Disklavier

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Robert Welcyng wrote:

> There is something you can do to reduce the pedal thumping, and that is
> to limit the pedal excursions to 20 to 95 instead of the original 0 to
> 127.
>
> ...
>
> As you will notice, after the first pedal depression occurs, the pedal
> will not fully release with a big thump but will remain slightly
> depressed.  I've used this method for about three years and I feel
> confident that keeping the pedal solenoid slightly energized throughout
> a song on a Mark II will not cause overheating.
>
> With an adjusted pedal, a value of 20 will be fully damped and a value
> of 95, fully undamped.  The is no musical reason for the pedal having to
> move further. It is the fall of the damper from 127 to 0 that provides
> plenty of kinetic energy to be dissipated as an audible thump.



It should be possible to write a CAL script to replace single hard
pedal-off events (transitions from position 127 to 0) on channel 1 with a
series of 5-6 incremental pedal events on channel 3 that let the damper
down more gradually over the course of, say, 150 ms. That may further
reduce the pedal thumping.

One could make a recording of the desired sustain pedal release and use it
as a model for the CAL script.

Mark

p.s. I would be surprised if the Disklavier did not have a safety feature
to automatically turn off a pedal solenoid that has been activated for
longer than a minute or so.