Hi!
I've just downloaded Vintage D to go along with Alicia's Keys. I find at times when I stop playing there are lots of voices/polyphony that hang out there (both on AK and the new D). I've not experienced this on the pianoteq demo nor on the truepianos demo. The sound doesn't stop; it is as though the damper petal is frozen. And it doesn't sound like every single note I was playing before stopping is continuing, it's like an echo or partial sounds of the notes. If I push the damper pedal and then release, it does appear to stop the sound. If I don't, I can watch the voices gradually drop out on Kontakt over a decent amount of time. What would cause this anomaly in the sound? And, more appropriately, how can I stop it? I hope I'm describing it appropriately. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have a newer MacBook Pro (2.4Ghz Intel Core i7) with 8GB of ram. It can't be that, right?

Sounds like a problem with the MIDI messages from your keyboard. What keyboard do you have? Did you load the appropriate USB-MIDI driver? (I'm assuming you are using MIDI over USB to your Mac).

I have a Yamaha NU1. Connected via USB. I've never loaded a driver of any kind. I just connected a USB cable from the piano to the Mac and it just worked. Are there drivers required? I also have a midi to USB cable. Since I have the USB out I've never used those. I will try them tomorrow. I've assumed USB to USB was better. Though I don't know why.

I _think_ this problem has been examined on this Forum recently. And I _think_ that the solution was to get a faster computer.

If the MIDI "note-off" message arrives from the keyboard, and the computer is too busy to "hear" it, you'd get the situation you have.

A suggestion:

Download a free-trial version of Pianoteq, and use it instead of your sample-based software. [Some notes are silent, but that's not relevant for your testing.] Pianoteq claims that it uses less CPU time than most other software pianos. I can run it OK on a 5-year-old laptop.

If the problem goes away, your keyboard is OK.

If the problem remains, your keyboard is suspect.

. Charles

PS -- what computer are you using? Can you track CPU usage while playing? On a Windows machine, you'd do that by right-clicking on the Taskbar (on the bottom of the screen), starting "Task Manager", and clicking on the appropriate tab.

I've got a late 2011 MacBook Pro (2.4 ghz i7 with 8gb ram). I tried using midi to USB cables as well with no luck. I've tried to search the forums for stuck notes, hanging notes, stuck midi notes. I didnt want to be "that guy" posting the same questions over and over again. Pianoteq does not hang. But I can't believe a computer that far exceeds the specs on galaxy's website can't handle this. The NU1 has 256 polyphony; I'm never close to that many voices.

check your power saving settings - they should be a max performance on everything. Also if you can adjust the 1/2 pedal spot try adjusting that - I had to make my piano +1 on that to not get weird sustain issues with the galaxy pianos

You don't need a faster computer. That is ridiculous. You probably need the Yamaha MIDI driver. Most Yamaha keyboards require the driver. Download it here:

http://download.yamaha.com/usb_midi/

Note: Even Yamaha's own USB-MIDI interface cable requires a driver, so your USB-MIDI cable probably does too. But use the USB to USB connection with the above driver, which is simple and should work perfectly.

If it still doesn't work with the Yamaha driver you can load a free MIDI monitor program and see if you are getting the damper (sustain) pedal off messages, or other MIDI messages that are interfering. If you still have trouble after loading the driver let us know.

Yeah if they are both doing it, then 0xB0 0x40 0x## messages are getting lost somehow. An i7 is plenty fast and then some.

First, I appreciate both of your input!

Second, I downloaded the driver and tried things. At this point, it appears to me that I can only reproduce the stuck notes when the "halfpedal" setting is active. Those notes disappear upon pressing/releasing the pedal again. I downloaded a MIDI program as recommended. When the sustain is pressed/released several values fire, ending in 0. There are times when a press/release only shows an "on" value.

I don't think thats correct; its not what "halfpedal" is supposed to do in a midi-sense, right? I figured halfpedal would mean partial presses would trigger sound samples different from those with full sustain. It should still send the off when released, right?

I will try them tomorrow. I've assumed USB to USB was better. Though I don't know why.

