Yamaha Accessories for Keyboards

This pedal offers a great advancement in half damper effect without any line noise. It is excellent when recording audio piano tracks from line outputs. It adds one more piano “authentic” aspect to entertain the acoustic piano listener. Yamaha could make two improvements to this product. -- First, the amount of pedal travel before the effect engages should be adjustable or closer to the top end of the pedal. The pedal has to be pressed nearly halfway before the effect engages. -- Second, rid the pedal of the squeak in the mechanism. This squeak is aggravating. It is distracting especially in softer passages. The noise is aggravating to others when the player is practicing with headphones. Anyone present will have to put up with the aggravating squeak and grinding of the pedal. In these situations, I recommend just swapping back to a FC4 sustain pedal. Overall the FC3 pedal is a great addition to a digital piano domain. It adds a realistic dampening effect, just as it was designed to provide. And in recording or just playing, lets you add one more tweak to your expressiveness. I love the feel of this pedal. I love the fact that it does slip slide away from me when I'm playing. HOWEVER, the polarity on this pedal is reversed from many popular brands of synth. I have a Casio synth that this pedal does not work with. When the pedal is up, i get full sustain. But, with the pedal down...nothing. So make sure you ask your sales associate to check the inventory notes to be sure this pedal works with your synth. Another good substitute is the m-audio SP-2. It looks and feels the same, but it has reversible polarity. But if it works with the board or workstation that you are using get this one for sure. Plus its made by Yamaha, a company that puts out quality products.