SP-34 Functionality

[Stormin Norman]

I have an SP-34 attached via the 5-pin DIN connector to my, (AWESOME!), new PX-S3000.

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that given the 5 pin connectivity, I would be able to assign each pedal to a different function.

It would be great if I could control different aspects of the rhythm/accompaniments,i.e. Start, Stop, Fill-In, Variation, especially when using organ patches.

I have researched  on line extensively and even called Casio tech support to no avail.

Does anyone have any idea if this can be done?

If reprogramming is not possible, perhaps it is something that could be implemented in an update?

(I also have the SP-3 but that has only the ability to control one assigned function at a time).

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

-Norm

[Chandler Holloway]

There is no way to reassign individual pedals on the SP-34. Some people have wired up custom adapters that re-route the pins of the 5-pin 3-pedal connectors to the regular sustain pedal and assignable jacks, but functionally this is no different from just buying an extra footswitch-type pedal like the SP-3 and plugging your two pedals into the sustain and assignable jacks and assigning one to control Rhythm start/stop and the other to control fill-in/variation. The expression pedal/assignable jack wouldn’t be able to control the expression of organ patches in this case.

[Stormin Norman]

Thanks Chandler!

Very explicit response.

I like your idea, connecting two SP-3s to control rhythm/accompaniments, even if that means sacrificing the sustain.

I will have to separate my piano patch sets and organ sets to give me time to change one SP-3 to the Yamaha FC7.

Do you suppose it might be possible for Casio to implement programmable functionality for the Sp-34 into the PX-S3000 sometime in the future?

(Guess I'm one of those greedy people who want it all)

 

Much Appreciated!

-Norm

[Rod Tompkins]

I'm one of those PX-S3000 owners very disappointed at the fixed functions of the SP-34, so I created an adapter to control rhythm start/stop and fill from the left and middle pedals of the SP-34. The adapter allows this without making any mods to the pedal or keyboard. It's much nicer ergonomically than having 2 additional foot switches taking up space and sliding around. The SP-34 feels great, stays right where I set it and gives me half-damper sustain on the right pedal. I do wish I didn't lose my expression pedal input for this hack to work, but it's a deal I'm willing to make for my purposes. 

[Chandler Holloway]

6 hours ago, Stormin Norman said:

Do you suppose it might be possible for Casio to implement programmable functionality for the Sp-34 into the PX-S3000 sometime in the future?

 

Casio usually doesn’t release firmware updates for models without removable flash media, but the PX-S3000 has a flash drive slot so I don’t see why not. It’s also very early in the S3000’s life cycle and it has yet to receive a major firmware update, so it’s definitely possible that such a thing could be added in the future. I’ll tag @Mike Martin so he can pass that along to Casio HQ in Tokyo.

 

Thanks for sharing, Rod. Very cool, and it looks like a tidy soldering job too. You should definitely make a separate thread with step-by-step tutorial in case anyone else is interested.

[Rod Tompkins]

1 minute ago, Chandler Holloway said:

Thanks for sharing, Rod. Very cool, and it looks like a tidy soldering job too. You should definitely make a separate thread with step-by-step tutorial in case anyone else is interested.

Thanks, Chandler. Actually, none of my lame soldering skills required, just lots of wire twisting and heat-shrink tubing. I was not sure it was going to work, so I didn't document the whole process in much detail. I plan to make a backup adapter when I get the chance and will take better notes.

 

Here's a video I made when I first tried it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT9gsLpoEjU

[Stormin Norman]

Outstanding innovation! I suspect a lot of research was done before the  “Tompkins Adapter Cable” was compleated

Would it be possible to share a schematic of your wire harnessing?

THANK YOU!

-Norm

[Mads Olsen]

Hi all!

 

I'm a newcomer to the forum. Have had the PX-S3000 for some months now. Really satisfied with the purchase. Had my eyes on the 560 for some time, but the looks and piano sounds of the 3000 made me favour this black beauty.

 

I unboxed and connected my SP34 half an hour ago. Nice pedal with a solid feel. I already have an M-audio EX-P expression pedal connected (working as it should), and the simple damper pedal connected to the damper jack connection.

I have a gig tomorrow, and my plan was to use the damper pedal to switch memory banks/presets during the gig. But, to my dismay, I discovered that I cannot choose that function (target) on the damper pedal. What a bummer! I really need the expression pedal to control volume on my organ sounds, so I won't disconnect the expression pedal.

I really can't see a good reason why the damper pedal connection shouldn't be able to be assigned to the memory bank preset switching, especially for those of us who have the SP34 pedal unit. Or am I missing something?

