DIY MIDI Pedals

http://midipedals.com - I always loved seeing artists like Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Masayoshi Yamashita (Loudness), Mike Rutherford and others play Taurus Pedals while playing the guitar or bass. Unfortunately for me, a used set of Moog's famous pedals will set you back a few thousand bucks.
Since there are plenty of ways to recycle, I figured I would contribute as well. I bought a set of old Hammond organ pedals on eBay, and had a broken MIDI keyboard I could use the parts from. After trying my other set of pedals first, I tried for a couple of weeks on and off to get them to work. I finally figured out they are wired incorrectly, so I switched to the Hammond pedals. Within an hour they were wired and ready.

UPDATE: Here is a link to my page that has a lot of info and links I used to help guide me in the right direction. Enjoy!

http://midipedals.com

After an overwhelming response on YouTube, email, as well as midipedals.com, I have decided to make an sell a MIDI adapter board, called the Cygnus MIDI Adapter. The board is based on Howard Cano's Super MIDI Peds, and allows users to connect pedals from 1 to 32, and everything in between. That means, 13, 25 and 32 note pedalboards can be MIDI-fied using the Cygnus MIDI Adapter!

Thanks for your support,

Terry (twocargar)
MIDIpedals.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• midi
• taurus pedal
• organ
• foot pedal
• music
• diy
• do it yourself
• 13
• note
• 25
• 32
• pipe
• convert
• basyn
• howard
• cano
• midipeds
• sonosaur
• control
• fatar
• moog
• eko
• hammond
• yamaha
• roland
• pk
• basic
• cygnus
• adapter

[duttasanjiv]

Congrats for this innovative & brilliant work and thx so much for sharing it over youtube to inspire us. I have a YAMAHA Keyboard without aftertouch, and I primarily use it with Ableton or reason.

Can I add 'aftertouch' using a foot controller in my PC? My requirement is simple : for long notes in a wind instrument or violin I want velocity(volume) control & modulation. Kindly suggest.

[twocargar]

@duttasanjiv Please see our online forum at midipedals(dotkom) and I believe a similar question has been answered there.

Thanks for the feedback!

[twocargar]

I updated the info on this video with a link to my website with links I used and photos from my build.

[ztubs6]

hey this is great- it might be just what i am looking for- my situation is this- i am in a trio-acoustic guitar, pedal steel and drums and cannot find a bassist at all! i def. have old crappy organs and crappy keyboards laying around in my moms basement. can i basically saw-off or remove the pedals and then create something like you've made but not necessarily so synthesizer-sounding.i am hoping to make something that just sounds like a simple bass guitar. any advice?

[twocargar]

You could look and see which keyboards you have give you the best bass sound. I remember getting a great sound from our old Yamaha keyboard which ended up being the "Tuba" sound. The Mac I use has a few great bass sounds, so you could try some virtual synths on a computer.

[joerowzen2008]

hey there,i bought a hammond 125 xl just for the bass pedals so i can play guitar and bass at the same time, i took the whole organ apart to take all the electronics out and put them in a smaller like guitar amp sorta box and now it don't work at all,lol..any ideas and ways to get this bass pedal to work using something like an yamaha midi keyboard or anything with an amplifier built into it..thanks

[twocargar]

You could use a Yamaha or similar keyboard with onboard sound and MIDI and solder the wires from the Hammond pedals to it then shove all of that into an enclosure. That way you could play them through the keyboard's speakers or plug it into an amp. It would just take some trial and error to find out which wires went with which notes on the keyboard. That's what took me the longest time to figure out.

[freedan5001]

That's great. I also had the same idea and put two old organ foot pedals together for a two octave board, but that is as far as I got on the project. I'm also a brass player so I wanted a foot board controller, hands free.

[burningxdimx]

"Taurus pedal sound" was disappointing 

[elechliter]

This is awesome. I made my own 'taurus pedals' when i was playing in a Rush cover band by a long time ago by making keys on hinges out of 1 x 3" sticks of wood with push switches below them on a wedge shaped wood box. I wired it directly to the keyboard matrix of my CZ 101 keyboard (which is not touch sensitive so the keys are just on/off switches). The only challenge was learning about using diodes in the keyboard matrix so it all wouldn't short out.

[maddermofo]

There's nothing more I love than ideas to build your own version of something and save a fortune!!!! These look deadly man, I am going to try this!!!!!

[BaronvonCase]

Would kill for such electrical engineering skills. Sadly, I'm just a musician. I've been wanting to add aftertouch to a keyboard I actually like the feel of (since the two never come hand-in-hand for me), but it looks like it's not going to happen. Wish ya lived next door. :P

Love the acknowledgment of Mike Rutherford! You should play some Apocalypse in 9/8 and Dance on a Volcano on your Frankentaurus.

[100roberthenry]

hi man..brilliant pedals.are they velocity sensitive though.?.....i also have a question. im trying to do this with drums/piezo's wired to the keys of a midi keyboard ....but im guessing it wont be velocity sensitive...any ideas on how i could do it so it is..without using a module/or arduino etc.....cheers rob p.s rush brilliant band...big fan.

[lifesonfan]

This is great. I took mine off of an old Thomas organ but my soldering kills are awful. As soon as I can find a pro to solder those switches together properly..i'll be back in business

[deepcure]

This video is great.