Half pedaling in VSL Synchron pianos

johanibraaten

Hi.

I've recently bought the VSL Synchron Yamaha CFX and I think it's a beautiful piano. However, I have an issue with half pedaling that someone may have a solution for. My midi controller is a Yamaha N1 and it sends continuous midi data (CC64) for the sustain pedal. It does however, like many other Yamaha models, send continuous values from about 1-80 and then it jumps to 127. According to VSL, the half pedal in the Synchron player operates in the range of 26-102 CC64 value. This causes a problem in the Synchron player where I can't have the full half pedal range. It's most noticeably when I round off notes with a "half short" release of the pedal, it creates nasty artifacts as the CC64-value drops from 127 to around 80 and causes a "gap" in the half pedal range from 102-80. I have tried to adjust the slider for half pedaling in the Edit tab but there doesn't seem to be a way that I can access the full range of half pedaling effect. I was thinking if there is a way to re-map the values for my sustain pedal in a similar way that you can re-map note-on values with the velocity curve in the Synchron player? Or maybe I can do that in programs like MainStage or Logic and run the Synchron CFX in there?

xooorx

Where in the pedal's movement does the jump happen? does it send 1 to 80 across the full range of travel with a final jump to 127 as it hits bottom? Or does it send 1 to 80 for the first two thirds of its travel and then jump to 127 and stay there for the final third?

johanibraaten

xooorx

It sends 1-80 for the first two thirds and then jump to 127 for the last third. I have two other VI:s but it only causes problem in the VSL.

vagfilm

Hi,
Are you using mac or windows? Are you familiar with Python?
I can adapt my midi python code to make a simple velocity mapper midi-in to midi-out, using virtual ports that you input to VSL Synchron. But I am not sure if it will increase latency.
If you find no other easier solution, it may be worth a try...

johanibraaten

vagfilm

I'm on Mac. Yea, it would be nice to have a simple solution that doesn't cause any extra latency or strain on my computer. The VSL pianos are pretty demanding on the system as they are. Your solution sounds nice though, but unfortunately I don't know how to code…..

vagfilm

johanibraaten It sends 1-80 for the first two thirds and then jump to 127 for the last third. I have two other VI:s but it only causes problem in the VSL.

In that case a velocity mapper will not help, because there is nothing in the 80-127 range to map from... You would need to have the full 0-127 range in the first 2/3 of the pedal travel, and then always 127 in the last third...
Alternatively, you could the last third always to 80, and never output 81-127 values. Would that work?

johanibraaten

vagfilm In that case a velocity mapper will not help, because there is nothing in the 80-127 range to map from... You would need to have the full 0-127 range in the first 2/3 of the pedal travel, and then always 127 in the last third...
Alternatively, you could the last third always to 80, and never output 81-127 values. Would that work?

Wouldn't it work to map like 3-79 (76 steps) to be the same as 26-102? I men like 3=26, 4=27, 5=28……….79=102. Does this make sense? In this case I would have the whole range of half pedaling.

xooorx

If running it in MainStage is an acceptable option then a controller transform should be able to sort it out.

johanibraaten

xooorx If running it in MainStage is an acceptable option then a controller transform should be able to sort it out.

Oh, great! This was actually what I was looking for. It's a bit of a hassle to be forced to use MainStage but there are some other benefits with it and that's being able to adress different mics to different midi channels to ease the strain on the computer. It's a way to force the Synchron player to work with multi threads as it doesn't suport that natively.

CyberGene

Half-pedaling happens in a narrow range around the center of the pedal movement. If you can produce a few values there and map them to something usable for VSL, then that would work.

@vagfilm there’s no need to map the entire pedal movement from top to bottom into smooth 0-127 values. Being able to map the short middle region into 5-6 values would still work.

vagfilm

CyberGene there’s no need to map the entire pedal movement from top to bottom into smooth 0-127 values. Being able to map the short middle region into 5-6 values would still

It seems that the problem happens exactly because there is a gap in the received range of values... I know it does not make sense, but stranger things happen.

johanibraaten

CyberGene Half-pedaling happens in a narrow range around the center of the pedal movement. If you can produce a few values there and map them to something usable for VSL, then that would work.

Yea, that make sense. It seems that the half pedal of the built in engine of the N1 operates in the range of about 60-80.

vagfilm

Mainstage is the best solution for now... If I do something meanwhile, I will let you know.

johanibraaten

vagfilm If I do something meanwhile, I will let you know.

Great, thank you!

CyberGene

vagfilm

I mean, if you use your solution and map 60-80 to produce 0-127 in steps of 6, it may work?

johanibraaten

CyberGene I mean, if you use your solution and map 60-80 to produce 0-127 in steps of 6, it may work?

Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Another idea is to let the half pedaling tart where VSL wants it to, ie at 26 and then "compress" the 26-102 range to 26-80 with some formula. I checked with Pianoteq and it's half pedaling starts at about 25 and that feels pretty natural. Maybe that's a safer method since the N1:s pedal resolution depends on the speed of the pedaling. If you press the pedal fast it will skip more values and produce something like 1, 4, 7, 11 ….. But if you press slowly it typically produce values with steps of two 1,3,5….or 2,4,6….. How does theN1X pedal work?

vagfilm

It can be done with no problem, but who knows if it will work as intended? It can even discard the events in the 0-60 and 80-127, but I am not sure if that is a good idea... I may be better to have the first third always as zero, the last always as 127, and the middle as 0-127. Is that what you were thinking?

johanibraaten

vagfilm It can be done with no problem, but who knows if it will work as intended? It can even discard the events in the 0-60 and 80-127, but I am not sure if that is a good idea... I may be better to have the first third always as zero, the last always as 127, and the middle as 0-127. Is that what you were thinking?

Yes this is what I'm thinking in a way but maybe start a bit earlier than a third in and since VSL:s half pedaling starts at 26 it will not produce any effect between 1-25. If you want, check my answer to CyberGene in the post above.

xooorx

I think something like this, for whatever value of X feels right:

Maybe starting with X=60 to get the behaviour CyberGene is suggesting, maybe lowering that if it turns out to be a bit twitchy.

There's nothing you can do about the 'dead zone' in the last third of the physical pedal. You've just got to decide which part of the pedal's 'live zone' maps onto the Synchron's active 26 to 102 zone.

johanibraaten

xooorx

Oh thank you! It would be great to work with a graphical interface like this, I hope VSL could implement such a curve.

xooorx There's nothing you can do about the 'dead zone' in the last third of the physical pedal.

This isn't really a problem since theist third of the pedal on an acoustic grand generates no damping of the strings (depending on brand/model/reguation/), so this behavior is quite normal I think. And it feels totally ok with other VI:s.