Problem with sustain pedal

Hi Alexander,

I can't properly tell from the image you supplied, but are these notes in the upper register of the instrument?  If so, several pianos (as with their real-world analogs) do not have dampers in the upper octave(s) and so those notes will indeed continue to sound regardless of the damper pedal's being actuated or not (as they would on an actual physical piano)... which Pianoteq instrument are you using?

cheers,
dj

Hi sayanchik,

I haven't encountered the pedal continuing unduly with MIDI data but just imagining how that MIDI would sound, my impression is that is probably quite true to life for a real piano (not so much that you continue to hear whole note, but continue to hear resonance decay and/or reverb tail etc). Even ruling out the high notes above where the damper controls end, mid and esp. bass too can ring 16th or 8th of a bar. You may know pianos real and software alike better than me but I can only try helping without certainly knowing what you already know.. so sorry, in advance, if much is redundant to you.

That's maybe not an incorrect behaviour, just looking at it, but can be fixed I'd think - If playing a real piano, I'd definitely try releasing the pedal earlier. Depending on what you're doing, other things might help include EQ to remove problematic or ringing frequencies, or even just less reverb or brighter reverb tone - among other things. But simply releasing the pedal another 8th bar earlier, leaving it up longer, ensuring more silence might be something to try first. (old MIDI pianos were often a lot more clearly on/off than real pianos).

If you want a more prounounced silence between the notes, consider NOT using sustain pedal data for that lead-up note.

Just drawing the MIDI note to the required length instead (and not adding sust. pedal) will also mean less sympathetic resonance is introduced so any gap in pedal should then also allow more silence faster. (play a chord and hold, compare to same but with sustain pedal down = more resonances and overshot on pedal release).

Tiny pedal release windows can amount to something more like half-pedalling esp. since we're looking at about an 8th note or so.

Not certain but also, pedal behaviour is graduated in Pianoteq, so such a short UP period may not always trigger 100% UP condition. (I haven't had this issue but I don't usually program such small gaps).

If you click the scroll arrow to the right in the velocity curve window, until you see the sustain pedal data window, you can watch as it 'fires' while you play and depress and release the sustain pedal.. just take note of how the data can seem 'humanized' to an extent - unless you're moving the pedal very slowly up and down, it doesn't perfectly follow completely straight and evenly spaced gradations. If you pedal up and down very quickly, you might see how the pedal action can seem to show 0 and 127 (but the 127 zone may also contain a shadow point at 99% - since the green line does seem wider than the one at 0 - THAT might be your issue - but, it's still solvable with the things mentioned). It's not that it's innacurate per se - but I do think there's some programmatic constructs going on which are aimed toward realism, rather than the more robotic MIDI of old. A real player may indeed hit the pedal hard and release quicky but is it perfect? To try to get that kind of hard cut-off I'd try a few other things...

You can edit the shape of the pedal's curve or behaviour in that window, so making it more On/Off could help. Change the 45 degree gradient to something definitely more ON/OFF, no slope, a shelf at 0 and a shelf at 127.

Worth noting, that in Pianoteq you can select higher resolution MIDI ("Full Featured" instead of "Minimalistic") in the settings' MIDI tab - which should see more accuracy and realism overall, compared to standard MIDI. Worth trying out (playback of high resolution MIDI can be superb).

In the olden days going back to 80s and 90s MIDI pianos, the pedal behaviour was often really completely ON or OFF and nothing in-between but Pianoteq is much closer to realism, and I've definitely struggled to understand some differences at times but things like this make more sense with time. It has helped a lot to play real pianos in recent decades to get more of a feel for what's real, verses what's older generations of more robotic MIDI software

Hope that makes sense and is a help.

When I play a real piano, I usually release the pedal right at the moment I play the next chord. I suppose it's one of the primary uses of the pedal – to connect sounds seamlessly not having to keep the keys pressed. But yes, holding keys longer and pressing the pedal later makes sense.