 

 

[AteS]

Does anyone checked and wrote down the connection pinouts of the mini-din from sp-34?

I own a cdp s350 and i’m going to try to make my own interface cable for 3 separate pedals to the pedal jack on the 350.

would help me a lot if a sp-34 owner can tell which pedalfunction is connected to what pinnumber. The numbering of the male mini din is below.

 

[David Pansini]

I purchased a 6 pin DIN cable. When looking at the DIN, Pin 1 is the first one on the left. The wire colors on mine are Pin 1-Black, 2-Yellow, 3-Red, 4-Brown, 5-Orange, 6-Green, bare wire is ground. I've found that the Black, Green and Orange control the damper 1/2 and full. This leaves Yellow, Red and Brown to control the Sostenuto (start stop) and Soft (fill). So far I haven't found any combination that works. If anyone has any suggestions, please share.

 

Thanks

[AteS]

In the male plug there are six pins. One of them should be the common. I don't think the shielding has any use in the connections.

Based on what I found on the net, my educated guess is that the common wire is on pin 6, but I still need to confirm that.

I think that there are 4 other wires that control the actions through "pull-down-to-common" switching: Sustain half/full, sostenuto and soft.

 

I plan (long term plan though) to build a switching unit with 4 switches that I place under the keyboard so I can activate the switches with my knees, left knee to the left and to the right and the same for right knee. I'll use that switches to control scrolling the sheet music. You can configure that for the S350 in the chordana for piano app. I'm not a fan of a pedal lying on the floor. Since I am not a "real" piano player I do not have a real use for that, I am more into organ and keyboard.

 

I'm still hoping someone who owns a sp34 will connect that to a multimeter and make notes of what switch connects to what pin number...

Or perhaps Casio can release the pinout of the sp-34 connector to the community, would be nice and very much appreciated.

 

 

[David Pansini]

AteS, I think you are correct about the outer shielding. I thought it was the ground, but it doesn't seem to do anything. 

I have the Damper 1/2 and full working but still can't find any combination to assign start/stop and fill to the other pedals. It should only be 2 wires. Frustrating. 

I'm using a Boss FS-5U for the start/stop and another FS-5U for the fill in addition to the SP34. Takes up too much space. I'll never use the soft or sustenuto pedals. Would be great if I can eventually figure it out. 

To be honest, I only use the rhythm function as a metronome. For playing live, I create backing tracks with Easy Drummer. I loose spontaneity, but sounds incredibly better than the Casio rhythms. I've been creating backing tracks for years when playing solo with my Guitar. 

Eventually, I want to use the  soft and sustenuto pedals to control my Alesis SR-16 drum machine or other gear. 

We'll figure it out. 

 

[AteS]

All info in later post

[AteS]

On 4/1/2020 at 4:27 PM, David Pansini said:

AteS, I think you are correct about the outer shielding. I thought it was the ground, but it doesn't seem to do anything. 

I have the Damper 1/2 and full working but still can't find any combination to assign start/stop and fill to the other pedals. It should only be 2 wires. Frustrating.

 

One other observation, I looked at the standard Casio pedal, and found that when closed, the resistance is not 0 ohm but around 100 ohms. So I think a total short is not allowed/working. Try activating the action by using a 100 ohm resistor not a fully short to ground.

[David Pansini]

AteS, Thanks for the info. I'm not that good with electronics. I have no idea how to use a 100 ohm resistor. I attempted once again to configure my SP-34 pedals to use with the drums start/stop and fill. No luck. Too bad Rod Tompkins didn't make notes of his accomplishment. Would be great to use all the pedals on the 34. 

If anyone ever figures out how to do this modification, please share. 

 

Thanks

[Rod Tompkins]

Hey guys! I came across a few photos from my SP-34/PX-S3000 FrankenCable project. I may have more specific notes at home, but I'm not there right now. Here's what I remember....

