MIDI and Sustain Pedals

[Mark Kaufman]

I'm learning about MIDI as I go, but last night baffled me.I have an M-Audio Radium 49 keyboard, and was running it through Cubase, recording with a Grand Piano VST, part of Cubase's HALion One synth feature. The pedal gave me the sustain I was looking for, and everything recorded and played back with the sustain. However, on mixdown, the sustain was gone, and the nice legato piano track I had built up for three hours was now just a series of plunked staccato notes.What gives? Anyone know what step I'm missing? Or is there a way to apply sustain to the track some other way?Thanks for the help!-Mark

[allends]

Sept 16, 2008, 10:33am, lyle wrote:What gives? Anyone know what step I'm missing? Or is there a way to apply sustain to the track some other way?Mark,I don't use your software and I haven't experienced your problem but I hate to see a brother musician in distress! A good place to start might be here:http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3198910It seems you aren't alone. Let us know if this link leads you to a dead end.-Allen

[sgs4u]

well your program has either 1) deleted your sustain pedal events, or 2) shortened your notes. If you load the same song file, can you retrace your steps by recording another little bit of piano, with some sustaining notes? Find what happens when you try to record another midi file, that should tell you what happened to your original. I highly recommend figuring out what went wrong before you try to re-record a new piano track. I have a little extra time tomorrow, and might be able to help some more, wink wink g' luck pal,

[elser]

Hi Mark, Cubase should have some type of 'event editor'. It's a list of all the notes and controller data you recorded in text form.If you find your event editor look for controller 64 events. Controller 64 is what happens when you use your sustain pedal. A value of 127 means you put your foot down on the pedal and a value of 0 happens when let your foot off the pedal. If you see controller 64 messages it means Cubase is recording your sustain pedal actions but not playing them back, in which case there could be a filter that is filtering out controller messages. If controller 64 messages aren't there it means they're not getting recorded.You can also look in the transport section of Cubase, and step on the sus pedal and it should register that a midi event has happened.I know this all sounds complicated but midi is rather complicated, that's why many people prefer to do just audio recording.Anyways if you have the patience this should get you started figuring out your problem.

[silvercord]

Although I use Reason most of the time, maybe this is also a problem...sometimes before i hit the 'record' button my foot will be down on the sustain pedal, even though the keyboard sounds with thesustain..if i put it down before i hit the record button..reasonwill not always record it at such, hence just short notes after i listen post recording ...test this out and see if its the issue, if not..the above commentswill help lead you to finding out the problem~peacegeoff

[nickbatzdorf]

Another possibility is that the polarity of the sustain pedal is or was reversed. If you plug the sustain pedal in and power cycle the keyboard without it plugged in, it should start up momentary on rather than momentary off.It's possible the polarity is right now but it was wrong when you recorded the sequence, and the way to find that out is to play - if it sounds right then the right messages are getting sent. If my guess is right you can go in and edit every Sus Pedal On command (MIDI cc64) so it reads 127 and every Off command so it reads 0.

[Mark Kaufman]

Thanks to all! I haven't verified this yet due to musical ADD kicking in and causing me to suddenly record "Hey Bulldog" just to see if I could pull it off. (No sustain pedal needed on that one. ) But I think Nick and Elser nailed it...I'll find out when I get home tonight.Me messing with MIDI is like a punk kid driving without a license, you know.Thanks! -mk

[mojobone]

I was thinking what Nick posted, but couldn't have explained it half as well. Kudos, Nick!