Midi Sustain Pedal Registering As Note

[Greggo]

Hey I've got a fun one for you

 

I recently bought a Yamaha P35 and have got it connected to Logic/Mainstage via a Midi to usb cord (good quality one) and it works fine except for when I use the sustain pedal, it registers as an E3 with full velocity - understandably quite annoying,

 

I have noticed that when I play a note (or multiple notes) on the keyboard and then use the pedal while holding the note/s down, it will become sustain and not play a note - so I assume it's not a hardware fault? Just the software having identity issues

 

So I was just wondering if anyone knows how to fix this problem? Thank you very much in advance for all advice

 

Greg

[David Nahmani]

The software really can't have identity issues as you call it .... (unless you've messed with Logic's environment) it just dumbly tells you what notes it receives: you can look at the transport bar to see what MIDI event type Logic receives when pressing a pedal or a note on your Yamaha keyboard.

 

So it's a hardware problem. You need to figure out how to program the P35 so that pressing on the sustain pedal sends MIDI sustain events and not E3 note on events - whether or not you're playing notes on the P35 keyboard at the same time. This is a question that is probably answered somewhere in the Yamaha P35 manual?

[Jope]

You said the keyboard sends real sustain events while keys are held - I can't think of a reason why this should be a feature, no matter how the P35 is set up. I guess you should replace the "good quality" MIDI-to-USB-cord by a different one. To me it look as if something is misinterpreted within the MIDI hardware part of the connection.

Oh, and watch the MIDI event "scope" within the transport bar as David wrote - what does is say when the pedal is pressed? And when it is released? And same two when additionally one key (exactly one) is held while pressing/releasing the pedal?

[Eriksimon]

E3 just happens to be MIDI note nr. 64, sustain is controller nr. 64 So the socalled status byte is all that's "wrong" here.

It now sends: 90 64 0/127

it should send: 110 64 0/127

 

I've got a feeling...

that this has to be set in the P35 itself. I also seem to remember this exact same issue being posted about, maybe a year ago? I'll see if I can find it...

 

Not quite, but this one

viewtopic.php?p=375310#p375310

also has his sustain pedal triggering notes; seems that the suspect is the MIDI interface. I believe you may have that same issue, especially since you say that the pedal does sustain when notes arre held. This is very odd, and seems to me like somehow midi messages are not being dealt with correctly, like described in this Amazon review of a MIDI interface cable:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QP3G3LIN9X9C/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R3QP3G3LIN9X9C

[Jope]

E3 just happens to be MIDI note nr. 64, sustain is controller nr. 64 So the socalled status byte is all that's "wrong" here.

It now sends: 90 64 0/127

it should send: 110 64 0/127

 

I've thought of that, too, but this table said 64 is E4... I don't know. (I always have to look up whether 440Hz is a' or a''... Well, I do know how to play a 440Hz-note on a piano.)

And I also remember people writing their sustain pedal will trigger notes, not only here, but also in the Pianoteq forum, here or here.

[Eriksimon]

There's a pref for that, setting either C3 or C4 as middle C. I choose C3 (I think it's the default, too), so that my MIDI range is C-2 to G8, or 0-127, with E3 at 64.

 

Preferences>General>Display

[Greggo]

Hey Guys! I am really so sorry about the delay between messages, I was going through some stuff and then I forgot I'd asked the question Many apologies, and thank you very much for all your advice!

 

Back to business, I accidentally found a kind of solution for the problem, though not the one I wanted. I was using the controller assignments feature, and doing the pedal on and off so I could see if I could find the value for the sustain and hopefully 'lock it on' so to speak, but instead I made it so the pedal registers as an E64 note off now which isn't what I wanted, but it is better than a full velocity note mid song. (I've just deleted this to show Jope what the pedal is registering as)

 

There wouldn't be a known value for the sustain pedal would there?

