Disklavier

Mark A. Fontana wrote:
> 
> 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.

RW: It would not be difficult to write a CAL script to substitute a 
5-step transition for on-to-off or off-to-on using either either some 
arbitrary rate of change or actual pedal release data from a recording. 
  Since an actual transition of on-to-off doesn't occur instantaneously, 
one would want to set the rate of fall in the Cal routine a little 
slower so that the damper would actually pause at each step.

I like the idea, Mark, and will put it on my to do list to try.

> 
> 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.

RW:  I do know that there are temperature sensors on the pedal solenoids 
and an associated error if one is shut down.  I've never seen that 
happen on mine.  I suspect that Yamaha, not having control of what might 
be played, designed the pedal solenoids for continuous duty. The left 
pedal is also subject to long periods of actuation.

> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Robert Welcyng
Anchorage, Alaska