale only this time release the sustain as you finish the E note and press it again on the F note releasing as you release the upper C note, this is a little better. iii) Next, have a go at playing the music in Fig 1. And you will see how the notes of a chord can be joined together. iv) Next, play the music in Fig 2. (N.B. this is to be played with the left hand so switch the auto accompaniment off and set right one to piano so that it sounds across all the keys), notice also the way the pedal control has been denoted as you will often come across this in other pieces of music. v) Lastly experiment with playing a melody line from a song you know well. Press the sustain down at the beginning of a phrase and release it at the end. Care has to be taken for long phrases as they tend to jumble up, if this happens find a place in the middle and put an extra release and press in here. As a general rule of thumb, don’t hold the pedal down during a change of chord, this is because there will probably be notes left sounding that will clash with the new chord. To make the use of the pedal sound really professional, try this: If you get a phrase with a long held note at the end, press the sustain on that long note and then an octave or two above it flick along the notes of the chord being played. It takes some practice but it does work well.

As I mentioned the second most common use for foot switches is for triggering the fills on a rhythm pattern. This is a simple enough thing in itself, however its full use is not always appreciated by all. A fill button is often, but not always, used at the end of a four or eight bar riff just to break up the monotony of a pattern repeating all the time or just before a verse or chorus as a lead into that section. If you haven’t or don’t use the fills whether it be from a foot switch or not, try this. Using the easy record in your sequencer, (this has been covered in prior articles) record one of your songs. Once recorded, sit back and listen. Now I’m sure that’s all very pretty however, play it back again and this time press a fill button at the beginning of a bar before the chorus or verse. The reason for using the sequencer this way is because its all to easy to acquire tunnel vision (or hearing in this case) and thus not hear how the pattern can become monotonous and boring. Use of the sequencer in these practice terms just gives you a better idea of what an audience would hear. Incidentally its exactly this argument that says use should have the dynamic accompaniment switched on during a song (Please can we have this back on the next keyboard). Now there is a good argument that says fills are to busy and some would say they don’t use them for this reason. This is where a foot switch really comes into its own because with just a little practise, its easy to trigger the fill in the middle of a bar and this will often be enough to break up the pattern. Without the switch, all to often both hands will need to be playing and so its impossible to hit the switch on the control panel at the same time. Now if all this rambling doesn’t convince you, go down the local club or to a concert a see a professional working and listen to the number of times the fills are used, watch his or her feet and see what they are controlling. The "Pro’s" don’t use foot switches without a reason. For those of you that all this is just stating the obvious, try this as a little trick in your playing. Next time you are using a fill from the beginning of a bar hit the second fill half way through, you will find its almost like having a third fill. Then change the order of the two halves giving you a fourth fill. This can be taken a step further, although you have to be very familiar with the pattern being used, instead of using a fill hit the ending. Yeah but that will end the pattern I hear you cry, not if you then press a fill half way through as it kicks back into the rhythm being used. Whether this works is totally dependent on the ending pattern but it can often create some interesting effects and can often be used for those times when you want a two or more bar fill. If you have an instrument with two endings, the same can often be done at the end of a song to get an even longer outro. Start with one ending and then press the other at an appropriate point.

You may have noticed that we have now got up to five things that can be controlled from the foot switches (sustain, two fills and two intro / outro’s). The only trouble is most KN keyboards have only two foot switch holes, unless of course you have either a SMAC 1200 or a KN 5000 in which case you have the option for six switches. This means that some thought will have to be given to which controls are going to be assigned to which pedal.

Up to now I have dealt with the generalities of the subject now we'll look more in depth starting with the KN 2000 and working upwards from there, adding any extra facilities that each keyboard has. If, for instance, you have a 5000 then don’t just jump to that section as you’ll miss many facilities already covered in the prior paragraphs.

KN 2000

Previously, I mentioned a little trick using fill combinations and went on to mention endings. Intro’s and outro’s can also be assigned to a foot switch and as with all the different settings for the foot switches, all you need to do is press "Memory and Control" and then at the top right of the screen press "Foot switch and Pad Setting". Now depending on which switch you are setting up, select one of the two bottom options on the left hand side of the screen. Using the up and down cursors on the right hand side of the screen change the option to "Ending" You will now be able to select the "Intro" if there is no pattern yet playing or the "Outro" if a pattern is already running. Assuming a fill is set to switch one and the ending is set to switch two then you can try the trick mentioned before. The next facility that can be assigned to a foot switch is the "Start / Stop" button. There’s not a great deal to say about this one except if you need it, its there. Another one of the assignable parameters to look at is the "Variation" button. Again using the method above select this option. Having listened to many of my customers play, it is my opinion that whether from a foot switch or whether from the button on the front panel, this is an under used facility. It is all to easy for many players to get very wrapped up in their playing, often so much so that they don’t really hear whats coming out of the instrument (a good argument for using easy record every now and again just to check what an audience would be listening to). Variations are designed to be used, they give a change in the backing and make a song become more varied and consequently less likely to bore someone. So use them! And if you’re hands are busy playing the notes, then assign the variation to the foot switch so that you can still change it whilst playing.

