Sustain Problem.

[NLAlston]

I am working on a song for my mother, and I have a piano part that I wish to play for the first two bars. That, in and of itself, is not an issue, but I have found there to be a problem retaining the 'Sustain' effect on those two piano chords. It sounds like I expect it to, while recoding it, but the sustain effect is lost upon playback. Does anyone know what this might be due to, and how I can counter the problem?

 

[guitarplayr82]

What program are you using? You can generally manually enable the sustain effect in your MIDI grid...

 

[mjbphotos]

Not sure what you are looking for. 'Sustain' is the sound continuing on after picking (guitar) or hammering (piano). Are you saying the piano sound is fading away too quickly? Is this a real piano or electronic keyboard?

 

[AL P]

I am working on a song for my mother, and I have a piano part that I wish to play for the first two bars. That, in and of itself, is not an issue, but I have found there to be a problem retaining the 'Sustain' effect on those two piano chords. It sounds like I expect it to, while recoding it, but the sustain effect is lost upon playback. Does anyone know what this might be due to, and how I can counter the problem?

Sorry, just a newbie with more of a question then an answer....but, is this a regular/actual piano, that is mic`ed?..if so, and you say when your actually playing/recording the sustain is good, but not present during play back, so that makes me wonder if it could be a mic issue, where as the mic/s?, are not picking up the slightly faded sound of the sustain, as well as your ears so to speak?

 

[NLAlston]

Sorry guys. I should have been better descriptive than I was.

I am sequencing some backing tracks on-board my Yamaha Motif XF's Pattern Sequencer. I have set up a 2-measure pattern as sort of a pre-intro, onto which I desire to play two piano chords with my sustain pedal depressed. My aim is to have the piano clothed with that effect as the voice is being recorded. But, when I play that section back, all I get is the piano part that I played - with no sustained effect.

 

[NLAlston]

Sorry, just a newbie with more of a question then an answer....but, is this a regular/actual piano, that is mic`ed?..if so, and you say when your actually playing/recording the sustain is good, but not present during play back, so that makes me wonder if it could be a mic issue, where as the mic/s?, are not picking up the slightly faded sound of the sustain, as well as your ears so to speak?

Hi Al.

Everything is handled by my Motif XF sequencer. There is no external gear at all. Someone (elsewhere) had mentioned that the problem might be due to my trying to do such a thing on the first measure of the song/pattern. The cure is supposed to be within my adding an empty measure, or two, to the beginning of the song - and then playing the piano with the sustained effect. Doesn't seem right, to me, but I will give it a shot.

 

[ido1957]

Are you playing it via MIDI? Maybe the MIDI info doesn't include the sustain info. Maybe try using the l/r or headphone output which, if yu have sustain you can hear, should be in the output. Then cut/paste as needed.....

 

[NLAlston]

Are you playing it via MIDI? Maybe the MIDI info doesn't include the sustain info. Maybe try using the l/r or headphone output which, if yu have sustain you can hear, should be in the output. Then cut/paste as needed.....

Ido,

My synth is a Motif XF7 workstation, which affords me the opportunity to do all of my music creating right on/in the machine, itself. That is how I have been working, and had encountered no problems - until this sustain matter erupted.

 

[gecko zzed]

If you have sustain when you pay, but it goes missing when you play back the midi through your keyboard, there are two likely causes.

On recording the midi, you've depressed the sustain pedal before you've started recording the midi, and thus the recording doesn't 'know' that the sustain pedal was depressed. The advice about creating empty measures first is sound. You need to include the pedal press within the recording. You can do this after the event thought. There is probably a midi editor there somewhere which will allow you to manual enter a pedal on command. The other possibility is the one that ido1957 suggests, i.e. the control information transmitted by the Motif is not being picked up by your recording application. Again, you should be able to enter a control change manually.

 

[NLAlston]

If you have sustain when you pay, but it goes missing when you play back the midi through your keyboard, there are two likely causes.

On recording the midi, you've depressed the sustain pedal before you've started recording the midi, and thus the recording doesn't 'know' that the sustain pedal was depressed. The advice about creating empty measures first is sound. You need to include the pedal press within the recording. You can do this after the event thought. There is probably a midi editor there somewhere which will allow you to manual enter a pedal on command. The other possibility is the one that ido1957 suggests, i.e. the control information transmitted by the Motif is not being picked up by your recording application. Again, you should be able to enter a control change manually.

Thanks to you also, Gecko.

I have been so unbelievably caught up in things, since first authoring this thread, that I haven't had the chance to give that 'extra measure' suggestion a run. But I will certainly get to it at the first opportunity. I am sure that the MotifXF allows for the insertion of Control Commands information but, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't know WHAT to enter - nor exactly WHERE. I'll look around for the manual.

 

[soundchaser59]

.....but, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't know WHAT to enter - nor exactly WHERE.

Your keyboard has a built in midi sequencer. It's probably counting in clock pulses, 96 or 192 clocks per beat. (some systems use a 100 based count, so an 1/8th note would be 50 clocks, etc) (this is not the same as your tempo setting)

Sustain is midi controller number 64, a simple on / off parameter. You should be able to insert a "controller #64 ON" midi event into the midi timeline or piano track at time 01:01.001 (bar 1, beat 1, first clock pulse). I would be surprised if the Motif does not have the ability to do that.

But honestly you shouldn't have to do that. If you start recording, and don't start playing or stepping on the sustain pedal until after the clock is running, you should not have this problem. This is why people above say record an empty bar or two at the beginning to allow for these initial events to get recorded. If you step on the sustain pedal first and then start the clock running, the first sustain pedal will not get recorded.

Keep in mind this is not the same as a "pre roll" or a count-in. Most midi sequencers do not record during count in. They usually don't record until after the clock starts running because that's how they get the time stamp to tack on to each midi event, which is how it can record and playback the events "in sequence." That's why they call it a sequencer.

Some older systems (like my original Atari 1040!) did record everything in a buffer whether the clock was running or not. If I practiced my part first, and then started the clock running, it would try to play back everything I had practiced all at once at the very beginning of the song, what a rush of rogue noise that was! Ouch! Then they got smart and programmed it to clear the buffer every time the clock was started. It didn't take me long to learn to put a couple three or four blank bars at the beginning of every song so I could put in all the patch changes and system exclusive dumps before the music starts, and still have time to capture that first sustain pedal press.