Misc questions for keyboard players using Notion 4

[ChrisHeinen]

Oh my. I reviewed an old post from April 2011 in a thread that Dave was a participant to, where the then-Admin (don't know if it was the same person as the now-Admin) said in reply to a user's inquiry about pedal support:

------ Sorry to hear about your frustration. This is something (pedal recording) that has been on "the dock" for a while now, and is certainly a high priority....it will be fixed but I just can't tell you exactly when. -------

By my calculation, that means pedal support has been an issue for . . . over . . . two . . . years. Makes me nervous that pedal support is actually NOT on the dock anymore. I hope I'm proven wrong....

In any event, in answer to Admin's comment about how it looks like the instrument change I did did not change the "two staves to the same output" --- I'm confused. I put an instrument change on the staff that has pedal events (which in these posts I'm calling a "pedal staff" to give it a working name) and the instrument I changed it to was the piano instrument on the grand staff. Did I do something wrong? It is true that the grand staff has two staves (treble/bass) but it is just one instrument for all notes on either of those staves, right?

[Admin]

Okay, so after trying this I cannot make it work either. That is the last time that I assume that I had done that in the past. I was fairly certain that I had made that work and I am really sorry for the run around.

This issue is definitely one of our high priorities. Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

-Admin

[Surfwhammy]

In my ongoing effort to understand MIDI, I did an experiment and determined that the correct way to work the right pedal of a Grand Piano is to use CC#64 messages with the two values {0, 127} to indicate off and on, or up and down, respectively which is different from the way notes are caused to sustain by holding down the notes, although it pretty much sounds the same but is different . . .

The following YouTube video shows a MIDI file that I modified to use CC#64 messages to control the right pedal, and you can see the right pedal going on and off in the Addictive Keys window . . .

MidiKit ~ Addictive Keys ~ MIDI CC#64 -- YouTube video

There are other pedal messages, and they are shown in one of my earlier posts to this discussion . . .

Regarding the practical way at present to use foot pedals for grand piano, I think this is done best with a DAW application which specifically provides MIDI CC message support, where on the Mac I recommend Digital Performer 8 (MOTU), since it supports all the MIDI messages, as shown in the following YouTube video . . .

DP8 MIDI Messages -- YouTube video

Some of the other DAW applications also support MIDI CC messages, but on the Mac I like the way Digital Performer 8 works with NOTION 4 to record MIDI in NOTION 4, which is very smooth and orderly . . .

Additionally, you can record MIDI in NOTION 4 and then reconfigure Digital Performer 8 so that it records the MIDI from NOTION 4, which is done by copying the MIDI just recorded in NOTION 4 to a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff which then sends its MIDI to Digital Performer 8 via an IAC Driver "virtual MIDI cable", where Digital Performer 8 records the MIDI, and done this way you get detailed music notation via NOTION 4 but also have the MIDI recorded in Digital Performer 8 . . .

It is a two-step process, but it is all done in the same ReWire 2 session, and it is a logical workflow based on the premise that one first wants to do a bit of editing of the MIDI input but with music notation, which is what is done in the first step, while recording the edited MIDI in Digital Performer 8 is done in the second step, and since Digital Performer 8 has limited music notation editing functionality, there can be a bit of additional editing done in Digital Performer 8 . . .

On the Mac, Logic Pro 9/X (Apple), Live 9 (Ableton), and Studio One 2.6 Producer (PreSonus) do not support the required ReWire 2 functionality, but Digital Performer 8 supports some of it and might support all of it, but I need to do more experiments, since at present it appears that when NOTION 4 is the ReWire 2 slave and Digital Performer 8 is the ReWire 2 host and NOTION 4 is recording MIDI input, NOTION 4 appears to block the "pass through" part of the MIDI input, but this might be due to the way I have everything configured, hence at present I do not exclude the possibility for recording MIDI input to NOTION 4 and Digital Performer 8 simultaneously . . .

Mostly, I think it depends on whether the Record button in NOTION 4 also activates the Record button in Digital Performer 8, which might be supported by ReWire 2, although it depends . . .

Currently what happens is that pressing the Record button in NOTION 4 starts MIDI recording in NOTION 4 but Digital Performer 8 switches to Play mode. However, by inserting several empty measures at the start of a song, NOTION 4 can be started in Record mode, which starts Digital Performer 8 in Play mode, but then the Record button in Digital Performer 8 can be pressed, which puts Digital Performer 8 in Record mode while keeping it synchronized with NOTION 4, so this might be a way to do it, although I am not certainly that it makes a lot of sense . . .

