Bug of sustain up/down in Vienna Imperial

[verlainefreitas]

Hello,

I noticed a strange behavior in the use of the sustain pedal with Vienna Imperial : the sustain can be activated normally, and then be deactivated, but if the sustain is activated again right after beeing deactivated, the sound of the previous notes resumes, which makes it unfeasible the use of sustain, because the sound of the previous notes had to stop completely, in order to not merge with the following notes. In the acoustic piano, if we raise the sustain pedal, it completely stops the sound of the previous notes, and if the pedal is pressed again, the notes do not resume to sound; this should be the behavior of sustain up/down in the Vienna Imperial.

Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

Thanks

Verlaine

[andi]

Hello Verlain!

In reality when the sustain pedal from a piano goes up and very shortly after that down again, some of the previous ringing sound gets "caught". This is what you are also experiencing with the Vienna Imperial. If you leave a little more time between the pedal up and pedal down commands, the previous notes will be silent.

Best regards,
Andi

[verlainefreitas]

Thank you very much for the prompt reply, Andi.

 

 

 

If there’s some gap between lifting and re-pressing the pedal, the issue I noticed is not big indeed. The point is that when we use the sustain from measure to measure, lifting the pedal after the last beat and pressing it right before the next one, as it’s the common use of the sustain (by Chopin, for example), all the notes of previous measures will overlap the following ones (of course, this is more “drastic” when the chords are much different). If we write the Chopin’s Valse of the attached file in any notation software, it is clear that the resulting sound is not intended at all by the composer, because the notes of the previous measures had to stop or at least re-sound much lesser than it is in Vienna Imperial.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Verlaine

[andi]

Hello Verlaine!

I know what you mean. Actually the very short gap between pedal up and pedal down comes from the notation software. If you edit the pedal up symbol so that it is played a bit earlier and/or the pedal down symbol that it gets played a bit later, it should sound as you want. It's not the fault of Vienna Imperial. ;-)

Best,
Andi

[verlainefreitas]

Thank you very much, Andi, for this new answer.

I apologize for the insistence, but in a piece of music there is a lot of measures that end with short notes, as that of Chopin, so that there is not sufficient time to locate the pedal sign earlier enough to prevent the previous notes to re-sound in Vienna Imperial. Moreover, this trouble does not occur in Boesendorfer Imperial; after a pedal up command, all the notes stop to sound and do not restart after the new pedal down command, even if both signs are close to each other.

All the best,

Verlaine

[andi]

Hi Verlaine!

The Boesendorfer Imperial didn't have the repedalling feature, but the Vienna Imperial has it. If you are using Sibelius, you can change the playback position of the pedal up/down symbols with the Inspector under Live start position.

Best regards,
Andi

[verlainefreitas]

Hi, Andi,

My experience with the Sibelius is not very expressive, but as far as I can see, the position of the pedal up signal is accepted by the software in two options: after the note or on it. In the first case, the previous notes will continue to sound, namely the sustain is not interrupted (if the pedal down is used in sequence again); in the second case, only the last note will continue to sound. The only option for really stopping the sustain is to avoid using the sustain in the last note.

Anyway, I believe that more experienced users know how to better manage the device. I prefer to use Notion5, but in it the pedal down signal does not trigger the sustain, because it just keeps the notes sounding and the pedal up signal stops them. It’s not the best solution, but using reverb and other devices and settings the sound is good. It’s possible to use “follow rules” in order to send CC64 values, but the options are the same as in Sibelius: no sustain in the last note; the last note remains souding, or the sustain is not interrupted.

Thank you very much for your help.

Best wishes,

Verlaine

[andi]

Hello Verlaine!

You can use negative values in the Sibelius Inspector/Live start position. This way you could make the pedal up symbol come earlier than it appears in the score.

