Disklavier

A key difference between the Disklavier and PianoDisc systems is that 
the Disklavier records and reproduces a full range of sustain pedal 
positions, whereas PianoDisc supports only basic on/off pedaling.

On the Disklavier, the MIDI pedal position corresponding to the dampers 
just barely contacting the strings is usually somewhere between 1/3 and 
1/2 of the total range (in which 0 indicates the pedal is completely 
released and 127 indicates it's completely depressed).

The MIDI spec defines that on devices supporting only on/off pedaling 
(such as the PDS-128), the sustain effect should be off for values 0-63 
and on for values 64-127.

But I recall a thread on the PianoDisc mailing list a few years ago in 
which someone discovered that the PDS-128's MIDI implementation is 
incorrect; apparently it fully activates the sustain for values 1-127 
and only turns it off for value 0.  This means that when playing a 
Disklavier recording containing intermediate pedal positions, the 
PDS-128 would apply the sustain too early and release it too late.  In 
cases where the pianist let the dampers contact the strings but didn't 
fully release the pedal, the momentary release would be lost entirely on 
the PDS-128.  (This could explain what you're experiencing.)  Also, if 
the Disklavier is out of adjustment and not recording pedal position 0, 
then the PDS-128 could leave the sustain activated continuously for the 
duration of the song.

These problems might be limited to the PDS-128 and earlier models.

A workaround would be to process the Disklavier recordings and convert 
the series of intermediate sustain pedal positions to on/off pedaling.

Mark Fontana


On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 01:18:41AM -0000, GeorgeH wrote:

> I have a PDS-128 at church which will playback a 720kb floppy but does 
> not record. I have a Yamaha upright at home DKC-850. I record on 
> internal memory and then copy to the 720kb floppy using an external 
> drive. When I play a disk at church, everything works fine, but it 
> seems to keep an eternal sustain throughout the song. Is there 
> something I'm missing here? A setting on the 850 or should I just play 
> without any damper pedal when recording. I'd be interested to know if 
> anyone has experienced this or something similar. (When I make a MIDI 
> file from Sibelius or PhotoScore -- and have to convert it to MIDI 0 
> -- I do not notice the over sustaining. Thanks.