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Sounds like a good idea.

James
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Hi James thanks he he

Good work getting this info from the horse's mouth!

I learned something new from this thread. Thanks.

Many thanks 'gvfarns', I'm just glad you found it useful, its been really interesting for me too and a great introduction to this forum (which is brilliant I might add), though I have to admit I feel exhausted after it ha ha...

Fortunately I've been lucky enough to acquire a copy of the gorgeous 'Kawai Ex Pro' Piano VSTi (Acoustic Samples) from another user on this forum in the midst of it; so now I can basque in the lovely bright sound of the 'Ex Pro' as my reward - awesome!!!

Best wishes,

Kat

Well, sorry, but fine tune or not, 25 steps between fully ON and fully OFF will always be coarser steps than 127 steps between fully ON and fully OFF.

It seems that the F-30 pedal does not allow you to take full advantage of the software piano capabilities. That is, IF the software piano capabilities of 127 steps indeed exist as stated by Pianoteq et al, which is a different question. This issue of matching pedal capabilities and software piano capabilities must have been discussed between the VPC1 designers at Kawai and Pianoteq et al.

The thing is that there is a BIG difference between a 0 to 127 RANGE and 127 STEPS. The 0 to 127 RANGE can very well be divided into 25 STEPS with each step being approximately 5 MIDI values if the range is divided equally into steps, for example.

The specifications of the GPP-3 pedal say 0 to 127 RANGE, but does NOT say 127 STEPS either.

Pedal manufacturers only say ‘continuous’ but there is a BIG difference between ‘continuous with 127 steps’ and ‘continuous with 25 steps’. The BIG difference is that on the average, the latter is 5 times coarser than the former, although they are both ‘continuous’.

This makes me wonder about the ‘continuous’ response of software pianos, too. Software pianos may respond to the full 0 to 127 RANGE, but they may only do so in 25 STEPS.

In addition to DPBSD we may need a SWPBSD. Dewster?

PMFJI --

Digital resolution will always be limited. The question is:

. . . Is the digital resolution adequate to give the
. . . same effect as an analog device?

Think about the range of pedal positions, on an acoustic piano, that corresponds to the "half-pedal range", where the dampers aren't fully up, or fully down.

. . . Maybe it covers an inch of vertical travel, probably less. [I should post this question to the Piano Tuning forum, would get a reliable answer there.]

I'd challenge _any_ human pianist to move his foot to 25 reproducible positions in a 1" vertical span. Or even 25 non-reproducible positions!

And I'd challenge the same pianist to distinguish between 25 different values of note-decay time (which is what the "half-pedal" position controls).

One "half-pedal" value isn't enough. 5 "half-pedal" values is probably enough for most of us.

25 "half-pedal" values (spread over MIDI values 1 - 126) sounds like it's more than "enough" for anyone.

. Charles

PS -- This is not a new argument.

There is a story about a famous pianist. A piano-roll manufacturer was trying to convince him to generate some master rolls for it. He was resisting, arguing the limitations of the technology. The manufacturer's rep said:

"But our piano has sixteen levels of loudness!"

"Ah", said the player, "Unfortunately, _I_ have seventeen!"

Good point. Of course, the granularity of the steps only really matters in the area where partial pedal is a possibility, and this is a small (physical) range. In that range granularity is beneficial but in others it is not.

A while back we had some folks complaining that they couldn't get partial pedal in some software pianos at all even though it was supported by both the software and their piano because the MIDI values that corresponded to partial pedal in the software were between two steps in the pedal (apparently). We know that Ivory and Galaxy have the pedal kick in in quite different MIDI locations, so it would be difficult for a digital piano manufacturer to know where in the pedal's range to put the high granularity if they were to implement it only in the middle. On the other hand I expect that if they actually implemented the whole 127 steps, random foot motions would clog up the MIDI.