As for my example, the tempo there was 70, so the gap seemed to me long enough to cease the previous chord... Anyway, I play different real pianos from time to time and such Pianoteq behaviour doesn't seem natural to me. I currently have no opportunity to record my playing with pedal into Cubase though to see what I really do. (My little son destroyed my Yamaha P-90 sustain pedal.)

I did some experimenting just in case, increasing the gap between the two zones of pressed pedal. Below are results, audio files with pics of what is being played in Cubase. Check them out. I wish there were an option to turn this after-sounding off. Well, maybe there IS such an option in more advanced versions of Pianoteq – I have Stage version.

https://yadi.sk/d/Y3NwImMiJnbXPA
https://yadi.sk/i/4HbH0KkTGSFQQQ

https://yadi.sk/d/zfzAeLGQDA1v1Q
https://yadi.sk/i/swvVLNNayLJmXA

https://yadi.sk/d/nTYzz91xP-aA8g
https://yadi.sk/i/4EqviHkHgjThaQ

No, not at all. I just had to compose a piano part today and loaded Pianoteq. Didn't want to spend time updating anything. I'll update it right away.

sayanchik,

thanks for the files - they demo well. A lot of thing people think are wrong, can be found to be just simple expansion of understanding, and gladly this indeed seems the case here, after listening and seeing the screenshots.

The audio + image = RE-PEDAL which is like a real grand piano. Maybe a lot of smaller or upright pianos don't do this IRL, but concert grand pianos more likely almost all will - it's normal and expected. (Maybe others will know a good list of those pianos which do and don't - but I feel I expect this or it's not a modern grand to me, too abrupt - I began a love for pianos from appreciating older ones from earlier eras - but I'm also now in love with the grand action).

That is exactly why I suggest a bigger gap - find the size of gap you will require to acquire silence (instead of this iliciting this normal re-pedal outcome). A larger gap may be all you need - and it may be less than an 8th note (will be modeled depending on the exact piano - each will have real-world equivalences).

You can hit a note with sust-pedal down, release pedal, then quickly re-pedal - to capture/hold "SOME" of the energy of the notes.

That is intended, because it's what a good GRAND piano will do

The sad, sad news (and ye gods of music weep) though, is that you can alter it with Standard or Pro.

Stage doesn't have the necessary controls included. If you musically would rather work with a non-grand piano action/mechanism, by all means upgrade for the ability - I highly recommend it, and have purchased "Studio" for the complete collection and it's the only software piano I can recommend or use myself. All else is fine but not in the same universe.

A full depress and release doesn't = total silence in the gap (except in fake olden-days MIDI terms - or specifically edited preset).

In other words, if you quickly re-pedal, the escape/mechanism is designed to capture and keep that 'energy'..

In a "dumb" (by comparison) old fashioned MIDI instrument, you may have been able to program "complete" silence for minute moments - but that's not "real" - it was a former era of relatively naive (but improving) tech.

SO - HOW to solve in Pianoteq? Answer:

In the main interface, click "Action" and alter the "Damper duration" down to impossibly noiseless

Standard or Pro only for this level of control.

(You can do more than 'real' things with it - but when you buy Pianoteq, you're buying a thing which is more real - but you can push it to be synthetic, or incredibly wide of 'piano' baseline in extremely interesting ways).

So much of this thing is using your imagination based on experience, being patient and trying things out.. you will 'get it' at some point, trust me (even though I misunderstood ala DJ's point above, about setting high res midi.. I did forgetfully think that triggers output of an auto-high-res MIDI file.. maybe it will at some point? Anyhoo..

I think I'm generally on the right set of rails about your pedal issue sayanchik, and do please try realising, it's not about 'tricking you' - but it's about understanding the modeling includes 'real' half-pedal type behaviours.. you can alter that to be like olden-days MIDI fake - but I'm seriously keen to promote MIDI programmers to progress, understanding real instruments can't hurt but only improve your programming - and hopefully our future generations can benefit from this, earnestly, in all seriousness.)