Yamaha FC4 Piano Style Sustain Pedal Review

Yamaha fc4 piano style sustain pedal reviewed here.

We recently bought a Yamaha fc4 piano style sustain pedal for our Yamaha DGX 88-key piano keyboard. This keyboard is for our daughter who has recently started talking piano lessons, and the pedal works perfectly fine with the keyboard.

We ordered this Yamaha sustain pedal on Amazon and when we first received the Yamaha fc4 sustain pedal, my wife and my daughter did reported that the pedal doesn’t work with our Yamaha DGX keyboard.

But then it was more of reading the instructions before using it. When I actually sat down to find the reasons, and after going through the Yamaha DGX-230 user manual, I could make it work.

There were two points in the user manual around using pedals.

1. “Make sure that the footswitch plug is properly connected to the SUSTAIN jack BEFORE turning on the power.”
2. “Do not press the footswitch while turning the power on. Doing this changes the recognized polarity of the footswitch, resulting in reversed footswitch operation.”

So this is not Yamaha’s fault, we didn’t read the instructions properly.

The Yamaha FC4 sustain pedal doesn’t have a polarity switch of its own, but the Yamaha DGX Keyboard has the capability to switch its polarity.

So it is better to read the instructions, since this may work differently on other keyboard models.

Yamaha FC4 vs FC4a
Yamaha FC4A is the more recent version of the popular FC4 sustain pedal. Many feel that the FC4 was more stable and stayed put in place better. However, the Yamaha FC4A is a more refined product, made of hard plastic (which makes it less heavy compared to the FC4).

Its also cheaper, and lighter which makes it easier to carry the pedal around.

Buying Links
Overall, users are quite happy with the Yamaha fc4 piano style sustain pedal.

Buying Links

• Buy Yamaha FC4 Foot Sustain Pedal on zZounds