I guess what we really need is for the software to be fully configurable. There should be something akin to the velocity curve that lets the user specify (after consulting the specs of their piano, perhaps) the MIDI point at which partial pedal begins to engage at the point at which full pedal engages.

If I float-pedal on my acoustic grand piano, I do it by ear, not by foot position. It would be nice if the active range from fully ON to fully OFF would indeed have the true 7 bit resolution of MIDI of 127 steps.

Beyond the active range, there is mechanical play of the pedal. In other words, mechanically depressing the pedal further beyond fully ON won’t result in a MIDI value greater than 127, and mechanically releasing the pedal further beyond fully OFF won’t result in a MIDI value less than 0. The mechanical play of the pedal does not matter, the active range and the resolution in the active range do matter.

Instead of using a pedal, Dewster could digitally inject MIDI values 0, 1, 2, … , 127 in CC#64 and see whether the sound characteristics of software pianos indeed changes 127 times (full resolution response) or only 25 times (BS).

With all due respect, but from a practical perspective (i.e. the practice of piano playing) I find this discussion about "continuous" partial pedaling quite absurd. Even 4 or 8 steps of pedaling seem to be, to me, enough or more than ever needed in any practical situation and/or context.

Exactly. I had with my CA51 just 8 events, but it made a rather continuos half pedalling effect possible.

Beyond of that, we had some discussions with detailed observations by Aeons Holle here: Half Pedalling with CA95 The problem might be in the distribution of the sensor point along pedal travel: if sensor point placement is too dense for all of the 25 neighboring positions, resulting in too sharp changes in the SW, if these assume a more even distribution along the whole travelling distance.

640 kb ought to be enough for anybody – Bill Gates

Always true until you experience something better. Not that I am that good of a pianist, but since I am doing it, I do hear great pianists float-pedalling. Superfluous to say, they do it far, far better than I could ever do it.

As to the quoted post, there would be no distribution issues if all MIDI values were implemented at full resolution. Perhaps we are at the 640 kb point, so to speak.

The perfect analogy. You have a long and prosperous marketing career ahead of you.

Hi doremi et al,

I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond before now but my wish to basque in the loveliness of my new 'Kawai Ex Pro' Piano library was short lived as there is a variety of computer related issues I will have to deal with 1st (computers don't you just love em)

Anyway, wow lots of responses and interesting discussion that's great, however firstly I just wanted to make something clear as it seems like there could be some confusion as to what is implied by Piano VSTi companies using the full range of MIDI sustain expression - so I'll do my best to clear it up if that is the case!

Basically for a start (and my apologies if you or any other users are already fully aware of this - I'm just trying to make things clear in case there is any confusion as to any posts that I've made previously) OK here goes:

The reason why there are 128 possible values used in the aforementioned Piano VSTi's for sustain (i.e. that is 127 + 0 = off) is because that is what the MIDI protocol dictates (controllers are either on=127/off=0 OR a value in the range of 0~127). As such, that is what software companies and hardware manufacturers have to work with and consequently in any continuous controller (CC) in MIDI everything is mapped onto this system. I'm simplifying MIDI a lot here; but only so we can concentrate on the discussion at hand!

So for example an old style sustain pedal that is nothing more than a latch will basically produce a value of 0 = sustain off without your foot on it, and a value of 127 = sustain on when you place your foot on it (i.e. the voltage across the switch in the pedal goes from one one extreme to another instantly)!

Whereas alternatively a continuous style sustain pedal (which produces values in the range of 0~127) will slowly increment the voltage as you press your foot on it to produce a variable value in this range (i.e. shifting gradually from one extreme to another).

*NOTE: AND IMPORTANTLY THIS OCCURS RIGHT ACROSS THE WHOLE RANGE OF TRAVEL AND NOT JUST IN THE MID AREA (i.e. distributed values)!!!

