This article is about pedal-operated keyboards. For pedal-operated bass drums, see Bass drum §Bass drum pedal. For electronic effects for electric bass, see bass effects.
Bass pedals are an electronic musical instrument with a foot-operated pedal keyboard with a range of one or more octaves. The earliest bass pedals from the 1970s consisted of a pedalboard and analog synthesizer tone generation circuitry packaged together as a unit. The bass pedals are plugged into a bass amplifier or PA system so that their sound can be heard. Since the 1990s, bass pedals are usually MIDI controllers, which have to be connected to a MIDI-compatible computer, electronic synthesizer keyboard, or synth module to produce musical tones. Some 2010s-era bass pedals have both an onboard synth module and a MIDI output.
Bass pedals serve the same function as the pedalboard on a pipe organ or an electric organ, and usually produce sounds in the bass range, which, in organ terminology is the 16′ stop. Some bass pedals have an 8′ stop (an octave higher) which can be used by itself or combined with the 16' stop. Bass pedals are used by keyboard players as an adjunct to their full-range manual keyboards (the keyboards played with the hands), by performers of other instruments (e.g., electric bass or electric guitar), or by themselves. Bass pedal units usually have a smaller range (13 notes) than a church pipe organ's pedal keyboard (32 notes for an American Guild of Organists standard pedalboard). Bass pedals with larger ranges are less common, but do exist, such as 17 notes (C to E), 20 notes (C to G), and 25 notes (C to C two octaves higher). As well, bass pedals usually have shorter pedals than those on a church pipe organ's pedalboard.
Elements
A 1970s Crumar bass pedalboard for organ. This is a standalone unit with an internal bass synthesizer. The foot-controlled buttons are for sustain (applied to every note), 16' (sub-bass), and 8' (bass) stops.
All bass pedal units consist of foot-operated pedals mounted in a chassis that sits on the floor. The chassis has buttons on top, also designed to be operated with the feet, which enable the performer to change the sound. Typical buttons include a 16' and 8' button to give a contrabass or bass sound. Some models may have a sustain button; despite the name, it is used differently from an electronic piano's sustain pedal. Whereas an electronic piano's sustain pedal is a momentary, non-latching switch depressed to provide sustain, and then released to end the sustained note, a bass pedal unit's electronic sustain is a latching switch, which, when clicked on automatically sustains all notes for a fixed, short period after the pedal is released. The benefit of the bass pedal's sustain button is that it facilitates legato, sostenuto basslines in slow ballads. Some units with sustain also had a rolling dial to enable the setting of the automatic sustain length.
A 1970s-era bass pedal is typically monophonic, which meant that it could only play one note at a time. Even if the player presses two pedals simultaneously, such as a C and a G, only one note sounds. Given that bass pedals are typically used to play deep-pitched basslines, some models had a "low note priority" circuit. With this circuit, if the player pressed two or more pedals, the unit would only sound the lowest pitched note. A 1970s unit might have a choice of several imitated instruments, such as organ bass, string bass (with more decay), or tuba. Some units had a rolling dial, once again foot-operated, to control the volume. A 1970s unit might have a single output: a 1/4 jack. A unit from this era might have only one visual indicator: a power on LED. Since the bass pedals are on the ground, there is a risk that the player might accidentally press on one of the buttons and change the sound. To reduce this risk, some bass pedals have plastic covers over some of the buttons or U-shaped "switch guard" protectors near some buttons.
Some 1990s and later bass pedals gave the player the option of selecting a monophonic or polyphonic setting. The polyphonic setting could sound more than one pitch at a time. Even though contrabass instruments are less likely to be used to play chords (three or more notes sounded together) than their higher-pitched cousins (as deep-pitched chords can sound unclear and "muddy"), a contrabass instrument like a bass pedal unit can still effectively play some dyads (two-notes sounded together), such as perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves. On a bass pedal unit with a wider range, such as a 20-note unit, a minor tenth or major tenth might sound pleasing, especially at an 8' register.
A 1990s or later unit might have a 1/4 jack output and one or more 5-pin MIDI jacks (e.g., MIDI out or thru). Some 1990s or later units have alphanumeric LED displays and/or small LEDs to provide information to the player about the settings.
Organ bass pedals
A few of the bass pedals designed to be used with electronic or clonewheel organs have features that operate the upper manual keyboards, such as an expression pedal or swell pedal, which is a treadle-style potentiometer for controlling the volume; buttons to turn on or change the speed of a Leslie speaker, a rotating horn speaker in a cabinet; or program change buttons, which send a MIDI message to the other upper keyboards to change to a new sound or setting.
Some bass pedals designed to be used with electronic organs have a MIDI merge feature, so that one or more keyboards can have their MIDI outs plugged into the bass pedal, and then the bass pedal merges the MIDI messages and sends them, via the bass pedal's MIDI out, to the organ sound module. This function might be needed if a keyboardist had two MIDI controller keyboards, and the bass pedals, and wants the MIDI messages from all three controllers to be sent to the sound module.
