Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Software pianos and partial pedalling

Hi Macy,

I think I would be inclined to agree with you there he he! And you are probably right, I would imagine there are some little 3rd party MIDI programs out there that will allow you to re-scale data in some manner to achieve what doremi is after (i.e. as a purely software driven alternative)! I'm honestly neither for or against the argument for full scale MIDI values used for half-pedaling - but just interested in what might be entailed in making it happen (I can't help it I just love solving things)!

I do agree however that you'd require some extreme foot control/hearing abilities to appreciate the difference though! Further its possible that the intense stream of CC#64 MIDI data might create audible glitches too; considering the resulting potential to send a large amount of MIDI data in such a narrow window!

Kind regards,

Kat

An acoustic piano has an infinite number of partial pedal responses, i.e. a true analog type of response. It is impossible to hit pedal positions with infinite precision by foot, but it is very well possible to achieve desired partial pedal responses by ear. Great pianists can achieve partial pedal responses very well by ear without even looking at their foot.

An acoustic piano pedal has a narrow active pedal range with broad mechanical dead zones on either side of the narrow active pedal range. Here is a simple example how an analog/digital pedal can emulate this characteristic of an acoustic piano pedal.

Simply put long metal strips on either side of a short resistor strip. The short resistor strip corresponds to the narrow active pedal range, the long metal strips correspond to the broad mechanical dead zones on either side of the narrow active pedal range. Voila, you have an analog pedal!

For a digital pedal, the narrow active pedal range is mapped to 0 to 127 with the values remaining at 0 or 127 at the broad mechanical dead zones. Voila, you have a digital pedal with full MIDI resolution for the narrow active pedal range!

The digital pedal thus emulates the broad mechanical dead zones of an acoustic piano pedal (where the sound does not change) and the narrow active pedal range of an acoustic piano pedal (where the sound does change).

Software pianos do respond to digital pedals, but as I explained in more detail in previous postings, I am getting the impression, that there is some BS on the digital pedal side of things and a lot more BS on the software pianos side of things.

Anyway, I do think this discussion has run its course. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread that I started!

On a Mac I can use MidiPipe (a free utility program) to remap MIDI values (for keys or pedals or whatever), and similar utilities are available for PCs. If you have a pedal that outputs 8 values (most Yamahas) or 32 values or whatever, you can simply map the non-0 and non-127 values to any values in the partial pedal range that you want. I happen to write my own MIDI software and map the damper pedal to different ranges for different software pianos for reasons other than this. But MidiPipe (or the PC utilities) will work just fine. There is no need for mechanically modified pedals.

Anyway, after you remap the damper pedal I think you will see it makes no practical difference having more than 1 or 2 partial pedal values in the partial pedal range. The effect is too small to distinguish the differences in normal playing.

I recently bought a VPC1 with Ivory II American D. I know the VPC1 is supposed to do many levels of pedaling but with this combination I only get on/off pedaling. Either the Ivory II can not do multiple pedal levels or I have a bad pedal or something needs configuring but I can't get anything but a light switch.

Can I please get some help with this?

Turn on Half Pedaling on the Session tab page. I think it's off by default.

Yea, that did it, thanks. So there is only off/half/full in Ivory II? The VPC1 can do more gradations. Which VSTI can do the full range?

"Half pedaling" on Ivory II supports a continuous damper pedal. Have you considered reading the manual?

I haven't noticed a continuous damper pedal. To me it seems like it has none/full and somewhere in the middle without much nuance. Maybe the VPC1's pedals are no good. The other two pedals do nothing with Ivory. Do they even support those?

If you really want to know the gradations available from the sustain pedal on your DP, you can easily test it with adownloadable utility.

Almost certainly your VPC1 transmits 127 degrees. My much older entry level DP (from around 2009, I think) does transmit in integers (00, 01, 02, 03 etc etc) up to 127, so it would be extremely surprising if later DPs - especially a controller like VPC1 did not.

Likewise, it would be very odd if continuous pedalling were not an option on any serious VST piano. It's probably a matter of enabling it or maybe calibrating it in some cases.

Mine only has about six steps. And it's not because of the pedal. It's the software in the piano.

Well, even six steps is a big improvement on 'on/ off/ half', and is enough for some shading. But I'm surprised they're not all zero + 127 as standard - peanuts by today's transmission standards - and that's an understatement .

I seem to remember that the pedal that comes with the VPC1 has 28 steps. That ought to be sufficient unless your name is Horowitz.

So, I recorded a MIDI slow pedal press with SONAR to see the data and indeed the pedal that comes with the VPC1 does produce all the values from 0-127. It must be the VSTI (Ivory II) that is not that responsive to all the values. I audibly detect just 3 states off, half, and full. Ivory must be quantizing the VPC values to 3 states.

Sometimes more is not better.

Earlier on in this thread, KawaiJames wrote this

So, it’s 25 (not 28), I wonder what can be substantiated.

gvfarns brings the definitive point ...More is not necessarily better.

Hi Bortx, have you actually taken the time to read this thread? I assume not because if you do you'll find the answers to everything you've asked thus far especially a detailed response from Sythogy regarding the exact behaviour of the half pedalling on the American Concert D, comments about the progressive sustain capability of the VPC1 and Kawai James was kind enough to chime in with some additional hard to find data about its half pedalling behaviour - this is in addition to 'from the horses mouth' comments from other leading VSTI developers about how their specific approach to half pedalling works etc.

Read the thread from start to finish then see if you have any questions (and the VSTI manual too which also explains the settings/options for half pedalling)!

Regarding exact performance of the VPC1; Kawai were reluctant to give much away when I contacted them but again James was kind enough to provide more detailed info; so its all there just take the time to read it - sheesh!

Regards,

Kat

The Ivory II American D works as advertised and stated by Synthogy earlier in this thread. I don't know what your problem is other than not wanting to read the documentation.

First for all those calling on me to read the Ivory Manual -- my box came with no manual. It has a small 5 page booklet on installing the software. No where does it say anything about pedal support and all the nuances of the pedal we are talking about here in this forum.

Second, for those stating that the VPC1's pedal has 25 steps, this is incorrect. I did the tests my self. I recorded the MIDI from the pedal with SONAR X3 which shows the exact values produced by the pedal. I was able to produce 127 separate values so the input resolution is there in steps of 1.

I believe the problem is Ivory II which quantizes all those values down to what looks from my tests to be just 3 values: on/half/off. The problem is that the "half pedal" action is not in the middle of the pedal's range. From my observation values from around 25 to 127 are set to ON. 1 to 25 to half and 0 to off. For this reason it is very hard to achieve even the singular half pedal step because that exists in such a low and narrow range.

I don't know whether this is universal. But it is typical.But there is a fix. Try Bome's MIDI Translator. It will translate MIDI inputs, perform any translation you wish, and transmit the modified MIDI. You can have it pass along notes with no modifications, yet have it modify any sustain pedal values, in any way you choose.

There's a freebie version of Bomes. That's the one I use.