Best,
Andi

[verlainefreitas]

Hi, Andi,

As you know, the only effect of the pedal up/down sign is to send CC64 values. In relation to a specific note, there are those 4 possibilities: before note-on, after note-on, before note-off and after note-off. Wherever you put the signal in Sibelius, the result will be one among these four options. In my experience with Notion 5 (in which the “rules” specify these options directly), the first has the result of muting the previous notes, but with the price that the last note is not with sustain (what is a bad choice, because the sound is different, “dryer”; unfeasible if this note is long); the second one has the effect that the last note will sound in the next measure (if this note is accented, the result is not good); the third and fourth options have the effect that the sustain is not stopped. All these behaviors are not affected by the positioning of the pedal down of the next note, considering that a “before note-off” option for it is not feasible (the note would be without sustain).

You have said earlier that in an acoustic piano the foregoing notes go on sounding after pedaling. Well, that is not my experience. I had a piano, and after the pedal up/down the previous notes really stopped. The “half pedaling” technique is the one I know that has the effect of not muting the notes, but just damping them.

Working all day long with those possibilities above in Notion 5, the only possibility of working smoothly with the sustain — that is, inserting the perfect combination of CC64 values: “before note-on” for pedal down e “after note-off” for pedal up — is to open two stances of Vienna Imperial, writing in alternate measures: first measure is written above, second is bellow, third above… and so on. In this way, the CC64 of previous measure does not affect the subsequent one. The overall sound effect is superb! We have that good experience in acoustic piano of starting a measure “from the beginning”, muting the preceding notes, without compromising the “participation” of any note in the sustain. — Of course, this solution is artificial, disturbing the writing process, because this becomes much less intuitive.

As a conclusion, I ask you emphatically for sending my remarks to the technical team of Vienna Imperial, so that they fix this issue. All we need is that sending a simple “CC64” zero value stops completely the sustain, regardless the CC64 values in the sequence. This feature could be an option, so that those people that like the actual behavior could remain working as they are.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to talk.

All the best,

Verlaine

[andi]

Hello Verlaine!

If you have an acoustic piano, please try the following.
- Press the pedal.
- Play a chord while keeping the pedal down.
- Release the fingers.
- Release the pedal for a very short time and press it again. Do this as quickly as possible.
- The notes from your chord will still be ringing.

I repeat it once more. This is NO technical issue and we will not fix it. By doing so we would loose some realism. If you could trigger a real piano with your score, you would get the same effect.

I must admit though that my suggestion with the Sibelius Live start position doesn't work as this cannot be applied to lines (like piano pedal). With lines it will work like this:
- Place the pedal down and pedal up symbols to the positions where you want them to be performed. Ignore the layout for a moment. For example the pedal down will normally be performed a bit after the keys have been pressed and not at the exact same moment.
- When you have the positions optimized for the playback, you can take care of the layout.
- Select one or more pedal down symbols. You can select more than one note or symbol by keeping the Ctrl key pressed and clicking on one after the other.
- Open the Sibelius Inspector from the Home menu.
- Enter a negative value under Show X in order to display the symbol at the position you want. By this the playback will remain as it was.

Best,
Andi

[verlainefreitas]

Hi Andi,

of course when you say "The notes from your chord will still be ringing", you don't mean that they will do in the same volume, otherwise there would be no need for raising the pedal. I think that it depends on the type and size of the piano the amount of sound that remains after pedaling, and if the pedal is completely released or not. In my acoustic (upright) piano the remaining sounds were very little. In Vienna Imperial, the sounds remain exactly as if the pedal were not raised, if the up and down CC values are sent in sequence.

Unfortunately I don’t like using Sibelius. The overall way of work in Notion 5 fits my writing method much better. In it, we must deal with the direct CC64 sending options I said before, and there is no other possibility of muting the notes than working with two stances of VI. The continuity of the foregoing sounds you say can be achieved with the reverb, that I always use in some amount.

Even if VSL doesn’t consider this behavior of Vienna Imperial as a bug, I think that it would be very useful to give the users the option of the sustain be canceled with a simple CC64 zero value; as I said, those who like the actual characteristic could go on using it. The best possibility would be to create a new parameter: the amount (maybe percentage) of the foregoing notes to be kept after a sequence of 0-127 values of CC64.

All the best,

Verlaine