History
Origins
This Sisme combo organ shows the more portable type of combo organs made in the 1970s. This organ has bass pedals in a separate chassis. Eventually, these types of bass pedals were designed and sold as standalone units.
Pedalboards have been a standard feature on pipe organs for centuries, and since the 1930s, electromechanical organs such as the Hammond organ often included pedalboards. In the 1960s, home spinet organs by Hammond, Farfisa, and other manufacturers included short, 13-note bass pedals attached to the base of the chassis. In the 1970s, electronic organ makers were aware that musicians wanted organs that could be taken to gigs at bars and festivals, so organs were made more portable. To make organs more portable, they were changed from being housed in heavy wooden consoles with an integrated amplifier and speaker and bass pedals (the home organ approach) to being made as a main keyboard, a detachable stand, and detachable bass pedals. The organist was expected to plug the organ into a Leslie speaker or other instrument amplifier and speaker. Even if the total weight of a split-apart organ was the same, portability was improved, because the individual components were lighter than an entire home console organ.
Once organ companies were making portable organs, some manufacturers began building bass pedals that could function separately from the organ console. These afforded the player great portability, and flexibility in combining them with other instruments and electronic equipment. A 1970s-era musician with a standalone bass pedal could use it under an organ for one set, put it under an electric piano for a second set, then pull it out and use it while playing guitar for a third set.
An early and popular bass pedal device was the Moog Taurus. Moog called this instrument a "Pedal Synthesizer" in their literature, and explicitly pointed out that its five-octave range made it "more than a bass instrument". . Despite these efforts, most players used them for basslines, and the term bass pedals stuck. The Taurus I and II models are no longer in production, but they are prized as vintage instruments. In 2010, Moog introduced a new model, the Taurus III, in a limited run of 1000 units.
The Taurus III (2010-2012) offered more features, including fuzz bass.
Several progressive rock and hard rock groups (such as Yes, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, Led Zeppelin and Rush) and alternative rock groups such as U2 and The Police used bass pedals. Often, the group's bass guitarist would play in a standing position, meaning that they could only use one foot at a time to play, rather than play sitting down with both feet, as organists traditionally had. However, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin used bass pedals while sitting down at a keyboard. Bass guitarists frequently used Taurus pedals to hold down sustained, low-pitched pedal points while performing high-register melodic lines or percussive parts on the bass guitar. In 1983, Phil Collins' song "I Don't Care Anymore" featured Taurus pedals, unusually played by hand. Bassist Mo Foster appears in the music video as the man behind the machine.
1990s and 2000s
Jazz, rock, and popular music
Since the 1990s, most electronic pedalboards have been MIDI controllers, which do not perform any tone generation themselves. These pedalboards have to be connected to a MIDI-compatible computer, electronic keyboard or rack-mounted synthesizer to produce musical tones. Despite the fact that these pedalboards can control any kind of MIDI device, and can therefore produce a virtually unlimited range of musical pitches (and other sounds), ranging from a high-pitched melody to percussion sounds, they are still often referred to as "bass pedals".
Current manufacturers of these products, such as Hammond, Roland, Studiologic (formerly known as Fatar), and R. W. Designs, mostly sell keyboards with 13-note keyboards (C to C, one octave), 17-note (C to E, an octave and a third) keyboards, or 25-note keyboards (C to C, two octaves). Pedalboards with less than a 32-note range are often used by jazz, rock, or popular music performers.
Baroque and church music
To perform Baroque church music repertoire (e.g., J.S. Bach), a 30-note keyboard (C to F, two octaves and a fourth) is needed. A smaller number of manufacturers, such as Classic Organworks, sell a MIDI controller in full-sized 32-note AGO layout that can be used to perform virtually all organ repertoire.
In the art music and church music context, MIDI pedalboards and digitally sampled or synthesized pipe organ instruments are used either as practice instruments or as performance instruments. Some universities and churches use MIDI pedalboards and digital organs as practice instruments, to allow a larger number of students to practice. Some churches use MIDI pedalboards to trigger digitally sampled sounds for the low register of the pipe organ. This has led to some controversy, because this mixes digitally sampled, electronically amplified sounds with the wind-driven pipe sound of the rest of the pipe organ; some purists argue that this is inappropriate, or that the sound or tonal quality of the digital bass voices are unsuitable.
Other uses
While bass pedals are usually used to perform basslines, MIDI-equipped pedals can be used for a range of other purposes. The different pedals can be assigned to perform different chords, which allows a one man band-style performer to perform chords with a single foot-press. Additionally, MIDI pedals can be used with a keyboard workstation or an arranger keyboard to trigger different parts of sequenced song arrangements. For example, a performer could use the pedals to trigger the chorus, verse, and solo sections of a sequenced song. Another musical use of MIDI pedals would be to have each pedal linked to a different drum sound, such as a bass drum, snare, and cymbals; this would permit the performance of rudimentary drum kit parts.