Note that there is no defined 'standard' for half-pedal behaviour. Hardware and software instruments respond differently to different degrees of pedalling.

Kind regards,
James
x

I assume you downloaded MIDI Monitor for Mac. You should see the CC64 messages when you press or release the damper pedal. The messages will show up as 64 X, where X is 1-127 when you press the pedal, and 64 0 whenever you completely release the pedal. Most pedals usually only put out about 8 different X values from 0 to 127, but that is enough for half pedaling and repedaling. The important thing is that you receive a 64 0 MIDI message EACH TIME the pedal is fully released, and ONLY when the pedal is fully released.

If you don't get the 64 0 each time the pedal is fully released the sustain will not terminate. I read your comment to say that you aren't always getting the 64 0 message. That sounds like a hardware or software problem in your piano. You could take your laptop to a piano store and try it with another NU1 and other Yamaha keyboards to make sure the problem is with your piano only.

The reason that you don't see the problem with half-pedal turned off in Kontakt is because Kontakt then treats values < 64 as an up pedal and values > 64 as a down pedal. So your pedal is probably putting out values less than 64 (but not 0) on the way up as its released.

Macy: you are exactly right. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise. The pedal shows up as "Hold Pedal X" in MidiMonitor where X is the MIDI value. There are times, frequently, when I release the pedal completely but do not get 0 as the last value. When the pedal works as expected, MidiMonitor shows the end of the pedal event as "Hold Pedal 0". When I get the stuck notes, the last pedal value is a non-zero positive integer. I'm grateful for your help on this. Tomorrow night I'll check the pedal and see if something is physically blocking it or whether there is some user-accessible adjustment. Should that fail, I suspect I'll need the dealer's assistance (who is 250 miles away). But I am happy to be able to articulate the problem and confirm it in an objective fashion.

Yamaha will certainly fix the problem under warranty if the cause isn't obvious (something blocking/hanging it up). The NU1 has a 5-year warranty like my CVP. If the dealer doesn't solve the problem just call Yamaha directly. In my experience their warranty service and support is the best in the business.

Out of curiosity, how big is the non-zero value when it happens?

There is a user defined pedal adjustment on the NU1, for the half-pedal point. Not sure it will change this problem. I have no problem with the NU1 pedal and midi connecting to iPad software pianos.

Xorbe, from what I can tell it's typically single digit values like 4, 5, 8 or 9. There usually is a series of values specifically related to the "Hold Pedal" transmission around .030ish seconds apart. The last example of things went 50, 12, 9 at .201, .234, .264 seconds respectively.

Spanishbuddha, I thought about that, but haven't gone about changing it. I will tonight just to see what happens. Like you, I'm not sure that will do anything other than shift the MIDI number around that reflects the totally on/totally off position. The problem seems to be that when taking my foot off the pedal, at times the piano doesn't send a 0 value (and it appears that once half-pedalling is turned on the 0 value is critical to canceling the sustain. But it can't make anything worse so I'll try just for the sake of science.

I did submit an email technical support question to Yamaha via their website. Last time I used that, they were pretty quick with an answer. If they have anything that might help members of the forum, I will certainly update things with that information.

Since the NU1 works fine with those values, it could be within spec. If so, you need something that crushes 0-15 to 0 (and perhaps 112-127 to 127) but that seems ... odd, but what do I know, I've only seen Casio and Roland output.

It definitely shouldn't be doing what it is doing. It should send a 0 value when fully released. I'm suspect it is a mechanical problem in his particular sustain pedal mechanism. But yes, it would be easy to "fix" the problem by using a free program like MIDIPipe (on his Mac) to simply change all values less than X (say set to 20 or something) to 0.

It sounds like the NU1 has a pedal sensor that outputs smaller MIDI value increments than most pianos. It is typical for Yamaha to only output something like 8 different pedal values between 0 and 127. If you are getting different "final" non-zero values each time the pedal is released it suggest to me that there is a mechanical mechanism problem in your particular pedal that is preventing the pedal from completely returning to its fully up (0 value) position. I would call Yamaha technical support on the phone and report the problem to get it fixed.