Hello everyone,

Just got my new Nord Piano 2 a week ago and it's a fantastic instrument! I also got my new audio interface the focusrite scarlett 2i4 and together they give me the opportunity to do almost anything I imagined (in terms of playing the piano, messing around with VST instruments and recording). But.. there's one problem..

For some reason I have no sustain when trying to use my nord piano 2 as a midi controller for QL pianos. The even stranger thing is that my soft pedal (included in the same pedal unit) works fine! I have the option to connect my nord piano 2 via MIDI cable (connected to my audio interface) or via USB but I have the same problem on both of them. Sustain pedal works fine on other VST instruments so I'm kind of clueless right now..
I really hope somewhone knows the solution to this problem..

Any QL piano users out here?

Is QL configured correctly to respond to the Nord's damper pedal MIDI CC?

Cheers,
James
x

EWQL has no continuous pedal functions (half pedal or repedalling) and requires a value of 127 for the damper pedal MIDI CC #64. Perhaps your pedal is not producing a full 127 value?

BTW, EWQL violates the MIDI standard. Anything from 64-127 is supposed to be pedal down. Of course, newer software pianos have "half-pedaling" or "continuous pedaling" and use the values between 0 and 127 as partial pedal values.

EDIT: A little digging shows that Nord issued a software upgrade ver 1.30 which fixed a sustain pedal problem. The pedal previously didn't produce a value of 0 when fully lifted. Perhaps that confuses EWQL. I know EWQL didn't work correctly earlier when it received values between 0 and 127 and I had to filter those values out. I don't know if they fixed that issue or not. I haven't tried it since I fixed it for earlier versions of EWQL.

Your right on this one
When I put my pedal down, like the maximum amount, it works.
But it's impossible to play piano like this..
Do you know how I can change the settings?

Solutions:
1: Use a standard switching damper pedal (without half-pedal capability)
2: Use a MIDI Solutions Event Processor, and program the box to convert the Nord damper pedal signal to the values the software requires. The fly in the ointment with this solution is that the Event Processor draws power from the MIDI port on the keyboard; the newer Nords send out a lower voltage than the Event Processor requires, and so you would probably need to purchase a MIDI Solutions power supply as well.
3. Use a software MIDI signal converter within your PC. I have no knowledge of what would work, and so would leave that to the experts.

You want software to convert all MIDI CC#64 damper pedal values above X (probably 63, but you could choose other values) to be 127, and all values below X to be 0. If you are using a Mac you can use the free MidiPipes, to name just one software solution. I'm sure there are similar programs for the PC, but I don't have names.

In my case I actually add hysteresis to the pedal value, which made EWQL perform a little more naturally I think. When the pedal was up I didn't output 127 (down) until the pedal value was >96. Then when the pedal was down I didn't output 0 (up) until it was <32. That felt more natural to me when playing (as much as EWQL can feel natural without having half pedaling or repedaling) than using either 32, 64, or 96 as a single pedal switch point.

On a PC, Cantabile software can map continuous controller messages to different values. There'a a free version called Cantabile Lite which may include this function, or else there's a $49 version which I'm sure does it.