I've been playing with Pianoteq in garageband 08, with a great deal of pleasure; but I discovered listening to a recording I made that the sustain pedal has been recorded as either on or off, which is a shame, as I went to some lengths to find a keyboard that gave 128 levels of sustain pedal. I also can't find where the sostenuto pedal is recorded. Does anybody use garageband and have a fix, of should I look for another piece of software?
Maybe there is one solution if you can configure your pedal to send a controller number different from 64 (Hold Pedal) and use a number that is designated for continuous values and make Pianoteq take this controller number for the sustain pedal. I think in former MIDI times for the hold pedal any value other than 0 just meaned "pressed", and although it is no effort to record continuous values, GarageBand seems to decide what is useful... In its own way.
Maybe there is one solution if you can configure your pedal to send a controller number different from 64 (Hold Pedal) and use a number that is designated for continuous values and make Pianoteq take this controller number for the sustain pedal. I think in former MIDI times for the hold pedal any value other than 0 just meaned "pressed", and although it is no effort to record continuous values, GarageBand seems to decide what is useful... In its own way.
Yes, I thought that the answer might lie in that direction; I can't find any information on what controller number Garageband takes for its expression pedal, so I guess some experimentation is in order.
In the meantime, according to "Garageband, the missing manual" I don't have a problem: "As with key velocity, sustain-pedal motion is recorded on a scale of 0 to 127. Unlike key velocity, however, there’s no such thing as a sustain-pedal setting between 0 and 127. After all, in the real world, there’s no such thing as half-pressing the pedal on a piano."
"After all, in the real world, there’s no such thing as half-pressing the pedal on a piano."
So much for the GarageBand maker's real world.
Maybe you can use Controller No 4 "Foot controller". Refer to the MIDI Standard Controller Numbers.
Of course your pedal must be able to send using this number and Pianoteq must be able to use it (which I don't know for now).
Well, I'm embarrassed to report that, after rereading the quote from the missing manual, and then experimenting, I find that although garageband shows the sustain pedal as either on or off, it does record a full range of values for it. Odd. So, at the risk of embarrassing myself further I'm posting my first effort on Pianoteq, Ravel's Menuet sur le Nom d'Haydn, with the more offensive missed notes removed courtesy of garageband.
Well, I'm embarrassed to report that, after rereading the quote from the missing manual, and then experimenting, I find that although garageband shows the sustain pedal as either on or off, it does record a full range of values for it. Odd.
Hehe... I wondered why they should expend effort to change the incoming data to either 0 or 127... Well, they don't. But funny they do it for the display, although I understand it for notation purposes (the "ped" and the"*" sign).
One of the purposes of Garageband is to push 'serious' users into investing in Logic. This is, in part, part of that strategy. Worked for me!
Regardless of the pedal issue, the recording is very good. Mind my asking which preset you used?
Regardless of the pedal issue, the recording is very good. Mind my asking which preset you used?
Thank you, Jake. I used the YC3 Chamber detuned with the reverb and limiter switched off. I may have hardened the hammers at piano a touch (they're at 0.37) and I used the reverb on Garageband at 14%. That was actually a mistake; I'd meant to use the pianoverb plug in, but forgot to switch it on!
Regarding pedalling, I do use the sostenuto pedal for the long held bass notes when the score goes into 3 staves, but use half pedaling shortly after to hold down a fifth in the bass across some conflicting harmonies; so it does work!
It's not the same problem, but perhaps related, I had problem with Mainstage and Yamaha P-70's as mother keyboards, running Ivory. Essentially, the sustain pedal plugged into the Yamaha was sending THREE levels: 0, 100 and 127. This was then misinterpreted by Mainstage and caused notes to hang during performance. The cure was (and is) to run the sustain pedal through our Axiom 49s, which we use for LH bass at shows. (You then re-assign the controller to the correct channel strip in Mainstage.)
It's also incorrect that the 'sustain' pedal doesn't have more than an on-off function in reality, so the Garageband missing manual is indeed full of brown stuff! :-)