• Not sure if these colors are standard, but in my 6-pin Mini DIN cable, only 5 of the 7 wires did anything.
• I removed the Yellow and the Shield which were not connected inside the SP-34, leaving Black, Green, Orange, Brown and Red to work with. 
• Black, Green and Orange provided half-pedal capability (on the right pedal of the 3) via the 6-Pin connector on the keyboard. No other combination of wires made the half-pedal work.
• The Brown and Red connect to the tip wires of the two 1/4-inch cables.
• Weirdly, one of the 1/4" cables only needed the tip wire, the other need tip and sleeve. Connecting the sleeve from both cables in any combination resulted in an epic fail. 
• Can't remember which tip wire connected to the Brown vs. Red on the DIN cable, but I'm pretty sure the one sleeve wire was connected to the Green along along with the Half-Pedal wire.
• NOTE of ONE VERY STRANGE THING: The left pedal works just as expected and activates on pedal down. I use this for Rhythm Start/Stop since very precise timing is essential.  The middle pedal (I think the one without the sleeve connection) activates on pedal up, so I use that for fills. My thought is that super precise timing of the fills is not essential. So for a fill, I just press and release the pedal quickly to trigger a fill. Since the fill won't even start until the next beat anyway, this just feels to me like pressing the pedal triggers the fill. I could not find any combination of connections that made both pedals work the same.
• Of course, with a CDP-S350, this adapter would give you START/STOP or FILL functionality, but not both as it only has one assignable jack, so use the plug with the sleeve connection so it behaves in the normal way.

I'm sure that any of you with any skills in this area are saying WTF. I was really just trying all different combinations until I found what worked. Somehow my little monster came to life and I have been enjoying ever since. By the way, I was so hell-bent on making this work that I bought all the necessary materials to make it before I received my PX-S3000. I wanted it this functionality that bad.

 

 

 

 

[David Pansini]

Here's my current set up. My EXPRESSION pedal is assigned START/STOP and when using my Boss FS-5U pedal, I have the PEDAL TYPE set to 2. The DAMPER pedal is assigned FILL.

My idea set up would be for the SP-34's left pedal to control the fill. That's so I have room to press both the DAMPER and FILL pedals at the same time without stepping on myself. This leaves the middle pedal for START/STOP.

My DIN cable has the same colors as Rod's. Connecting the Black, Green and Orange wires proved HALF-DAMPER on the right pedal. This one I figured out on my own. 

I connected the Brown wire to the tip of the EXPRESSION input and the Red wire to the tip of the DAMPER input. This gives me Fill on the left pedal, and half-dampening on the right.

With the PEDAL-TYPE set to 2, touching the sleeve of the EXPRESSION input to the Green wire, has not effect. But when set to 1, TOUCHING these wires will activate START/STOP, but none of the pedals of the SP-34 will activate START/STOP.  I still have FILL on the left and HALF-DAMPER on the right.

 

If I switch the EXPRESSION and DAMPER inputs, nothing works. 

 

Rod, If you remember anything else, please let us know. We're getting there.

 

Thanks Rod for your help.

 

David

 

 

 

[David Pansini]

Got it!!!

 

Now my SP-34 works like Rods.The left pedal works the fill, the center pedal works the start/stop (on the release, not the down beat) and the right pedal maintains the half dampening function. Providing your DIN cable is configured like mine (see screen shot), this will work.

 

The yellow and sleeve of the DIN Cable were not used.

For the half-dampening on the right damper pedal of the SP-34, connect the Black, Orange and Green wires of the Male and Female DIN's.

For the Fill on the left pedal, connect the TIP wire of the 1/4 inch TS Damper input cable to the Red DIN. The Shield wire is not used.

For the Start/Stop on the middle pedal, connect both the TIP and SLEEVE wires of the the 1/4 inch TS Expression input cable to the Brown and Green DIN wires. 

Because this MOD is non-destructive to the SP-34, I can always use the SP-34 as designed and use both the Expression and Damper inputs for other functions. I now have choices. 

 

Ideally, I need to invest in a portable drum machine. The rhythm functions on the 3000 is nothing more than a Metronome on steroids. It's fine for practice, but nothing I would use live. I create my own backing tracks, so I have great drums for most of my songs, but there's no spontaneity. My old Alesis SR-16 drum machine no longer works, so I'll need to get something to replace it for the songs I don't have backing tracks for. 

 

Does anyone use the Bose S1 Pro or the JBL EON ONE Compact battery powered PA's? Because the 3000 can run on batteries, would be nice to have a small portable battery PA to go with it. For small parties and gigs, that could be a nice and easy rig. 

 

 

 

SP-34 Casio Pedal Modificatioln.docx

[AteS]

Good for you, you've got it working.

Also many thanks for your extensive information, I'll use that later for my own little project

[AteS]

So here is the next step in the process of discovering the functions available on the connection on my CDP-S350 for the SP-34 pedal.

 

This is the connector on my CDP-S350 in front view

 

I tried three use cases, first with the SP-3 standard pedal (internal impedance 150 ohm), then with a pushbutton in series with a 100 ohm resistor, and the pushbutton directly. There was no difference in the results.

