Hey! Is it interesting for playing piano and programing to master the sustain pedal well?

Excuse me I try to delete this post cause this question is so stupid

 

you have to report it yourself as a duplicate/error post. there are tons of sustain/damper pedals you can get for under $50, or even lower. The Nektar NP-2 is $24, as a price example. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/search?s=sustain+pedal.

they are on nearly any piano for good reason.

 

I can't imagine playing piano without a sustain pedal myself...

 

Organs as far as I know such as the Farfisa Continental and the Hammond B3 have neither a sustain pedal or are velocity sensitive but can have a swell pedal controlling how loud and quiet the volume. Pianos always have a sustain pedal and musical notion runs from ppp, triple piano to fff, triple forte, or very very quiet to very very loud depending on how softly or hardly one is to be played.

 

I think its useful for sure. I also can't imagine playing piano or electric piano patches without one. But it's great for other things too. And synth and choir sounds. Like drones,and making massive harmony builds, or chord holds you can stop at any moment by letting up. Makes for a massive sound to press that polyphony count

 

Last edited: Apr 17, 2024

Playing the piano without a sustain pedal isn't playing the piano. I think it's essential. You don't need to break the bank either, I once debated getting one with half-pedaling capabilities but ultimately decided against it. You're paying at least 5x for a feature that is not really used a lot of the time. Just get any pedal that mimics a real one, the small square pedal is passable, but if you don't already have one you should consider the big one.

 

I've got a few sustain pedals, the larger piano type, and used them for years obviously,.... I didn't know there were "half pedal" ones that would interact with the normal sustain input on a keyboard, as I just thought it was honestly an on/off device, as they have polarity switches (as like some Yamaha keyboards are the opposite of Roland or whatnot etc).. Is that something you use an alternate way of inputting (a midi mapped device)? I know in a DAW, sure, you can draw Sustain Controller on a curve, but (I thought anyways), it's either 0 or 127 on the cc...

But hey, I could have been assuming wrong all these years..

 

As per my experience many newer digital pianos support half pedal technique wheras a partial dampening of the higher registers is accomplished moreso than the lower. I guess that that you'd need to explore this capability with any Kontakt library or the like to so if they support this. I really have no idea.

 

Half-pedaling is an acoustic piano technique, since sustain is not an on/off thing in an acoustic. Basically, you can use it to control the amount of sustain by pushing it down less during playing. I can't really think of a song that needs half-pedaling, though. It's such a niche technique that I can only remember Pianoteq being able to reproduce it. Kontakt libraries just usually skip past it during sampling. If you own a Casio or Yamaha piano, you can try it, but you need the expensive one (edit: the pedal, I mean) for that.

 

Oh yeah, I know what half pedaling is, as I have played acoustic piano my whole life !

It's just been on/off on everything at least I remember in terms of samplers/Kontakt/what have you.... Pianoteq eh? It's been awhile since I looked at that.... but cool, thanks for the explanation in that there is something coded for it... I just don't know how it accepts a non binary input from the sustain pedal on a controller keyboard, as that's how I thought they simply worked... I get there are more sophisticated triggers and instruments out there, but for me, I've never experienced anything across that cc# that wasn't full on or full off.

but again, I hear you, and get you... thanks!

 

I know that Korg makes a half pedal, the Korg DS1H. I almost bought one by mistake about 5 months ago.

 

I have used a Moog analog CV pedal for control expression but for a MIDI keyboard I'll takes a On/Off (big one

 

bought the 12$ donner pedal off amazon, worked well so i bought one for the 88key as well.
but yeah can't play a piano without one. and it works well in Arturia software (with appropriate keyboard)