The "two-step" technique works, and it makes sense, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Admin]

I understand that MIDI CC 64 is pedal data. Currently, what is happening with pedal data is more like a delayed note off. We need to revamp that mechanism. I am not certain why it was ever setup that way, but I am sure there was a reason, or possibly just a bad decision, or if I remember correctly, in the original Notion enviroment, there was no desire to have MIDI capability and so everything was designed in such a way to eliminate the need for MIDI. So in recent years, we have gotten away from that model and are constantly trying to catch the software up to meet the needs of the ever powerful (and sometimes not so powerful) simple MIDI solution.

-Admin

[Surfwhammy]

Until recently, the only piano pedals that made any sense to me where the right pedal and to some extent the left pedal, but the right pedal is the only I remembered, mostly because I watched what it did on a grand piano, and it made a bit of sense . . .

The middle pedal was elusive, but I did a bit of reading and discovered that it is the sostenuto pedal, which is interesting because on a Steinway grand piano it sustains the notes that were held down when the pedal is pressed . . .

The left pedal is called the "soft pedal", while the right pedal is the "sustain" pedal, but what it really does is to lift all the dampers so that notes ring . . .

I am not certain what the soft pedal does, other than perhaps lifting the dampers a little bit but not so much as the sustain pedal . . .

However, there are other uses for the middle pedal, so it depends on the type of piano, where according to wikipedia the sostenuto pedal is unique to American pianos, Steinway grand pianos in particular, since Albert Steinway devised a way to make the pedal work and patented the design . . .

This YouTube video demonstrates one way to use the sostenuto pedal to drone individual notes, which makes sense to me, because it is a technique I use when playing certain types of rhythm guitar, where by droning selected low-pitch open strings when accompanied by a kick drum, it makes a rhythm guitar sound like a bass guitar and a rhythm guitar, where the key is to use simple chord shapes that require only one or two fingers most of the time so that it is easier to make the other strings ring or sustain, which is fabulous . . .

Sostenuto Pedal -- YouTube video

"So What" (The Surf Whammys) -- Kick Drum and Rhythm Guitar -- MP3

Fabulous!

[klaviersonic]

The Soft pedal slides the entire keyboard to the right by a few mm, this causes the hammer to strike only 2 of the 3 unison strings in the middle and upper register, as well as using the softer, less used part of the hammer felt. It doesn't change the dynamic level so much as it changes the timbre of the note.

[Surfwhammy]

The Soft pedal slides the entire keyboard to the right by a few mm, this causes the hammer to strike only 2 of the 3 unison strings in the middle and upper register, as well as using the softer, less used part of the hammer felt. It doesn't change the dynamic level so much as it changes the timbre of the note.

Thanks for the explanation, which makes sense to me, and I am quite curious to examine a newer grand piano to see how it is done . . .

I have a grand piano from the 19th century, and I will examine it to see how the pedals work, but I usually avoid playing it, since it is difficult to keep it in tune, and I have a rule about not playing instruments that are out of tune . . .

Now that all three pedals on a modern US piano make sense, I can see why Steinberg grand pianos are so expensive, separately from tone and so forth . . .

Steinberg has a certification program with advanced training for technicians who tune and adjust Steinberg pianos, and I imagine that getting the pedals and various mechanisms adjusted precisely is not such an easy thing to do . . .

After watching and listening to the YouTube video demonstrating the sostenuto pedal, it is obvious that properly adjusted pedals are very important, as is knowing how to use them, which for the sustain (a.k.a., "damper") and sostenuto pedals requires a much deeper understanding of scales, chords, and harmonics that I had imagined . . .

I "drone" the two open low-pitch electric guitar strings ("E" and "A"), which is not so difficult to do, but it only works in one key with a few flavors (major and minor, basically), and being able to do it in all keys as can be done on a piano with a sostenuto pedal expands the possibilities geometrically, which is a bit mind-boggling , although with a few carefully adjusted effects pedals I think this can be emulated reasonably well with an electric guitar, which is an intriguing concept to ponder . . .

And based on all this information-much of which is new to me--I think that NOTION having full support for CC#64 messages is not optional and needs to happen sooner rather than later, noting that there are a lot more supported MIDI specification CC#64 actions than just the three standard piano pedals, where I think one of the key aspects is to devise a way to increase the fine granularity to ticks rather than limiting it to the standard music notation intervals based on beats expressed in integer or fractional multiples of two, although supporting 1/128th fine granularity should be sufficient for most folks and appears to be supported already by the NOTION infrastructure, at least in terms of general design . . .

On the other hand, doing this most likely is in the same category of complexity and difficult as taking a Timex® watch and enhancing it to compute the gross domestic product of the US in real-time, although with a thoughtful plan I think it can be done . . .

Lots of FUN!