So in this manner this really simple system can be used right across the board of any MIDI control device (keyboard, control surface, pedal etc) to represent all manner of MIDI controllers (i.e. and there are many) for example:

1) a simple switch/button on a MIDI keyboard could be assigned to represent a 'Una Corda Pedal' (because its just on=127/off=0)

2) a potentiometer (dial/knob) can be used to control a synth's Filter (because it requires a variable value in the range of 0~127)

3) a fader (slider) can be used to control the Volume on a mixer (because it requires a variable value in the range of 0~127)

So the point I'm trying to make here is that the MIDI system provides a simple way of being able to control lots of different things, its really quick and easy to design for, as such all manufactures (both software and Hardware) have to work out a way of making *their* products work with the protocol available, because that way anybody is going to be able to use it regardless of the individual product and its for this reason that everybody attempts to do the best they can because it works really well and is compatible with everything out there basically! Its for this reason (as you would imagine) that anything that is general (as opposed to specific) has its limitations as well in that everyone can use it/design & develop for it - but this means that as a result a solution might not always be the most efficient way in which the technology could be employed!

Enter the debate for accuracy/resolution with regard to progressive sustain pedals and half-pedaling:

Right I'm sorry if that was a bit laborious, but now that is out of the way it is easier to appreciate the kind of design decisions that developers have to make! So with regard to the software VSTi's mentioned earlier in this thread; when they stipulate that their instrument makes full use of the MIDI range (0~127) for Continuous Controller CC#64 (sustain) what they are implying is that their particular product is able to map onto a typical continuous sustain controller on the market;

but *NOT* that every single value in that range is actually used; and this is the reason why:

I just want to refer back to an earlier post about the Ivory-II American Concert D:

"Ivory's implementation of half-pedaling is modeled directly on the behavior of
sustain pedals on acoustic pianos...The response to MIDI CC#64 from 0 to 127 may be
viewed as having three ranges (not counting fully released and fully depressed,
which obviously result in no sustain and full sustain, respectively). In the
first range, sustain remains fully off; you can press the pedal a little bit
with no effect on the sustain (i.e., the dampers do not move). In the second
range, sustain starts to become active, increasing smoothly until maximum
sustain is reached (i.e., the dampers are fully open). Maximum sustain occurs
before the pedal is fully depressed, so in the third range, from the point of
maximum sustain to the pedal being fully depressed, there is no further effect
on sustain; it just remains fully on (i.e., the dampers remain fully open). So
you can think of the half-pedal effect as acting smoothly from fully off to
fully on, but only in the middle area of the full range from 0-127, with the
areas on either side resulting in no sustain or full sustain."

SO taking this on board based upon my previous description of the nature of a typical continuous sustain controller pedal (and subsequently how the values are mapped across the *entirety* of the full range of pedal travel) you can appreciate that only some of the information is going to be used because as stated above both the upper range and lower range are dead zones where there is no activity taking place (the dampers are either fully engaged or fully disengaged respectively) so the MIDI activity in these dead regions is essentially ignored (i.e. as it should be so as to act 'Piano' like).

In this manner, out of a full range of values (0~127) (I would have to guess) but you could only probably expect say 50 possible MIDI value variations to occur (and perhaps even less) yet as 'Charles Cohen' mentions elsewhere on this thread considering the tiny range of travel that likely equates to about an 'inch' that really is quite substantial still (though admittedly more than on some of DP pianos that use fractions - but remember that this varies greatly between manufacturers).

Consequently, based upon this you can understand how many different developers can essentially take different approaches to how they make provisions for half-pedaling (based around the hardware available) because if for example a developer wants to allow their users to be able to *shift* the 'sweat spot' where half pedaling occurs, the presence of the additional MIDI values/resolution at either side of the mid range (which it is easy to dismiss as being wasted) actually allows them to do this because they can shift the significant range up and down the pedal travel.

