Review of a Yamaha FC3A pedal

I finally got my hands on one of these pedals, after spotting one on Amazon for about half price ($73 AU, with shipping), so I decided to give it a go.  I had considered it too much of a gamble at it's usual price (which I consider overpriced, in general) that I might not find it useful, or be good enough at half‑pedalling (me, or it), and be wasting my money, that I first modified a basic Xtreme Accessories FS310 pedal switch that I already had, as a trial run.  I found that I could manage slightly releasing the pedal for a shorter sustain (or only slightly pressing the pedal).

Why might you want to do half‑pedalling?  On a real piano, I'd question that, too.  I'm only an amateur pianist, I'm really an organist, and get to play other people's (often awful) upright pianos, and a grand on a few occasions.  So the highly skilled nuances of piano playing isn't in my skill set.  I eventually bought a cheap(ish) Yamaha P45 portable plastic piano to practice at home on, and take to some open‑mike gigs.  But I do notice that with real pianos you don't have a horribly dead‑sounding piano when the sustain pedal is released, there's always some string resonance (the strings you've just played, and the others that you haven't).  And on a pretend piano, the damped notes die off far too quickly, and the other strings don't sound at all (there's no resonance, and playing with the device's electronic reverb settings just doesn't help, nor sound that great), so being able to half‑pedal for some limited amount of sustain is very useful.  Though, having pretend pianos do a better job of actually sounding more like a real piano would be a better thing.

For what it's worth, I've never observed any other pianist do half‑pedalling, they've all just pressed the pedal fully down and fully released it.  Some madly stomping it like they're playing a bass drum.  And for them, virtually any pedal is perfectly fine to use.

The FC3A is not a pedal switch, it's an analogue pedal with a variable resistor inside it that changes as you press the pedal down, by the amount that you press it.  This allows it to be used for half‑pedalling (giving somewhat variable sustain damping) on compatible pianos (such as my Yamaha P45).  And it could possibly be used for other expressive effects on compatible synths, though I think you'd be much better off with a pedal designed for that kind of thing.

So far, my observations have been:

It stays put on my carpet better than my FS310 pedal does (I fixed that by velcroing it to a flat rubber strap that I pin down to the floor with my heel while playing).  I'm yet to try using this pedal on a hard floor, and may have to do the same Velcro modification to this one (that's easy enough to do, just stick some self‑adhesive Velcro in the middle of its base), though it did stay in place while I madly pedalled it on a linoeum floor without actually connecting it to the piano (so, a crude simulation, but not actual use).  I think the shape of it's rubber grippy bits are probably better than the FS310's.

The pedal is narrower and stiffer to press than my FS310.  Using it without shoes on has been a bit uncomfortable, I'm yet to try it with shoes on.  I don't wear shoes inside my house, so it may be a while before I try that.  The back end of it is longer, and that could be a problem if your set‑up has everything crammed too close to a wall (that's something I really don't like about using small keyboards, getting shoved into a space with your nose almost to the wall).

Half‑pedalling is difficult to get right on my piano.  You can barely notice it taking effect if you release the pedal a tiny bit (from fully‑depressed), and the amount you have to release it by is very hard to judge.  There is no feel to it (*), no physical change in resistance to pressure at a useful point, and the half‑pedalling point is not actually halfway through the range of travel (the piano is fully damped there).  And the converse of trying to somewhat press a fully‑released pedal by some amount is even harder to judge (you have to press down quite a lot, but not go down all the way).

Though, for what it's worth, trying to do the same thing on real pianos is hard, too.  And, thus far, it's harder to use this pedal than my modified FS310 (I carefully positioned the extra switches I put inside it to make this easy—slightly release or slightly press it, and you get a half‑pedalling mode; albeit with a fixed amount of short sustain, but it serves my needs).  The thing that made me want to try a proper variable sustain pedal is that my simply‑modified pedal is a bit clicky (my modifications are, not the pedal in its original condition).  It's noticeable under quiet playing conditions, but otherwise not a problem.

There are no adjustments that can be made (no spring tensioning adjustment, nor resistive bias).  You simply plug it in (while the piano is off) and start using it.  Ideally, you'd have a piano with some parameters you could tweak for its pedal response, but my P45 has no such features.

If you plug it in after the piano is on, it will work backwards (sustained when released, damped when pressed).  This is annoying quirk of my Yamaha plastic piano (and many others), forcing you to switch it off and on again to remedy the situation.

The cable is a bit too short for you to be able to neatly hide it along the edge of your piano stand.  That's a general bugbear of electronic instruments—the rat's nest of wiring that always looks messy, and gets tangled with other things (not to mention getting destructively mangled when vacuuming rooms).  Though I'd rather have cables a bit long, and tuck the excess length away somewhere, than have one that's too short and stretched across things.

