I have this set of two piano-style keyboard pedals (one of several pedals - these things multiply after a while) that I'd never used because the left pedal wouldn't work. Yesterday I decided enough was enough. The ACT ONE score calls for the sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal on a piano) and I thought how nice it would be to use this set of pedals instead of two separate ones. Big deal, because I could use any two pedals. But hey, why not fix this set or toss this bloody thing after owning it for ten years?
So, after troubleshooting like crazy to determine that it was indeed one pedal or its connecting cable that was the culprit, I took off the bottom plate to see what I could see. Well, the mechanism is quite simple and so are the electronics which are basically a little on-off switch that's activated when a pedal is pushed down. No connections or wires were broken and both the working and the non-working side looked identical. I plugged them in and went through my testing again, plunking keys with one hand and manually operating the little switches with my other hand. Glory be, they both worked! So something was wrong with how the physical pedal mechanism itself was making contact with the little switchy-poo thing (I believe that's the technical term).
I carefully reassembled the parts, again plugged everything back in, and could practically hear a heavenly choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus as both pedals worked as they should have since...um...2006.