The reason why I mention this is because if the available resolution was crammed into the mid range on the hardware (which would be somewhat overkill but definitely as accurate as MIDI would allow) then any kind of alteration would have to take place in the hardware device as opposed to the software itself (and likely be difficult or impractical to implement).

However, if ultimate MIDI resolution is what you seek for half-pedaling, a solution does in fact exist (although the argument against the requirement for it is pretty valid) you could in fact elicit an engineer (i.e. anyone with basic development skills) to either craft you a custom pedal or modify an existing one by forcing the shift in voltage to occur in a specific range in the mid area of the pedal which would provide full resolution (0~127) in a short mid band of pedal travel.

However as a consequence I think for most VSTi's, the half pedaling band would now be so super-compressed that it would just act like an on/off switch) with the exception of one that I am aware of, namely 'True Keys' which employs the use of a 'minimum and maximum' threshold that describes where the bite range occurs within 0~127. Consequently if you were using such a *custom pedal* with 'True Keys' (and any other VSTi that provides this functionality) you could theoretically simply set the min threshold to 0 and the max threshold to 127 and you would have the highest resolution half-pedaling sustain pedal available (albeit with some effort/cost)!

Well I suppose as this post is pushing memoir status (oops sorry all) I guess I'll round it up there, but hopefully the aforementioned makes sense and helped clear up any confusion with regard to any previous posts I've made (MIDI range/usage etc)! I think its difficult for developers and manufacturers to cater to everyone, MIDI has been around since the 80's and has obvious limitations, but its down to how much resolution is enough and whether there is appreciable difference as discussed by Charles Cohen & gvfarns! Naturally the digital trend (internet bandwidth, HD media/audio recordings etc) enforces the idea that no amount is ever enough but its all down to personal preference really. However something i'm a firm believer in is if a piece of equipment doesn't do what you wasn't it to do, there's nearly always a way of adapting/forcing it to do your bidding if you have the impetus (it can be fun and rewarding)!

Anyway I hope this helps,

regards,

Kat

Hi gvfarns,

I know I already mentioned this above in my previous post (however its entrenched in various other details) so I just wanted to clarify again that whilst I was examining the aforementioned software Pianos the functionality you mention above (i.e. the ability to define where half-pedaling engages within the full range of a continuous MIDI sustain controller) is actually available in 'True Keys' by setting the upper and lower thresholds respectively - which is definitely the way to go! Its possible that other VSTi's make allowances for this also but 'True Keys' is the only one that springs to mind.

Regards,

Kat

PS: You can see the features in question (i.e. half-pedal Max CC/half-pedal Min CC) in this video at 0.08 (look at the lower middle section) however you will need to up the resolution to HD720p to see it as its pretty darn fuzzy!

Vi Labs - True Keys (MIDI Settings)

Sorry for the multiple posts - I'm just working my way through anything I missed earlier he he

As I mentioned above (in my uber memoir like post) you can have this functionality right now simply using a continuous sustain controller (i.e. like the GPP-3 V2) in conjunction with True Keys and setting the upper/lower half-pedaling thresholds accordingly, in order to achieve a full range of MIDI sustain expression!

However the result will not be Piano like (i.e. the whole travel range of the continuous sustain pedal implementing half pedaling from start to finish) you will have to build/modify a custom sustain pedal controller and use it in conjunction with the aforementioned VSTi/settings if you want to maintain an accurate emulation of an acoustic Piano - but its possible - which is good news right!

Regards,

Kat

Trax4katz, FWIW, you can 'hack' the tresholds of any virtual piano in a similar way to what you do in True Keys, by running it from e.g. Reaper and setting up an effect on the midi channel that would rescale the values received from the pedal to the 'middle range' (as you call it) recognized by the particular virtual piano.
For example, after rescaling, the new off value would be 30, the new on would be 80 and all the steps inbetween, that given pedal can produce, would fall into that range of 30-80.

