Part I:

As described by Bad_Mister in many other threads here on Motifator.com, there seems to be no way to use the SUSTAIN pedal as a physical input controller, e.g. for changing element parameters of a voice (or of several voices simultaneously) in real-time. For all Motif-based synthesizer models, the SUSTAIN pedal with its dedicated input jack was exclusively designed by Yamaha to trigger nothing else but the “HOLD 1” function, specified in MIDI to appear within the fixed cc064 (Control Change Number 64) value range. Depending on the connected pedal and the chosen operational mode, a simple on/off switch (e.g. Yamaha’s FC4/FC5 pedals creating only two cc064 values, 127 and 0) or a special half damper function (e.g. Yamaha’s FC3 pedal creating continuous values between 0 and 127) may be used for triggering SUSTAIN.

At first I was very disappointed about the fact that the most powerful controller for a piano player - aside from the weighted MOXF8 keypad itself - namely the SUSTAIN pedal, cannot be natively assigned to act as an element controller in order to modify piano sounds in such a way that a more realistic piano behavior can be simulated. I was not really satisfied by just adding “damper resonance” insertion effects that can be set up in conjunction with the damper pedal. Personally I’m using an FC3 half damper pedal, and my intention was to add special string resonance waveforms which should be only audible in addition to the normal piano sound whenever the SUSTAIN pedal is active. From a musical perspective nothing else would be more logical to me than to have the SUSTAIN pedal available as a possible source controller for voice element manipulation, but unfortunately a “SUS” source has never been considered to be implemented by Yamaha for the Motif series. Looking through the list of available controllers for the described purpose, only the following voice element sources are currently available:

Pitch Bend Wheel ("PB")
Modulation Wheel ("MW")
Aftertouch ("AT")
Foot Controllers ("FC1"/"FC2")
Foot Switch ("FS")
Ribbon Controller ("RB")
Breath Controller ("BC")
Assignable Knobs ("AS1"/"AS2")
Assignable Function Buttons ("AF1"/"AF2")

I know, there are 3rd party products available on the market (either S/W or H/W based), enabling the Motif series to produce special “Note on/off” triggers, e.g. for playing damper/resonance sounds whenever the SUSTAIN pedal is pressed/released. These products do not only appear to be very expensive to me, they also require additional computer connection (for studio performance) or an additional MIDI loop cable (for live performance) - not really what I was looking for.

But wait… - Yes we can!
Against all odds there seems to be an acceptable solution to overcome this Motif design limitation - and it’s free. Yes, it’s really possible to operate the SUSTAIN pedal using it the normal way (in my case as a fully functional half damper pedal) while additionally triggering customized voice element parameters - always in sync with the current SUSTAIN pedal state. The only drawback: You must give up on using your Foot Switch ("FS"), as you cannot use it anymore for any other purposes. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting here to use the Foot Switch ("FS") jack instead of the SUSTAIN jack. No, the SUSTAIN pedal will remain plugged in where it is, retaining it’s normal functionality. In the following solution only the Foot Switch ("FS") resources inside the MOXF will be “wasted”, as they are used for further internal mapping. If you normally don’t use the “FS”, the following steps could be very interesting for you.

If this compromise is not acceptable for you, please stop reading here, otherwise proceed to Part II.

Part II (continued from previous post):

And that’s how it works:
To make it short: Please note that all attempts to map the SUSTAIN Control Change Number “64 [SUSTAIN]” to any available controllers listed in Utility Mode [UTILITY] / Controller Assign [F4] / Assign [SF1] tab will not work as expected. As soon as you assign cc064 to any of the available controllers, the native SUSTAIN pedal (still connected to the SUSTAIN jack) will automatically be deactivated and therefore it cannot be used anymore.

However, entering the Utility Mode [UTILITY] / Controller Assign [F4] / Foot Switch [SF2] tab is the right choice in this case. On the left side of the screen just assign the Control Change Number “64 [SUSTAIN]” to the Foot Switch ("FS"). By doing so, the original SUSTAIN pedal and its operational mode - visible on the right side of the screen - will keep its current behavior, still being internally assigned to cc064. In fact, now you have defined two physical controller sources, both assigned to SUSTAIN, but also being “entangled” (as Einstein would say) with each other. What is it good for? We can make use of that fact later on, as you will see. While any Foot Switch (connected to the “FS” jack) will create pure on/off SUSTAIN values 127/0, the native SUSTAIN pedal (e.g. an FC3 - in my case in half damper mode) still keeps working within the full value range 0~127. However, if you don’t like to connect any Foot Switch to the “FS” jack, you don’t have to - we don’t need it here anyway.

The newly created “FS” controller source - now associated with additional SUSTAIN triggering - can be re-directed to any voice element parameter to be changed simultaneously in real-time. In my example - talking about the special string resonance waveform - you only have to ensure that the “XACtrl” setting for the particular voice element to be controlled does not show “KeyOffSound” (or any other unappreciated setting), and you have to check that its general element “Level” is set to “0” by default, so that it won’t be audible under normal circumstances. Both mentioned parameters can easily be found by entering Voice Edit Mode [EDIT], selecing the particular element number [1]~[8], and then editing the described parameters in tabs Oscillator / Wave [F1] / [SF1] and Amplitude / Level/Pan [F4] / [SF1].

After setting up these start parameters for the element to be controlled, the element also has to be enabled in one of the six availale “Control Sets” by entering Voice Edit Mode / [EDIT] Common Mode [COMMON] / Control Set [F4]. After chosing a free set (via [SF1]~[SF3] tabs), the element switch “ElmSw” has to be enabled for that particular element (e.g. “-----6--") while leaving the other elements disabled. Now “FS (64)” has to be selected as element source, and the destination has to be set to the actual parameter to be controlled - in my case “Element Level (ELM-Lvl)”. Finally the depth should be adjusted to any positive value between “+1” and “+63” in order to be effective, e.g. “+32”. Done. Now the waveform assigned to the edited element will always “shine” through my piano sound whenever I press down the SUSTAIN pedal while playing.

But the best is yet to come:
One would expect that such a “mapped” half damper SUSTAIN source - namely re-routed through the Foot Switch ("FS") resources of the MOXF - would automatically change its behavior and subsequently act like a momentary on/off switch (like a pedal physically connected to the “FS” jack). But no, setting up the controller mapping the described way, the full dynamic value range (0~127) of the SUSTAIN pedal can now be re-mapped to the selected destination, as long as a real half damper pedal (e.g. an FC3 in half damper mode) is used for control.

That’s really a cool feature! With this re-routing it seems to be always possible to “fade in/out” or “continuously modify” single (or a bunch of) voice elements while playing, depending on how much the SUSTAIN pedal is pressed down - all in parallel to the normal SUSTAIN function which still applies to the whole voice. In fact this setup could be used for any other element manipulation via the SUSTAIN pedal, e.g. for changing filters, EQs etc. - all in real-time! You could simply “abuse” your SUSTAIN pedal in order to create a “Wah-Piano” effect or anything else, without even using your FC7 pedal for it.

I’m not sure if that special behavior has been intentionally designed by Yamaha, but at least that’s how I could set up this “SUSTAIN pedal as voice element controller” workaround successfully here on my MOXF8 (with OS V1.10 installed). It would be great if Motif XF useres could test if that approach also works for them (of course using “their” menu structure).

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Nice solution B.Minor, it highlights two things:  The depth of the machine itself, and your abilities in Creative Problem Solving.