adding sustain to a midi piano part

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Hi,

I'm wanting to add sustain to a MIDI piano, I've watched a few videos on this and tried to follow it, but its ground to a halt, I've attached a screenshot of where i got to.

 

So, from here i click on the + and choose 64 sustain. But....nothing happens, the sustain "blocks" that I can adjust, are nowhere to be seen. ( screenshot 2) I chose midi event type, drop down 64, click OK and ....nothing happened. What didnt I do? Cakewalk drives..me...nuts! 

[msmcleod]

That's because you've not got any CC64 events to adjust.  You need to draw them in / record them first.

[Wookiee]

@RICHARD HUTCHINS you could open the Staff view and click on the pedal gadget, this will show a highlight window below the staff, then click in this window where you want your CC 64, which is what pedal is, to start, it will insert a P which is the start and an * to indicate the pedal off. Both can be adjusted to a specific tick, in the event list, or you can turn off snap and drag them. 

[Promidi]

Select the smart tool (you have the select tool in the screenshots). 

Then, while holding ALT, click in the sustain (CC64) controller lane where you want the sustain events to be placed. 

For the values,enter numbers greater than 63 for sustain pressed.  Enter numbers less than or equal than 63 for pedal lifted.

Some synths require value numbers equal to 0 for the lift.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Great, all very helpful, thanks. I'll try all approaches and see which works best for me.

[Canopus]

Or, you could get a sustain pedal.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

All sorted thanks!

[David Baay]

Glad you got it sorted. Two thoughts:

- Even though many synths will treat anything over 63 as pedal down, the convention for on/off values is to use 127 and 0, and I would recommend that so that the clip will 'play nice' with a synth that honors continuous pedal messages (a.k.a. half-pedaling) with variable damping should you ever happen to use one. Also, 0 and 127 give you the clearest representation.

- I highly recommend getting a basic velocity-sensitive MIDI controller keyboard with a sustain pedal and starting to record in real time. Even if you have no keyboard skills at all, I wager you will quickly get to a point where fixing a wonky real-time recording is faster and yields a more natural-sounding result  than drawing everything in with a mouse and trying to "humanize" it after the fact.  Plus it's just way more fun and rewarding!

Edited April 6 by David Baay

[Wookiee]

8 hours ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

All sorted thanks!

Might be useful to others if you shared the method that worked for you.  Just a furry thought.

[Canopus]

10 hours ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

Great, all very helpful, thanks. I'll try all approaches and see which works best for me.

Seriously, if you still have got your Roland Juno-DS, the only sensible way to add sustain would be to use a sustain pedal. According to the Juno-DS Owner's Manual, any Roland sustain pedal in the DP series should work. I don’t have a Juno, but I do have a Roland DP-10 sustain pedal which I can highly recommend. Simply connect it using the input called PEDAL HOLD.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

On 4/6/2024 at 6:14 PM, Wookiee said:

Might be useful to others if you shared the method that worked for you.  Just a furry thought.

Yes good point.

I opened the stave view and used the pedal button to place the on and off points. As a piano player I found this intuitive.

I didn't post this as I felt my queries were so novice like, I didn't think anyone who had replied on the thread would learn from it, but I'll make sure to do this next time!

.....because there may be people out there with my level of knowledge. Or maybe a simple protozoa is reading my posts with a view to surpassing my ability!

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

On 4/6/2024 at 8:23 PM, Canopus said:

Seriously, if you still have got your Roland Juno-DS, the only sensible way to add sustain would be to use a sustain pedal. According to the Juno-DS Owner's Manual, any Roland sustain pedal in the DP series should work. I don’t have a Juno, but I do have a Roland DP-10 sustain pedal which I can highly recommend. Simply connect it using the input called PEDAL HOLD.

I dont use the Juno for this track, I use the keyboards from the band I'm practicing with. But anyway I don't get this; surely the pedal needs to be manually activated during the songs?

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Okay he's back!

So, having learnt how to add sustain,( thanks all)  I then adjusted the piano track, saved the file and tonight reopened it.

 

And this time the CW demons had an overnight meeting and decided to annoy me with a completely new problem. Basically all I can hear now is the drum track, and it now sounds like a piano. I can see all the other tracks but they are silent. 

 

It all worked perfectly last time i opened the file... so what has changed? I attach a screenshot. In my defence this is all new stuff to me..

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

I'm still trying different things, whilst hoping for help ,  changed the midi channel to general midi from " normal " and now I get lots of sounds but they are all mixed up and its all piano,  no strings or drums just a mess of the wrong sounds. I'll still try and work it out myself but Im not holding my breath.

[Wookiee]

@RICHARD HUTCHINS it never harms to share solutions, there is a range of users here from peeps who having been using DAW's for 30+ years and those who downloaded it yesterday. 

If it helps us oldies we were swanning in the dark 30 years ago, with no Internet and only doorstop manuals. 

As to your silence issue can you provide a little more details on what instruments you are using and how they are routed. It looks like you are not using a Master buss.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

1 hour ago, Wookiee said:

@RICHARD HUTCHINS it never harms to share solutions, there is a range of users here from peeps who having been using DAW's for 30+ years and those who downloaded it yesterday. 

If it helps us oldies we were swanning in the dark 30 years ago, with no Internet and only doorstop manuals. 

As to your silence issue can you provide a little more details on what instruments you are using and how they are routed. It looks like you are not using a Master buss.

I was sent this  midi file to look at for our band. They wanted more sustain on the piano part which I did manage to acheive after help from the forum.

I simply open it in CW and then it plays, ( or it did until tonight)

I am plugged into a steinberg UR22 interface, and from there via midi in and out leads to my Juno Keyboard, which I assume responds to the midi instructions from the file. But I could well be wrong. it could be using my PC soundcard, i dont really know.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

To add to this, all I did was open the file, and that is how it is on the screenshot

[Wookiee]

1 hour ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

To add to this, all I did was open the file, and that is how it is on the screenshot

I would check what MIDI port your tracks are pointing to.

Press I to open the Inspector. If they are just MIDI tracks all the track and port information should be displayed. 

Also if at the top of the track view you can see the word Custom change that to All andbyour Workspaces to None, so much more information and functions will be revealed. 

[David Baay]

6 hours ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

But anyway I don't get this; surely the pedal needs to be manually activated during the songs?

The pedal will cause the Juno to generate the CC64 sustain events that can be recorded in sound-on-sound mode in real time into the track with the MIDI notes. You'll hear the effect of the sustain messages acting on those notes as they play back so you can get the pedal timing right with a little practice. If some of them end up a little but to early or late, you can drag them around after the fact as needed in the Controller pane of the Piano Roll View. it's just a faster way to get the events into the track.

[David Baay]

4 hours ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

I am plugged into a steinberg UR22 interface, and from there via midi in and out leads to my Juno Keyboard, which I assume responds to the midi instructions from the file. But I could well be wrong. it could be using my PC soundcard, i dont really know.

The Bakers recently removed support for GS wavetable synths and also removed the TTS-1 multi-timbral soft synth at Roland's request. I can see that the ouput of the highlighted track is assigned to the UR22's out so, yes, I think you were listening to the Juno's output. Possibly it  is no longer in the correct mode to act as a General MIDI synth.  Also, ideally, you would want to add an audio track to the project to receive audio input from the Juno and echo it out to your monitors  so you can record the Juno and monitor with plugin FX if desired. Then save the project as Type 'Normal' instead of MIDI so that it becomes a full-fledged Cakewalk project file. Re-saving as MIDI will lose all the CbB features and audio routing.

Edited April 8 by David Baay