 

David: I haven't played with Logic's environment I'm pretty sure, I also checked the manual but it had nothing to say about the sustain problem I'm having

 

Jope: Yes, that's right. Your idea of changing the midi to USB cable is a good idea, I could understand if the cable is misinterpreting the information. Here's what the scope showed me;

Pedal on = 1 E3 127

Pedal off = 1 64 0

Pedal on with one note held = 1 64 127

Pedal off with one note held = 1 E3 OFF

 

The third one has a little symbol in front of the one (which I'm guessing is the pedal symbol) and the the last one goes back to the note symbol.

 

Thanks again for all the help you guys are giving me it's really appreciated!

[Greggo]

There's a pref for that, setting either C3 or C4 as middle C. I choose C3 (I think it's the default, too), so that my MIDI range is C-2 to G8, or 0-127, with E3 at 64.

 

Preferences>General>Display

[attachment=0]Display middle C as...[/attachment]

 

I tried this also but it made no apparent difference to the problem with my sustain pedal.

Thank you for the suggestion though

[Eriksimon]

That middle C display was a sidetrack, not an attempt to solve your problem.

 

Do you have that cheap Ebay interface I linked to earlier? That would be the most likely suspect. Replace it by something with a known brand (M-Audio, Yamaha, Roland, etc).

[Greggo]

Okay, I'll give that a shot, thank you

[kashyman]

Greggo, I am facing the same problem. Did replacing the usb interface solve the issue?

[MR290378]

Hi Guys! Did anyone sort this out. I just connected my new P 35 using a Miditech Midilink Mini and Logic X also registers the sustain as a midi note. Any support would be much appreciated. Cheers, Matt

[JazzJohannes]

Hey guys,

 

same problem here with my Yamaha P-35 and latest Logic Pro X 10.1,

with the LogiLink (bestseller btw on amazon) adapter.

 

- it does sustain, but it plays the E3 Note right afterwards

(I checked this with the controller assignments)

 

- it's not the extended USB-cable for length which I added so I don't trip over

 

- tried Learn Controller Assignment for "Sustain", it learned it, and worked

for about 4-5 presses, but then it reverted back to defaults

 

- can't be the piano itself or any of it's programs, cause the sustain pedal works

correctly without USB-MIDI-adapter

 

- I kind of doubt it's to do with the adapter itself, but only because I read

that it works like a charm on Windows (need to verify this) without Logic Pro X

 

 

Did all of you guys here buy either the "LogiLink", the "Proxima" or "Good Connections" adapter?

Have you tried out the "ESI Midimate II (USB-MIDI Interface mit 2x MIDI)" ? :

http://www.amazon.de/ESI-Midimate-USB-MIDI-Interface-MIDI/dp/B0028L1HVK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1423999271&sr=8-4&keywords=usb-midi

 

 

Thank you for your time, please help with any input you can give us!

[jorgeasolano]

I had the same issue with a cheap usb cable of $9, so.... I've just bought "CREATIVE EMU XMIDI 1X1 USB MIDI Interface" and currently I haven't had any issue, it works fine.

 

Problem solved !!!

 

by the way I'm working with: Yamaha Piaggero np11 >> MIDI/USB Cable >> LogicPro X 10

[JazzJohannes]

Thanks the "CREATIVE EMU XMIDI 1X1 USB MIDI" is available for like 38 Euros, and could pose a much better alternative than the more expensive, official Yamaha USB-Midi-Adapter. Would rather have some sort of hack on this though to be honest...

 

I will check upon the LogiLink and Proxima official websites, perhaps they have a hint as well, will get back to you then.

 

 

UPDATE: OK, I was just on the phone with the LogiLink company, they actually had received numerous calls regarding this particular issue. The hardware itself was under Windows for example only compatible up to Windows Vista, any more modern system fails the device itself, because it is too old. But here is the good news, under Mac OS X, the company has experienced via testing, that the device works perfectly under Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), i.e. the latest OS from Apple. I had Mac OS X 10.9.5 installed (Mavericks).

