MMD > Archives > March 1997 > 1997.03.13 > 07Prev  Next


Midi Pedaling and Disklavier
By Larry Kellogg

In MMD 970307, George Bogatko asked about playing a MIDI file on a Disklavier. George, I downloaded the file and tried it. The pedaling information you have included in the file caused some problems. The details follow.

>I have an MX100B (it supports partial pedaling information). I played
>the file from a sequencer. As expected, Yamaha interprets a MIDI pedal
>commands as an "off" or "on" state, failing to recognize intermediate
>values. Any level of pedal information other than none, results in full
>pedaling.

Bob, I'm afraid that the problem is not a Disklavier problem but a problem with the Midi file you have. The half-pedal message is a different channel (65??) than the regular pedal message. Half-pedal messages are transmitted on channel 3. The problem is that the person who created the Midi file did not have a device to record half-pedaling (such as the Disklavier) so all you get is on/off for pedaling information. This is a very common problem with Midi files.

It is a more difficult to generate half-pedal messages because you have to keep sampling the position of the pedal while a piece is being played as opposed to just generating a 127 when it is on and 0 when it is off. I don't know of Midi controllers that do this.

I'm looking at your note again. So there were half-pedal messages in the Midi file? If so, then maybe they weren't on the right channel. I'll have to check out George's Midi file to see what it contains.

>It is possible that later Disklaviers are smarter about this stuff. In
>their own proprietary encoding, partial pedaling is supported on all but
>one of the Disklavier models, I believe.

The low-level MX80s do not support half-pedaling I believe. I don't think they use optical sensors.

Regards,

Larry Kellogg


(Message sent Thu 13 Mar 1997, 10:54:08 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.)

Key Words in Subject:  Disklavier, Midi, Pedaling
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