Topic by Pianojazzableton

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Topic: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

Hello,

I have recently upgrade to Pianoteq 9 and successfully used Pianoteq 8 in Ableton live 11 lite. For some reason, the sustain pedal only intermittently registers full sustain and other times only goes to around 64 on the midi reading wtih Pianoteq 9. It is very frustrating because it appears to be random. The sustain pedal itself works perfectly fine and also works fine in the standalone app as far as I can tell. I am using a Yamaha YC88 with the FC3 sustain pedal for the keyboard. it seems to be a midi issue or software one though rather than a hardware one. Has anyone had a similar issue in when using the VST 3 plugin or knows how to resolve the issue?

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by Pianojazzableton (19-10-2025 13:35)

Reply by brundlefly

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Re: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

Pianojazzableton wrote:

Has anyone had a similar issue in when using the VST 3 plugin or knows how to resolve the issue?

I just installed 9 and have done some preliminary A/B listening to my existing MIDI recordings with Pteq 8 in Sonar, and am not hearing any sustain anomalies.

Reply by Pianojazzableton

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Re: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

brundlefly wrote:
Pianojazzableton wrote:

Has anyone had a similar issue in when using the VST 3 plugin or knows how to resolve the issue?

I just installed 9 and have done some preliminary A/B listening to my existing MIDI recordings with Pteq 8 in Sonar, and am not hearing any sustain anomalies.

I use Ableton live with the plugin (to then route through to OBS Studio for recording purposes), so I don't have midi recordings per say to compare against but there wasn't any issues with Pianoteq version 8 so I am not sure what is going on with it.

Reply by brundlefly

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Re: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

Pianojazzableton wrote:

For some reason, the sustain pedal only intermittently registers full sustain and other times only goes to around 64 on the midi reading wtih Pianoteq 9.

So if you just slowly and steadily cycle the pedal down and up repeatedly with the Pedal Curve displayed in Pianoteq's UI, you don't see the level indcators move steadily up and down between 127 and 0?

I definitely can't repro that. I would think it was a hardware issue except that you report it continues to work as expected in the v8 VST3, and in the v9 standalone.

I can't imagine what would explain all of that. I can only suggest to try the VST3 in the free tier of Sonar (very few limitations vs. the paid version) or some other DAW to confirm it's not just some interoerability issue between v9 and Ableton, specifically.

Reply by Pianojazzableton

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Re: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

brundlefly wrote:
Pianojazzableton wrote:

For some reason, the sustain pedal only intermittently registers full sustain and other times only goes to around 64 on the midi reading wtih Pianoteq 9.

So if you just slowly and steadily cycle the pedal down and up repeatedly with the Pedal Curve displayed in Pianoteq's UI, you don't see the level indcators move steadily up and down between 127 and 0?

I definitely can't repro that. I would think it was a hardware issue except that you report it continues to work as expected in the v8 VST3, and in the v9 standalone.

I can't imagine what would explain all of that. I can only suggest to try the VST3 in the free tier of Sonar (very few limitations vs. the paid version) or some other DAW to confirm it's not just some interoerability issue between v9 and Ableton, specifically.

Thanks for the reply. No I can see the gradual increase and decrease in the UI in Ableton, so I wonder if it is an issue between 9 and Ableton live. I will revert to v8 for now as I have limited time at the moment to consider other DAWs.

Reply by brundlefly

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Re: Sustain pedal intermittently only half sustaining when using VST 3

Pianojazzableton wrote:

No I can see the gradual increase and decrease in the UI in Ableton, so I wonder if it is an issue between 9 and Ableton live.

Okay so the pedal response is visually correct which means the pedal messages are making it into the VSTi unaltered, but the audible damping response is not correct?