Peterson stereo pan pedal?

[Justin Waterhouse]

Hello everyone,

What is the best Peterson stereo pan pedal on the market today?
I mean a pedal which most accurately replicates the way the peterson circuit sends the signal from left to right?

Incidentally does a Nord Piano 4 have a Peterson emulator on board, or is the stereo pan effect more of a Janus L-R splitter?

Thanks,
Justin

[thetrufflehog]

Hi! I have played a stage piano for years but have crazy suitcase envy and probably have some helpful advice. I also have had two different nord electros, so....
- I have an old speakeasy vintage stereo panner and preamp, I think it is supposed to be closer to the peterson system, but specific information about it is incredibly hard to find and they are out of production. It is fantastic, but unfortunately I have never even seen a picture of one online, let alone one for sale.
- For a while, my panner was not working properly, I used an EHX stereo pulsar. It takes a lot of tweaking because the settings are veyr sensitive, but you can get really damn close. This is a great and inexpensive way to get the stereo pan effect.
- A big part of the sound is the preamp and your amp setup...You can probably get pretty close with any panning pedal for the stereo effect, but you really need to have some sort of preamp and the right amp/speaker system. My motion sound KP200 gets me pretty close as far as the amp part goes, though something with 12 inch speakers would be best. When using the stereo pulsar I had used an EHX LPB1 pedal to boost the signal. I was never really satisfied with it, and could probably have done better with something else mroe suited to being a preamp. But it was cheap and got the Rhodes to an acceptable volume level.
- I'm not sure what the nord is trying to emulate...to me it doesnt sound like either the Peterson or Janus. Hopefully the Nord Piano 4 lets you edit more parameters than my Electro 3 but the panner honestly isnt that great as is for me. It just sounds wrong at every setting. I love the Nord and it is the best to bring to rehearsals and smaller gigs, and is such a flexible board. Owning a real Rhodes makes me really notice the shortcomings of the Nord Rhodes sounds though, which really crop up on every different sample when you dig in. Something in the way it emulates the "bark" is really fake and thin. (Your audience will never notice though! Just my observation as a player and nitpicker).
- If you are using a Rhodes stage piano, you might like the Avion Studios Retro Flyer, but it isn't a pedal. It seems pretty slick. It replaces the namerail controls.
- Major Key makes (made?) a really nice looking preamp for stage pianos that had a stereo pan. Don't know what is going on with them or if it can be ordered right now. Their site seems to be down on all but the home page.

[Dan Belcher]

Vintage Vibe makes a preamp called the Stereo Vibe that is essentially a modernized, improved Peterson suitcase preamp. I bought one several years ago and absolutely love it. Super clean and low noise, good tone adjustment range, and the tremolo is so sweet, it even gives you a wider range of speed adjustment than the original Peterson.

[JanneI]

https://youtu.be/d2y6bqWHQtU

Here's my diy project demo.