 

Could other people please confirm their operating systems here? I'd love to know whether it would be necessary to upgrade to Yosemite or not. Please get back to us! Thanks so much.

[JazzJohannes]

OK, I just checked and upgraded my System to Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and it still fails with the pedal / note.

So I suppose really the only thing that would work is buying another USB-MIDI device.

[AlwaysaPlanB]

My workable but clunky solution was to put a Transform item before the Sequencer input and to get it to filter out all notes at 127, which the offending E3 (note 64) generated by the sustain pedal, always hits at.

It means that you won't be able to input any other note at 127 but unless you're really heavy-handed that unlikely anyway. 

 

To do this in Logic 9, I : 

1) opened an Environment Window, Cmd+8, 

2) chose Click & Ports from the top left-hand menu within the left pane of the Environment window,

3) Clicked on "New" in the right-hand pane of the window, choosing Transformer

4) Then I set up the Transformer by a) double clicking on it, leaving Mode: "Apply Operations and let non-matching events pass thru"; 

b) then, on the top line of options, choosing Status = Note (from the drop down menus, one under the other); 

c) from the last option menu (which shows when you have selected "Note" in the first one) Velocity = 127 (in the same fashion as b); 

d) From the lower set of menus under Velocity I set Fix = 0

e) I closed that then, with the mouse, picked up the lead shown going into Sequencer input and dragged it onto the Transformer item

f) Dragged a new lead from the little triangle on the right of the Transformer item to the Sequencer input. 

 

This means that the sustain pedal still works but the offending 127 velocity E no longer sounds. 

 

Hopefully that will help someone. 

It helped me when I ended up on holiday with only a cheap USB-midi adapter and access to a Yamaha piano.

Edited February 16, 2017 by AlwaysaPlanB

[Eriksimon]

Guys, that cheap interface just has a wrongly programmed chip in it that means it will always malfunction with Yamaha keys. Here's the original post explaining why and how:

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/post-384487.html

[Jope]

Finally we got the answer of this puzzle. It's that simple. These little pieces of junk just don't do their job as they should. This is just the way it is nowadays. You buy something at a conspicuously low price, a thing that was developed by people who aren't interested if it will work flawlessly - it just has to do something that seems to make sense as long as it is sold en masse, but nobody is resposible when the lacks become obvious. Some customers might send the stuff back to the shop, but most of them think they did something wrong when using it, and after all, it's not worth the effort because it was so cheap...

So yes, you don't have to spend much money for most technical devices and gadgets as it used to be in the past... But you don't get the amount of expert kowledge or art of engineering, you just get Frankenstein Monsters, assembled of shreds of highly-developed libraries and sophisticated electronic components and existing to nobody's pleasure.

Oh, Frankenstein aimed high while this is just an economical struggle for life. I suppose we deserved that.

[riaaneloff]

Jope, I agree that cheap interfaces are an issue, but, I got my Mac, got Logic, and plugged in my Yamaha P35 (which I've been using on a PC for 3 years now). I use the same interface on Mac as on PC, as the interface is a USB interface, namely the Behringer FCA1616 audio/midi interface. Again, to reiterate: I've been using the P35 and this interface on PC for about three years. When I plug the Yamaha P35 in to MIDI, and try and play one of the MIDI instruments in Logic (say the Steinway Grand), I do not have the same pedal issues, BUT, when I press a note, other random notes sound too!!!

 

I disconnect everything from the mac, reconnect to PC, and hey presto! All works 100% as it should.

 

Plug back into Mac, and there you go....random notes and random sustains.

 

So, anyone know of any possible solution to this? Oh, yes...it'sNOT a driver issue, as the FCA1616 does not need a driver, it uses Core as far as I understand (or something like that, as it functions fully with no driver installed, and there ARE no drivers on Behringer's site for Mac, as they also say you do not need a driver). Except, of course, for the MIDI which is f-up.

 

Thanks all