A MIDI-equipped pedalboard can also be used for non-musical purposes:
animation parameter control, as demonstrated by Apple Motion v2
Such non-musical applications of the MIDI 1.0 protocol (sometimes over MIDI-DIN, sometimes using other transports) are possible because of its general-purpose nature. Any device built with a standard MIDI Out connector should in theory be able to control any other device with a MIDI In port, just as long as the developers of both devices have the same understanding about the semantic meaning of all the MIDI messages the sending device emits. This agreement can come either because both follow the official MIDI standard specifications, or else in the case of any non-standard functionality, because the message meanings are directly agreed upon by the two manufacturers.
An effects unit, effects processor, or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Pressing a key on the keyboard makes the instrument produce sounds—either by mechanically striking a string or tine, plucking a string (harpsichord), causing air to flow through a pipe organ, striking a bell (carillon), or activating an electronic circuit. Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the piano keyboard or simply piano keys.
The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, through engagement of an action whose hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament.
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre, volume, and construction throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing pitch, timbre, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones. The organs have usually two or three, up to five, manuals for playing with the hands and a pedalboard for playing with the feet. With the use of registers, several groups of pipes can be connected to one manual.
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument based on keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs and digital audio workstations. In technical terms, an electronic keyboard is a rompler-based synthesizer with a low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.
Bassline is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, dub and electronic, traditional, and classical music, for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, cello, tuba or keyboard.
Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd. is a British musical equipment manufacturer, founded in 1992 by Ian Jannaway and Mark Thompson as Novation Electronic Music Systems. Today the company specializes in MIDI controllers with and without keyboards, both analog and virtual analog performance synthesizers, grid-based performance controllers, and audio interfaces. At present, Novation products are primarily manufactured in China.
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:
A pedalboard is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music. A pedalboard has long, narrow lever-style keys laid out in the same semitone scalar pattern as a manual keyboard, with longer keys for C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, and shorter, raised keys for C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯ and A♯. Training in pedal technique is part of standard organ pedagogy in church music and art music.
A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance. They most often use a musical keyboard to send data about the pitch of notes to play, although a MIDI controller may trigger lighting and other effects. A wind controller has a sensor that converts breath pressure to volume information and lip pressure to control pitch. Controllers for percussion and stringed instruments exist, as well as specialized and experimental devices. Some MIDI controllers are used in association with specific digital audio workstation software. The original MIDI specification has been extended to include a greater range of control features.
Keyboard bass is the use of a smaller, low-pitched keyboard with fewer notes than a regular keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the deep notes of a bass guitar or double bass in music.
The word "manual" is used instead of the word "keyboard" when referring to any hand-operated keyboard on a keyboard instrument that has a pedalboard, such as an organ; or when referring to one of the keyboards on an instrument that has more than one hand-operated keyboard, such as a two- or three-manual harpsichord.
Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression types include:
An expression pedal is an important control found on many musical instruments including organs, electronic keyboards, and pedal steel guitar. The musician uses the pedal to control different aspects of the sound, commonly volume. Separate expression pedals can often be added to a guitar amplifier or effects unit and used to control many different aspects of the tone.
The pipe organ is played from an area called the console or keydesk, which holds the manuals (keyboards), pedals, and stop controls. In electric-action organs, the console is often movable. This allows for greater flexibility in placement of the console for various activities. Some very large organs, such as the van den Heuvel organ at the Church of St. Eustache in Paris, have more than one console, enabling the organ to be played from several locations depending on the nature of the performance.
This is a glossary of jazz and popular music terms that are likely to be encountered in printed popular music songbooks, fake books and vocal scores, big band scores, jazz, and rock concert reviews, and album liner notes. This glossary includes terms for musical instruments, playing or singing techniques, amplifiers, effects units, sound reinforcement equipment, and recording gear and techniques which are widely used in jazz and popular music. Most of the terms are in English, but in some cases, terms from other languages are encountered.
The Korg CX-3 is an electronic clonewheel organ with drawbars that simulates the sound of an electromechanical Hammond organ and the Leslie speaker, a rotating speaker effect unit. The CX-3 was first introduced in 1979.
A digital accordion is an electronic musical instrument that uses the control features of a traditional accordion to trigger a digital sound module that produces synthesized or digitally sampled accordion sounds or, in most instruments, a range of non-accordion sounds, such as orchestral instruments, pipe organ, piano, guitar, and so on. Digital accordions typically encode and transmit key presses and other input as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) messages. Most digital accordions need to be plugged into a keyboard amplifier or PA system to hear their sounds.
The 12 Step foot controller is a bass pedal-style programmable MIDI controller pedal keyboard made by Keith McMillen Instruments which was released in 2011. It has small, soft, rubbery keys that are played with the feet. As a MIDI controller, it does not make or output any musical sounds by itself; rather, it sends MIDI messages about which notes are played to an external synth module or computer music program running on a laptop or other computer. Each key on the 12 Step senses the velocity, aftertouch pressure, and the amount of tilt the player is applying with his feet. The messages from the player's foot presses can be sent via USB to a computer-based virtual instrument or to a synthesizer or other electronic or digital musical instrument.
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