Craig Brougher said:

> Then finally, in some places where he had already sustained the
> notes on the keybed, he would add sustain holes in addition.

One of the reasons I considered using the sustain pedal more was the
unexpected result of bleeding out big arpeggios.  The reservoir would
become exhausted.  On interactive pumpers the artist can keep up the
vacuum, but on electric or electrified players where the listener is a
passive agent, the effect is a disconcerting dropout.

This is especially true where the instrument is of poor design or in need
of repair.  Unfortunately most of the owners of players have either poor
instruments or ones that are up in years and need some attention.  (I've
been told by one source that the most successful arrangements are the big
orchestral rolls because more working notes are activated.  "Hand played"
rolls are unsuccessful because all the broken notes become more obvious.)

It then becomes a choice between risking dropout and fine control of
the sustain effect, or avoiding dropout and risking a mushy sound as a
result of a sloppy sustain mechanism.  I'm still not sure where that
middle ground is,  but intuition says that it's somewhere in the middle
-- enough bleeding to get a pleasing effect on pianos where the sustain
pedal is broken, and enough sustain pedal to avoid dropout and add a
touch of resonance.

George Bogatko
http://www.intac.com/~gbogatko