Sustain within Cubase

Hi ChamomileShark, hoping to help.

there's a pedal curve tool in Pianoteq to give you the numbers. Default curve has:

Sustain Velocity = [0, 10, 70, 117, 127; 0, 0, 61, 127, 127]

These will be reasonably good for direction - so that drawing in numbers around the ones shown in the curve tool, you can create the 'touches' you want. You can certainly quickly touch the pedal to change a lot of tone.. definitely worth it to stop what we're doing sometimes, zoom in and experiment with it, including small differences between numbers - it is where a lot of rubber hits the road

If you're using Pianoteq it's likely because realism is high on your list of desires as a pianist - so I'd say, you can't go too far wrong with a $20 pedal investment which takes you from on/off to a progressive one.

(did limited online searching)

Looks like a good pedal for the price.

(but have not tried it).

I'd still say, well worth it. You can always take it back or at $20 or so, it should at least be an improvement until you decide on anything else.

From Pianoteq manual:

The una corda pedal is maybe something to consider also - just to give more food for thought - I know I can't fully enjoy all the tones a piano makes without my left foot also 'rocking' on a una corda too

BTW - any such tools like 'brand name' progressive pedals, should seamlessly attach to most digital piano keyboards with little fuss and work with just about any midi software.. that should be pretty solid but there may always be exceptions (closed or non-standard plugs might exist and so one).

On/off pedals can be 100% fine for a lot of music (many will never need or want), but if or when you find yourself demanding more detail, it can save immense amounts of time by performing with a graduated pedal rather than having to completely 'draw in' your pedal work, post production style.

I've rarely touched up my physically pedaled midi output in recordings with a mouse/numbers because using my pedal and Pianoteq really feels a lot more real to me. It sounds more real. So I play more realistically.

It all adds up, even if not 100% real, it's extremely close - enough to lose myself completely as though at a real instrument. I do not attain this same degree of suspension of disbelief, or 'belief' nowadays, with other piano tools.

With a good pedal I can 'get it right' in real-time which is way better than poking around a midi piano-roll in post.

Mousing in depth in a lot of midi tools can feel like fat-fingers on a tiny cell-phone trying to work in a fiddly photo app to fix a bad photo - it's not 'as real' to me, at least in an artistic sense, doing too much that way - as just taking the photo right in the first place with all that boring stuff under the hood like, knowing what aperture to use in the first place and what shutter speed, framing etc

Not to say tools are 'dumb' (quite the reverse) - but hey, if you can save 50% of the rest of your musical life-time from suffering in the midi interface with fat (mouse) fingers, guess where you're spending the balance of time?

Playing piano and/or your other instruments.. I know which I like better.

There will be plenty who will prefer the interface over learning to play beyond basics and nothing wrong with that too - so swings and roundabouts but if you're wanting to save time in the interface, having a good pedal to capture your recording is still a massive time saver.

I can say, a graduated pedal undoubtedly feels much more real, than on/off pedals. To me it's definitely creating a way more fuzzy boundary, rather than a clean on/off and the point at which that kicks in, being editable in the pedal curve tool means, unlike an on/off pedal, I can introduce pedal at the top or bottom of the full depression.

I couldn't be without a progressive pedal.

I think your main issue is pretty clear.. it's all about your possibilities.

You should have a great experience "playing" with a progressive pedal - BUT your DAW might not handle it - BUT luckily there are great DAWs which do!

But directly to the current issue:

Unfortunately seems like your DAW may not handle extra pedal data. Not having detailed expertise on this but I assume that's the case. I'm not so up on way zoomed in things about VST3 midi handling (could be like note off data - maybe related tech spec things to use release phase etc to build in detail for the sound as half-pedalled). But if Cubase doesn't read this in, it's not going to be editable, nor come out the speakers.

Hopefully, there's a setting in Cubase allowing such event handling - or an upgrade to a version which does - others might know for sure - I haven't time to fully research this.

But good alternatives exist..

So, without knowing a whole lot more, it seems like I'd next try out a different midi app to be sure - like Reaper. Or Ableton. Or Studio One or a dozen others honestly. (not hating on Cubase it was my fav for ages a time ago - and it may be capable - just don't know how to enable it if it's there in whatever version is being used etc).

In Reaper, I can easily click to add different pedal (C64) values than just 127 - and hear the difference.

With Pianoteq as VSTi - for example, any series of reasonably short notes over say 4 bars - enough so there's space and no long notes to confuse with sustain.

1
add a pedal event, at 127 at start of bar 2.

2
add a pedal event, at say 50 at start of bar 3.

Loop and listen to result:

At 127 those notes should fully ring out. And, ending pedal on around 50, you should hear the final note(s) "fade" as expected.

So, taking the above.. if we only have 127 being handeled by the DAW,

1
pedal even at 127 - full open pedal, notes ring out

2
pedal event at 50 - notes may still keep ringing because no 'note off' kind of thing occurs to effect the pedal until you send a 0 (just imputing this).

If you did insert a pedal event as 0 in that last one, the notes would stop instantly (unlike fading away with a value of 50).

This could all take a few minutes to show you - but ages to get into logical text - hope it's making sense

Anyway, this holds true in Reaper (tested just now) with no extra special settings in either the DAW or Pianoteq, no pedal attached etc. just mouse.

Again, I'd say it may be you have a version of Cubase which you might be able to upgrade. I can't speak for Cubase - maybe others will know - but I do remember using it (good memories actually) in the 90s - back then, I'm preeety sure I never thought about detailed pedal events.

Hope that's a start to considering some things.