Topic by Aidan

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  • Aidan
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Topic: Notes sounding for a long long time

I've noticed playing the acoustic piano instruments that the notes seem to go on for a long long time with the pedal (or key) held down. I find my use of the pedal now playing some Chopin stuff makes things sound quite muddy in places due to the fact that the sounds seem to go on for ever. I've twiddled around with the options but can't seem to reduce the sound length without changing the quality of the sound from the instrument. My pedal use was not a problem on two uprights, and old Kaps grand and also a digital Roland HP 207 I've had in the past - things sounded fine - the notes of a previous bar would fade out sufficiently not to cause problems later on. Anybody else experienced this? Do the modern grands sounds really go on for so long? I also have this problem with the Upright U4, so its not just limited to the grand instruments.

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

Yes, the sound usually goes on for so long. For example, on my upright piano back home, holding down the sustain pedal and playing an octave in the lower region at fff, the sound lasts for over a minute!

Adapt your pedalling technique so that things don't start sounding muddy - repedal more often.

Hard work and guts!

Reply by Aidan

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

Ok the low notes very hard yes, but with normal play of the rest I'm not used to notes sounding for so long. Still I will adjust my pedalling if that's what's needed.

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

try reducing the impedance slider

Reply by oldionus

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

It's funny, because although I understand what you're saying, I have always thought that the longer an undamped note sounded on a piano, the more beautiful and impressive the sound (as a rule; of course long duration is not always desired, but that's what the dampers are for). If the sound from previous pedaled chords is intruding into the harmony you're currently playing, you just release the pedal, or let up on it partially. That's one of the amazing abilities of PTQ as opposed to cruder digital simulacra... you can control the pedal with a fine gradation. For example, by allowing a little bit of the sound from earlier bars to continue, you can create a dreaminess without being actually muddy or creating clashing harmony that ruins the effect. But, in general, having the option to allow notes to sing for a long time is a feature, not a bug, so to speak.

Last edited by oldionus (23-11-2015 17:22)
Amateur Standalone PTQ user; interests classical music, especially Bach and Mozart, and historic keyboards

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Reply by Aidan

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

This turned out to be a problem with the pedal configuration - releasing the actual pedal did not quite release it fully in Pianoteq.

Changing the pedal (sustain velocity) curve from the default:
[0, 25, 95, 127; 0, 0, 127, 127]
to a custom one:
[60, 109; 0, 127]
fixed things up for me on my Roland HP203.

Reply by oldionus

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Re: Notes sounding for a long long time

Aidan wrote:

This turned out to be a problem with the pedal configuration - releasing the actual pedal did not quite release it fully in Pianoteq.

Changing the pedal (sustain velocity) curve from the default:
[0, 25, 95, 127; 0, 0, 127, 127]
to a custom one:
[60, 109; 0, 127]
fixed things up for me on my Roland HP203.

Interesting, and not surprising. Like I said, the long duration of tone is generally a feature, not a bug, in acoustic keyboard instruments, and I was delighted by the way the notes died away slowly on most of the pianoteq pianos; it seemed very realistic to me, and characteristic of well made grand pianos. As someone who's mostly played upright, and even some little studio and console pianos, most of my life, I love that about the software.

The sustain and sostenuto (which I almost never use) right out of the box on the Kawai VPC-1 seem to work fine.

Amateur Standalone PTQ user; interests classical music, especially Bach and Mozart, and historic keyboards

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