Disklavier

Fred,
Thank you for asking. No, I did not get resolution to the pedal thumping. My tech has been trying to resolve it but he is very busy and hard to get to come out to work on it. He said that my model does not do half pedal like the much more expensive Pro models do. It's either all the way down or all the way up. However, he asked me to give him some sample midi segments where it is particularly noticeable on a floppy disk so he could take it back to the store and try it on some other pianos. Sure enough, he reported that while the other pianos like my model thump softly if you listen for it, they are not as loud as mine. He adjusted it as best as he can and said he would check with Yamaha for more ideas. This has been going on for 2 years now, not just with the tump but also the solenoid clicks and double strike. I think the plan is to try a number of things to solve the problems, one at a time, progressing from the simple and inexpensive to the more complex and costly. This is a good
 strategy but when it takes 6 months to go from one step to the next, that's a bit much. Like I said, he's very busy, backed up with work and I want to be patient with him, I was hoping someone in the group would have some ideas. Apparently, it's the first time my tech has encountered these problems and he's going through the learning curve. I was hoping I could help him accelerate the curve. I am fairly handy with mechanical and electronic things but have resisted getting my own hands on the works because I don't want to be blamed for anything going wrong while it is still being resolved under the warranty. One of the first things I would do would be to try putting felt on thumping pedal parts but when I suggested that to my tech, he was hesitant to do anything except step-by-step under explicit instructions from Yamaha. I would have no problem with that if it weren't for the fact that it's 6 months between visits.
 
I am a little puzzled by what you wrote: "...Function | Piano Part | Rcv Ch = <change to HP>. HP ..." and the discussion of channel 2 and 3. With my Disklavier, whatever is on channel 1 goes to the piano, all other channels go to my stereo system which is plugged into the large phone jack on the back of the piano. When I get a midi that has one hand on channel 1 and another hand on channel 2, like a lot of stuff on perfessorbill.com I have to use Cakewalk to redirect tracks 2 and 3 to channel 1. Otherwise, I hear part of it coming from my stereo and part of it coming from the Yamaha acoustic piano. Do you mean I could have just gone into the setup menu of my controller and told it to send midi data on channels 2 and 3 to the acoustic piano instead of the speakers? What I had to do with Bill Edwards stuff (www.perfessorbill.com) to get it to play correctly was merge the 3 separate channels into one and delete the duplicate and triplicate pedal instructions and then reduce the
 velocity. (I could have also left all 3 tracks and just reassigned track 2 and 3 to channel 1 and deleted all pedal information from 2 of the three tracks)  Attached is a zip file with his original and my copy of his 12th Street Rag after I had to modify it to play correctly on my piano. You will see what I mean if you compare the files with Cakewalk or some other program that lets you get into it.
-Walt

fkagel <fkagel@...> wrote:
Walter,

Did you every get any resolution to your pedal thumping? Was it a 
mechanical adjustment that a you, the user, could do or will a 
technical pro be needed?

I assume the original MIDI e-competition files support the following, 
but don't know if your particular controller supports the same: 
Function | Piano Part | Rcv Ch = <change to HP>. HP is half or 
continuous pedal on Channel 3, with Left Hand on Channel 1 and Right 
Hand on Channel 2. Obviously, GM files out there in the wild do not 
abide by this DKV model, and thus the on/off (0/127) thumping!!!

A great filter utility would be to take out MIDI Controller 64 data 
from existing Piano Channel and move it to Channel 3. Anyone game or 
is this already avail? Manually this can be done with sequencing 
software.

Fred Kagel, Dir.
Freehold Computer Training Ctr.
www.freeholdcomputer.com


Walter Sharpe wrote:
> I bought a new Disklavier MX500 upright with the DKC50R controller 
[snip]
Here are the problems:
> 1. Pedal thump
> 2. Solenoid clicks
> 3. Double strike
> Now the details on my problems by the number:
> 1. I learned that the sustain pedal on most Disklaviers is either 
all the way up or all the way down and that it moves fast and hard. 
It can't properly interpret half pedal or gentle pedal movement 
information like I find in the Piano e-Competiton midi files. You 
need one of the very expensive Pro models for gentle or half pedal 
movement. On mine (an ordinary consumer model Disklavier), the 
sustain pedal moves with a thump that can be heard all the way on the 
other side of the house. The noise is fairly easy to ignore most of 
the time because of the sound of a lot of notes playing at once but 
during quiet passages, the pedal thumping is very noticeable. At 
times when the pedal goes down while several notes are being held it 
sets all the strings to vibrating. I can only describe the noise that 
makes as a "low roar". I guess it is the closest thing to "white 
noise" that a piano can make.




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