One more comment about the use of the sustain pedal on pianos.  Live
piano players very often keep their foot on the pedal, applying a certain
pressure which will not lift the dampers away from the strings but will
give them a bell-like ringing sound.  The sound of a piano also changes
slightly, depending on the distance of the dampers to the strings.

It is also possible to press the pedal so that the vibrating string
will touch the lifted damper very slightly, thereby also producing a
slightly different tone.  These techniques are common knowledge with the
good pianists, and that is also why the Boesendorfer SE reproducing piano
system has 255 pedal steps.

Lastly, the pedal is very often released slowly and not completely but to
a certain point.  I have never seen any automatic system do this either,
the solenoids and pneumatics just let go, sometimes so fast (solenoid)
that the dampers make a noise when they hit the strings.

I have and always will preach that the pedals of the modern MIDI
reproducers like Pianomation should not be driven by solenoid but by a
quick stepper motor which can vary the pedal up and down as recorded by
the pianist.  This would definitely make a noticeable improvement to
the sound.

Regards,

Bernt W. Damm
Cape Town, South Africa
E-Mail  bdamm@maxwell.ctech.ac.za

 [ To reproduce the artist's pedaling faithfully, the Boesendorfer SE
 [ system uses a solenoid-powered position-servomotor transducer (like
 [ a "voice-coil" motor on a moving-head disc drive), and I believe that
 [ the Disklavier pedal transducer is similar.  A stepper motor system
 [ which is powerful enough to quickly move the damper rest-rail through
 [ 255 steps in, say, 50 milliseconds (5000 steps per second!), would
 [ likely be too noisy and too expensive for production.   -- Robbie