Review of a Yamaha FC5 pedal switch

[photo of] — top view of Yamaha FC5 footswitch

My Yamaha P45 plastic piano came with this very basic pedal switch to use as its sustain pedal, and I considered it so awful (it feels like you're stepping on a kitchen sponge) that I bought a proper sustain pedal (an Xtreme Accessories FS310 piano pedal) before I even left the store. Apart from how it feels to press, I found that it has too little back‑pressure to be able to rest your foot on it when you're not pressing it (it would easily trigger when you didn't want it to), so you had to hover your foot in the air. That's not comfortable to do for any prolonged period.

I thought I might be able to use this footswitch for something else, such as a remote switch for starting/stopping a recorder, but it has a normally‑closed (NC) switch that opens when pressed, and most other things needed an normally‑open (NO) switch that closes when pressed. So I set about modifying it to replace the switch.

Incidentally, this NC switch is why you have to plug the pedal into the piano before you switch the piano on, else the sustain pedal works backwards (no sustain when pressed, sustain when you let go). The piano only senses the initial (released) switch position when first switched on. I think this is a failing in the piano design, and choice of switch for the pedal.

The piano could have a switched socket that detects when a plug is being inserted and cause the piano to assess the pedal mode there and then, as well as at switch on. Or the pedal could use a NO switch on a tip, ring & sleeve (TRS) jack, wired across the tip and ring (to suit the input circuitry of that piano), instead of a tip & sleeve (TS) jack, and it wouldn't matter when you plugged it in. Yamaha wouldn't have had to explain to plug it in before switch‑on, nor how to work around that problem, and the pedal would always just do what was expected of it.

Never one to put up with bad things that can be improved to do what I really want them to do, I took out the original leaf switch, looked to see if it could be modified to turn it into a NO switch but decided that would be a major pain to attempt. And I couldn't see any obvious direct replacements for it, so opted for screwing a microswitch to the side wall of the pedal, wiring it up in NO mode, and bending its activation lever into a shape that meant the pedal had to be firmly depressed before the switch engaged. On the off chance that the cabling might pick up some noise that upset something I plugged it into, I used shielded cabling (it just surrounds the switch wires, without making any connection to them). I can wire the plug end to suit whatever I'm connecting it to without having to do anything more in the footswitch, and I could fit a mode switch in the pedal for those few things that needed NC instead of NO switch contacts.

The leaf switch has an advantage of being virtually silent, while a microswitch does give a click, but I considered it quiet enough to not be a problem for me, and actually an advantage for at least one use I might make use of (giving audible feedback that it's worked when controlling something that's out of my eyeline). The pedal, itself, isn't silent anyway, there's a bit of a squeak to the plastic parts moving around, and a small clack when the top half hits the bottom (I could probably put some foam in, and lube the pivot, to dampen the noise). The leaf switch has the disadvantage of being unenclosed bare copper contacts, which can tarnish and collect muck over time and go bad (I've had that problem with the leaf switches under the keys in my Technics organ, and a footswitch being on the ground and kicked about won't do it any favours), whereas the microswitch is fully enclosed.

The modified pedal could still be used for its original purpose (and avoid the problem of having to be plugged in before switch‑on), but I don't need to since I have a better damper pedal. I'll either use it to start and stop my recorder, or remotely start and stop the rhythm unit in my organ when playing the piano.