Probing the plug with a multimeter reveals that the internal wiring is most likely a linear potentiometer wired across the plug terminals like this (see below), though I suspect things might have been better with a non‑linear pot.  It may not actually have a resistor between the wiper and the ¼″ TRS jack's ring connection, and just be the internal resistance of the pot (which I dare say is 10 kΩ but mine measured around 9 kΩ), or they've rigged the mechanism to not turn 100% of the pot's travel range (which would be a good idea, to stop the mechanism being slammed against the end stops by heavy pedalling).  I'm also curious how they've managed to deal with the limited amount of movement of the pedal and operating the pot along its whole variable range, but I'll wait until I've owned it for a while, and am sure it's free of manufacturing defects, before I open it up and poke around inside.

I was tempted to try a modification to make it easier to half‑pedal (this can be tested externally):  Such as by putting another pot in parallel across the pedal's pot, or just from one end terminal to the wiper (making it's response less linear—to stretch out the half‑pedalling portion of the pot's range of movement).  And I found that putting about 3 kΩ across the ring and sleeve meant that the sustain started to slightly kick in when the pedal was lightly pressed down to the point where I can feel the spring resistance change, and full sustain starts to go away when slightly releasing from fully pressed down.  But these simplistic modifications only worked when applied after connecting the pedal to the piano.  Whenever the piano does its usual assessment of what plugged into it (as it's powered on) it undoes the modification.  The experiment was enough to see if the pedal behaviour could be improved, it just needs more experimenting to work out a method that always works as desired.  That may mean fitting some resistors in series between the piano and the pedal's pot, or changing the pot in the pedal to a non‑linear one.  That or fitting some resistors, and pressing a disconnect button (for them) somewhere else on the pedal while switching the piano on.

Later on, I did open it up.  The mechanics look reasonably robust, being all metal where it's needed, only using plastic in the low‑stress mechanical linkage to the pot, some washers between moving parts, and the upper section of the casing.  The cable is wired directly up to the pot terminals, and it must be a custom pot as it only turns about 30°, yet uses most of its variable resistance range.

Messing around with external resistors is proving difficult to try to adjust the resistive curve of the pot in a useful way, it may be necessary to try a non‑linear pot to give more range of movement to the sustained (pedal depressed) end of the control (I have tried this, but don't have a non‑linear pot with a useful rotation range).  In it's original form, there's far too tiny a section of the pedal's range of movement involved with half‑pedalling.  Though I feel that's probably more of an issue with how the piano responds, than how the pedal works (it clearly must be using a pot with a customised resistive track).  And while some will argue that real pianos are also very finicky, I would say don't copy the worst aspects of some piano designs that could be done better, and that the mechanical aspects of real pianos have a feel to their range of movement that you make use of.

I find that a nicely working modified pedal (for easier half‑pedalling) makes it easier for me to play contemporary music, at least (where you'd like to dampen the sustain somewhat, but not completely, during chord changes).  And I'm still using my modifed FS310 instead of this FC3A, as it's more usable for me, despite being clicky.  I'd prefer a silent pedal, but it needs to be easier for me to use (more range of movement in the critical range of sustain control), and not cumbersome to set up (it should just plug in and work).

Would I recommend this pedal?  Yes.  Over the very basic FC5 pedal supplied with my piano (likewise with similar very basic footswitches and other pianos), it's a major improvement (almost any pedal is).  I'd recommend it, or similar pedals, over virtually any other too‑simple pedal switches.  With a bit of practice (or a lot, and perhaps some modifications to the pedal), you may come to appreciate the ability to half‑pedal and not have to put up with pretend pianos having either a very long sustain, or none at all.  But for those people who simply stomp and release the sustain pedal, you may as well save some money by buying a good quality footswitch pedal (they're cheaper than analogue pedals, and more compatible with a wider range of pianos, particularly if you get one with a mode switch).  The Xtreme Accessories FS310 pedal is more than adequate for that, though other pedals may be better at staying in one spot on the floor while you use them.  And Yamaha has a simpler FC4A pedal switch that's more affordable than the FC3A (it looks identical, but I haven't tried one).  It's meant for Yamaha pianos, but may not be compatible with other brands (it has no mode switch help with that).

Another thing to consider is that this one is designed for certain models of Yamaha pianos.  It mayn't be compatible with other models and brands, either not working as a variable sustain control (behaving as a simple on/off sustain damper control), or not working at all.  You do need to research what pedals are compatible with your instrument before purchasing one.