Moving on from the control of the backing rhythms, you will also find that control can be given to the way that sounds perform via the foot switches. Earlier I mentioned the sustain control, however there are other things that can be controlled as well. Go to the foot switch setup page, only this time select "Digital Effect" for one switch and "DSP Effect" for the other. Pressing a foot switch will then enable or disable the effect in question. The resulting change in the sounds being played will depend on the parameters already programmed for these to effects. It will soon become obvious that there will be many times when it would be useful to switch the effect on and off only effecting certain notes in a melody line i.e. when using Pan flute 1, a melody line may gain benefit in its interpretation with the addition of the digital effect being switched on for one or more of the louder notes in the passage. Those louder notes will then gain an extra depth that you wouldn’t have been able to get by only hitting the notes harder and again is a another facility you probably wouldn’t have been able to access without the foot switch, as your hands may well already be too busy playing. As with many things on our keyboards, trial and error is the best way to gain experience, so have a go. The effects given by the "Digital Effect" are already programmed and you will not be able to alter without first doing some editing in the sound groups. The "DSP Effect" is easy to change though, press and hold the button down (press screen hold so it doesn’t vanish) and then select the effect you want and edit the parameters as required. "Glide" and "Technichord" should also be included in this paragraph and setting up is done in the usual way. "Glide" is a facility often associated with use of foot switches. However for the uninitiated, if the "Glide" is set, a note being played will change its pitch when the switch is pressed. Hawaiian Guitar is a sound often used with this, just press the pedal down, play a note and whilst its sounding, release the switch and the pitch will bend up to the note that has been played. "Technichord" needs to be understood in depth to get the best from it and has again been covered in other articles but for now press and hold the "Technichord" button, select the one you want, select the option for the foot switch and away you go. When pressed the foot switch will now turn the effect on and off.

The next category that should be investigated is that of "Set up" control. By this I refer to the control of the panel memories. It is possible to set a foot switch to trigger a specific panel memory or to even move up them in single step increments. The use for the latter may seem to be obvious but it is the use of both together that makes this a powerful and useful feature. As an example, imagine setting the panel memory bank 1, number 1 (A1), ready to use for the chorus of your song. Then set any further panel memories for the verse into bank 1, numbers 2, 3 (A2, A3), etc. Now start your song from number two and move through the verse and further panel memories as needed by the use of the switch set to increment. When you get to the chorus press the foot switch set to A1. Setting the panel memories and switches like this will enable you to go round and round as many times as you like without using up panel memories needed for other numbers. If you want to use more than one panel memory for the chorus, then set the ones for the verse further along as needed, i.e. A3 or A4 etc. The switch set in the above example can be set to any of the twenty four panel memories as required.

If the Manual Percussion Pads are set to off (this can be checked on the same page as you set up the different uses for the foot switches) and therefore have a sound assigned to them, the foot switches can be assigned to trigger this sound. An example use of this would be to assign a crash cymbal to one of the Manual Percussion Pads and then assign a foot switch to trigger the sound whenever needed. A perhaps not so obvious example of this would be to set the keyboard percussion to Orchestral kit, then assign pad 1 to the timpani on C4 and then pad 2 to the timpani on G3. Once done set the foot switches to pads one and two. Now you can alternate between the two, usually first and fifth, getting a nice orchestral timp feel at the end of your song. If you are quick with your feet you could even set the two pads to the same note so that you could get a timp roll by rocking between the switches.

One further thing can be achieved with the use of foot switches on the KN 2000, this time in conjunction with the sequencer. Punch in and Punch out can be assigned and so it becomes much easier to rerecord just a section in the middle of a sequence.

The KN 3000

There are only a couple of differences between the 2000 and the 3000. These being, a) the addition of the second intro/ending button, b) the pads were changed to Manual Sequence Pads rather than Manual Percussion Pads and therefore so has the use of the foot switches, and c) a tremolo slow / fast facility has been added. It is the last of these thats probably the most interesting. For those of you that like to use the drawbar sounds, this one setting maybe more important than virtually anything else as it adds colour and interest to the use of the drawbars.