From smatteso@silcom.com Thu Feb 3 08:49:03 2000
Subject:Ernie Ball Volume Pedal & Keyboards

Hi Voce Group,

I didn't have too much success with the Ernie Ball (stereo/pan) pedal
and my Roland RD500. *Warning..I did get the Ernie Ball pedal used...so
there could be some mystery in there somewhere*, but it seemed to work
fine, just not like I expected it to. The feel of the pedal is great,
but the volume control is not directly linear with my keyboard. In
fact, you depress the Ernie Ball pedal to halfway, and instead of the
volume being halfway in the middle of where you set your minimum and
your maximum, the volume still was about 1/8 of the distance between min
and max. My problem was that a major portion of my volume boost from
this pedal occured in the last centimeter of pedal depression ( putting
the pedal to the metal) and there was no possible way I could control my
volume over one centimeter of pedal depression. The pedal reached full
volume fine, but it did most of it in the last centimeter of depression.

I ended up calling around to different places..I can't remember
where...but either Roland or Ernie Ball and someone told me it is
because the Ernie Ball Volume Pedal is not designed to control line
level signals. Ernie Ball makes basses and guitars. Not keyboards.
Just keep that in mind. Call them if you need to. Make them clarify if
their pedals will work with keyboards. The pedals are very expensive,
(retail between $100 and $150) and I was recommended the Roland FV-50.
It doesn't have the feel of an Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, but the Volume
behavior seems more correct.

My hyper-inflated $.02!
-Stephen Matteson
smatteso@silcom.com