Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk2 and Fatar (Studiologic) VFP3-15 sustain pedal compatibility

It should work based on this article... Pedal A input settings allow for different settings for the Tip and Ring if the VFP3-15 TRS Jack and pedal B input allows mapping as well for the TS jack (the document is unclear if the Pedal B input only allows for a TS connection based on how they are configuring it as an Expression pedal)

How to Configure Sustain / Expression Pedals on KOMPLETE KONTROL Keyboards – Native Instruments (native-instruments.com)

The S Series manual also has a section that explains the different Modes that can be assigned to the pedals if you need clarification.

With all the magnitude of possible permutations of gear interconnectivity out there, I'd opt to cut 'em just a little slack occasionally. 😉

I have a fellow composer that has it set up and working well for years now with the StudioLogic triple pedal.

Hi dear KK community!

I'd share a bit about my journey of how I solved the problem (almost) perfectly:

(TL;DR: Buy one of the Fatar VFP3-Ds on the market and resolder (max 5-6 wires needed) the cable. That's it.)

I wanted to find a triple pedal with half-damper support for my S88Mk2, and I found the discussion here and another thread.

Fatar VFP3-15 works, but without half-damper (and the one that supports it is VFP3-D which I couldn't find any place to purchase it as others stated). It also looks exactly just a Studiologic VFP3/15 since Fatar ~= Studiologic.

Studiologic SLP3-D is what we want, but only one TRS cable, and afaik we can't add a custom signal splitting script or whatsoever to Komplete Kontrol to configure all three pedals. And I found Clavia Nord Triple Pedal looks quite suspiciously the same, but just the jacks and the logos are different. But the Nord one is almost triple the price of the Studiologic one and idk why (or I know but prefer not to talk about it).

Then I found Kawai F30, which has two cables, one for TS and another for TRS. Of course, it looks again like a Studiologic SLP3-D, or we better call them VFP3-D for simplicity from now on.

No one ever mentioned if Kawai F30 works with S88, but I found an interesting DIY guide somewhere that would instruct you to install optic sensors to detect the pedal movement and output them through USB. So I decided to purchase a Kawai F30 to try on my S88. The best result is it works charmingly out of the box. The worst case is I'd have to follow that DIY guide to make it at least useful for me (or get a Kawai digital piano or return/sell it since I don't have that much money to waste).

And I ordered one from a digital piano dealer in my reage it's not in stock on Thomann (btw you should check the category "sustain pedals" there, you'll get the same Deja Vu as me when seeing those models). 

Look at the actual package box of the Kawai F30 I ordered:

(A VFP3-3D perhaps is the ultimate solution for everything everywhere right?)

Unfortunately, after trying almost all combinations in Komplete Kontrol, I just can't get it to work with my Pianoteq 7. So I unscrewed the screws to see what's the magic inside (I didn't care about the warranty anymore as soon as I touched the box and the pedal, I meant not something bad, but it just feels like a simple axe that you know nothing is complicated inside and there's very less chance you'd send it to an AppleCare later). 

(Notice the right pedal's potentiometer only has two wires soldered, and it mixed with one of the switches on the TRS jack)

After quick learning on the fly by searching keywords like "expression pedal wiring" online, I realized it seems the wiring of the Kawai F30 is specifically designed for the Kawai digital pianos. But since a half-damper/continuous sustain/expression pedal is basically just a rotational potentiometer with a foot pedal, why can't I change the wiring a bit to make it work? So I got two 6.5mm TRS female jacks and a soldering gun and replaced all five wires there (the original wiring is quite a tricky design tbh, bless you the designers in Kawai). I'm pretty enough with this kind of cable-from-the-device design, so I thought to improve it a bit to be slightly more flexible in case I need to connect it to another slightly incompatible device (Santa Claus might send me an S88Mk3 one day who knows!). And after one hour of struggling to weld things correctly without hurting anything or anyone, the CC64 is a continuous signal now! And I have to reverse the mapping for another two switch pedals in Komplete Kontrol because I just have to. I also tried to wire them to another two sockets on the PCB which have the number "15" next to them (VFP-3/10-D I think this is what I eventually got, and if it's a VFP-3/15-D then it might work flawlessly), but nope it not works in that way (It seems I need more education in EE to understand if it could be solved by adding two more resistors).

(On the PCB you could see 10/15/25/GND, sorry for the blurring tho)

And the happiness:

So, the conclusion, industrial giants please, just send a few emails to each other and get simple things like this done, not everyone has the luck like me to get over the challenges.

And for NI: can we have a more advanced pedal assignation interface in Komplete Kontrol so that the signal can be split and swapped between the pedal sockets? Can you send a B2B order to Fatar and have a duo-TRS version of VFP-D fully compatible with S88 on market (then I don't need to replace the Kawai logo sticker with an NI one 😋)?

Hi ToddlerTN,

I also considered a less destructive solution exactly like what you got, but regarding the increase of cost, and it's yet another USB device, and I don't want to connect too many cables to my already messy laptop and hubs, I finally decided to gamble on that Fatar/Kawai one.

I think for most of the people who go for an S88 what they expect to get is a full-weight 88 premium keyboard with nice NI integrations. I used to have an M-Audio Hammer 88 before which served solely as a piano-like input device, while all the controllers faders knobs were from other devices or interacted on computers. To have a better and smoother NKS workflow I chose S88 as an upgrade. But seems within the same price range, I could get a Maschine + any other hammer-action 88 keys instead. Sadly if I'm going to upgrade the next time my main keyboard, I won't choose this type of integrated solution anymore.