If you did this, the pedal would be less realistic (as it would continuously change sound in the whole range of physical movement), however, for example, things that Doremi wants - the ability to 'float' the pedal - would be much easier to accomplish.

For virtual pianos in Kontakt, I believe that you could set up a script right in Kontakt, without any need to use Reaper or other DAW.

Hey PtJaa,

Thanks for your awesome reply and you are absolutely right - I can't believe I didn't consider that myself (I'm afraid I've been so deeply sucked into this thread I've kind of zoned out)! he he

Yes absolutely, I use Cubase-7 myself and I realize that you could set up a similar scenario in C7 no doubt using its MIDI remapping/expression tools (i.e. and likely in many other Digital Audio Workstations too)!

So that is a really good point and if there are any users (that own a DAW) who are interested in being able to manipulate their pedal settings, that provides a relatively simple and useful means to customize their pedal response to their individual requirements!

I'm not sure however that 'Doremi' actually uses a DAW (like Cubase, Reaper etc) as I recall at the start of the thread the mention of having little experience of software based pianos etc. However as Reaper is essentially a free permanent trial (but also upgradable to a full license for only $60) the option will be there to take advantage of regardless!

With regard to Kontakt I don't own it sadly so I'm unfamiliar with its scripting language (but as a coder I'm intrigued also)! However that is another really useful means of manipulating the pedals response too and I realize kontakt is very popular also so its likely there are a lot of users who can take advantage of that - although I'm guessing that only applies to the full version and cannot be implemented in the player?

Anyway many thanks for your contribution 'PtJaa' I'm sure that many Piano VSTi users out there will find that information very useful indeed!

Regards,

Kat

PS: For anyone interested in finding out more about Reaper (a brilliant inexpensive recording environment) visit: http://www.reaper.fm/

There is no need at all for all those wordy comments, all I am suggesting is as simple as a 'new off value' of 0 = fully off, and a 'new on value' of 127 = fully on, so that the active pedal range is 0 to 127. Then add mechanical dead zones on either side of the active pedal range where the values remain at 0 or 127, and you would have a realistic pedal.

That is - if the software pianos are genuinely responsive - as I said a couple of times allready we need a SWPBSD (SoftWare Piano BullShit Detector)

Hi doremi,

I understand your requirements and frustration but I'm afraid I don't have anything more to add really! I agree simplicity/brevity is always best but its not my strong point and as such I apologize for the (admittedly long winded) essay above but I've simply tried my best to explain:

1) The basic implementation/limitations of MIDI
2) Why software is set up the way it is (reach widest audience/work with all available hardware)
3) Why hardware pedals function the way they do (reach widest audience/work with all available software)
4) Why what you are after requires a custom pedal (because it opposes the standards above)

But as I say again, what you after is perfectly feasible and obtainable (I have known many artists/musicians in the past who have used custom MIDI controllers that were specifically built for their individual needs) its actually a common issue and there are many people out there who would be more than willing to help you for a small fee I'm sure!

The only other thing is if what you are actually suggesting is a radical redesign of existing controllers and their subsequent implementation in current (and future) Piano software VSTi's?

If you are I think that is an interesting perspective (i.e. improving how things work is a positive argument/goal) - but its unfortunately one you would have to argue with other Piano World users who might be satisfied with current pedal performance (or not so) etc.

By the way I didn't understand what SWPBSD meant but now that I do - that is hilarious!

Kind regards,

Kat

You guys are way over-thinking this. A simple piece of software (not a DAW or even Kontakt) can be used to translate any damper pedal that outputs a half-dozen or so MIDI values into any MIDI values you want. And you will see it makes virtually no difference having more than 1 or 2 values in the "partial" range. An acoustic piano doesn't have 127 different partial pedal responses, only a very narrow range for a partial pedal effect and you couldn't deliberately hit specific "values" in that range repeatedly anyway.

I'll say it again, partial pedaling is a minor effect. Good re-pedaling is much more important to emulating an acoustic piano.