 

Pinnr      Impedance    volt(open)    Function      SP34pedal    MIDI (value)

1             1 Kohm           3 V                sostenuto    Middle            66 (127)

2             1 Kohm           3 V                 soft               Left                67 (127)

3             1 Kohm           3 V                 sustain         Right.             64 (127)

4             0 ohm              0 V                common        -                      -

5              1 Kohm          3 V                 ?                     -                      no midi

6              0 ohm             0 V                 common       -                      -

 

The SP-3 nor the pushbutton support half damper, so I could not confirm that in my measurements.

 

Pins 4 and 6 are both common and interconnected, using 4 or 6 or both doesn’t change anything.

 

I could not find any function at pin 5. It seems to have a connection to the internals because the measured impedance and open volts. But as long as Casio doesn’t release additional info like a service manual, the only way to find out more is opening up the keyboard and have a look. Perhaps I will do that when my warranty has ended, that’s January 2022.

 

edit: perhaps this is a kind of "pedal connected" signal, for additional functions in the menu or something like that. I'll look in to that..

 

Anyway I now can start making my own three-pedal unit. And when I use my keyboard as a midi-controller, i can map the midi messages to other functions, like rotary with the organ sounds, that’s something that’s not available on the S350.

[David Pansini]

I've gone back to my original configuration using the SP 34 for all piano functions and two Boss FS-5U pedals, one for rhythm on/off and the other for fills.

I found that using the SP-34 to control the rhythm functions to be a bit uncomfortable. My left foot was too close to my right. With the Boss pedals I can place my the pedals where my left foot falls naturally. 

Now I want to connect a single standard damper pedal to the DIN jack. A single damper pedal and the two Boss pedals would actually take up less space than the SP-34 and I can place the rhythm pedals where I want them. 

Back to the store to buy another DIN cable to play with. 

I think the best way to go is to pick up a portable PA (Bose S1 or JBL EON ONE Compact), and a drum pedal. The S3000 rhythm is still nothing more than a metronome on steroids. 

I used an Alexis SR-16 drum machine for over 20 years. I loved it. But, like most things, it no longer works. I need to replace it with a battery powered version. 

We're getting there. 

[Gartro]

You guys are out of control. And I LOVE it!

[allandegier]

On 10/25/2019 at 1:22 PM, Mads Olsen said:

Hi all!

 

I'm a newcomer to the forum. Have had the PX-S3000 for some months now. Really satisfied with the purchase. Had my eyes on the 560 for some time, but the looks and piano sounds of the 3000 made me favour this black beauty.

 

I unboxed and connected my SP34 half an hour ago. Nice pedal with a solid feel. I already have an M-audio EX-P expression pedal connected (working as it should), and the simple damper pedal connected to the damper jack connection.

I have a gig tomorrow, and my plan was to use the damper pedal to switch memory banks/presets during the gig. But, to my dismay, I discovered that I cannot choose that function (target) on the damper pedal. What a bummer! I really need the expression pedal to control volume on my organ sounds, so I won't disconnect the expression pedal.

I really can't see a good reason why the damper pedal connection shouldn't be able to be assigned to the memory bank preset switching, especially for those of us who have the SP34 pedal unit. Or am I missing something?

 

 

Hi, in the system preferences you can set the damper pedal too change the registrations in the Registration menu Seq Ped Recall.

[LisaWen]

Hi,

I have a PX-160 and I purchased an SP-34 pedal unit. The SP-34 has a 6 pin mini din (male) plug, and they keyboard has a straight 5 pin (jst sm, I think it's called) input for the 3 pedal unit. I'm trying to create a connector. I have a PS/2 receptacle (https://www.adafruit.com/product/804) and I have jst sm with 5 pins cables. (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1664).  And now I am stuck. Should I purchase a jst sm cable that has 6 wires coming out of it instead of 5? Or is one of the wires in the SP-34 useless? Also, I need some pointers on how to wire them together if anyone sees this....  Do I just connect the ends of the wires?  If so, which to which?  Any advice would be much appreciated. New at this but determined!

Edited June 18, 2022 by LisaWen

[Joe Muscara]

I have no idea if the SP-34 can be wired or connected to an earlier model like the PX-160. The only way I would know how is to get your hands on an SP-33 and see how those wires work, or if there's someone on here that has one and can test for you. I don't know of anywhere that the wiring specs for the SP-33 nor the SP-34 are published. If you're lucky, there's a one-to-one relationship and you would just have to connect them.

 

And yes, Casio could sell a few more SP-34 units if they'd sell a kit that would make it work on PX-x60 models like yours, but don't hold your breath.  I'm just glad they finally shipped a three-pedal unit that didn't require the stand.