Apologies for posting here as well as in the hardware section (no replies over there).
I have Pianoteq Pro V8 and want to buy a three pedal unit. Pianoteq Pro supports up to four pedals. I’m looking at buying the Roland RPU 3 which uses three 1/4" cords out the back. I also have an Audio Front Quatro converter box which has four 1/4" jack inputs and one usb outlet. My idea is to GP learn the pedal inputs so that I can fully control Pianoteq using my new M-Audio Keystation 88 M3. Any advice or suggestions will be much appreciated.
Pianoteq isn’t going to know or care how the MIDI CC message gets to it. I have that Roland triple pedal that I have connected to a Roland A-90 master controller, then to Pianoteq.
I also have a Studiologic SLP3-D connected through a Studiologic SL88 controlling Pianoteq on a different rig. Also works fine.
The nuances are really whether you want to use your pedals as “continuous controllers” or as simple switches. On the Roland I believe that all three pedals are capable of continuous control (as opposed to simple on/off) but they only stipulate that “when connected to a Roland controller”. I have used it with non-Roland controllers before, but really don’t remember if they saw it as a simple on/off pedals or continuous control.
In contrast, my SLP3-D pedal is only continuous control on the right pedal, the other two are on/off.
In Pianoteq I always use a continuous controller for the sustain pedal. Having come from playing a real piano, I never liked the on/off nature of on/off sustain pedals. I much prefer the “half sustain” that good modeled pianos (like Pianoteq) and some sampled pianos allowed. But if you don’t care about that, it’s not an issue to worry about.
As far as I know the sostenuto and “soft” pedals in Pianoteq are treated as on/off, even if you send them a continuous controller. That may have changed over the years, though. But I’m not familiar with anyone using a sostenuto pedal as a continuous controller on a real piano anyway.
If you want to assign your pedals to other things, like tremolo depth, then you’d really want to make sure the pedals you use and the Quatro can work together like that.
Unfortunately I’ve found that damper pedal unit documentation is often sorely lacking (as it is with that Roland unit) and it may be hard to know if you can get continuous controller performance out of it without actually trying it with the Quatro.
If all you care about is on/off foot switches then all of this is probably a moot point. I’d be shocked if the Quatro wouldn’t at least extract on/off info from the Roland pedals. I think it’s the continuous control that’s the real question.
Hey, that’s a very full answer. I am much obliged. I have an email out to Robert at the AudioFront site re the Quattro and what pedal might work with it. However, Roland make a single pedal that does half pedalling, so I may just go with that and forget the other two pedals. It’s a hard business to find out what works with so many variables. I am wondering if it is possible that I skip the Quattro and try to let GP and Pianoteq sort things out for me.
I believe your keystation has two pedal inputs on it. I haven’t looked for a manual, but my guess is that one is an on/off sustain switch jack and the other an expression pedal jack.
If you only want on/off sustain then just get any sustain pedal and plug it in and you’ll be fine.
If you want the “half pedal” type variable sustain you have to get that type of pedal and use it in the expression port
You can always add a Quarto later if you want more pedal inputs. But unless you have a need in mind it’s not something I’d rush out to buy.
I just heard back from AudioFront re what I wrote just below:
“I have just bought an M-Audio KS 88 M3 keyboard. I am looking at buying the Roland RPU3 three pedal unit which has three cords out the back. I am playing the Modart Pianoteq vst which supports up to four pedals. I have a Quatro and am asking if you think the Roland three pedal unit will work with the Quatro ok. Many thanks”
His reply was - “It’s fully supported.”
So I guess my next question is, do I need three pedals? How often are all the pedals used if set to piano mode?
I imagine most piano players use sustain a lot and sostenuto once in a while.
As I said earlier, I have the Roland 3 pedal unit and a Studiologic 3 pedal unit. I’ve never set the left pedal on either unit to a piano function. I’ve had it set to page forward sheet music or something like that once in a while, but it’s not something I use regularly.
But I have a ton of buttons on my secondary keyboard controller. If I want to toggle something (like leslie speed, turn a layer on/off, etc.) I tend to do that with a button rather than a pedal. But if you don’t have a lot of buttons, or prefer to use a foot switch for something, then maybe more footswitches is good for you.
I’ve decided to go for the Roland pedal. I’m sure I’ll find a use for all the pedals.
Many thanks for the help. It’s been great to have the support. Cheers.
Vindes, how about the middle pedal… is that something you easily accidently press or no?
I’ve been thinking about adding a pedal like this to get continual sustain but also control a ‘boost’ and potentially control my Leslie momentary switch which I already use a pedal for… or use for prev/next controls of GP rackspaces… but I don’t play three pedal piano and don’t really know if the ergonomics are right for other fuctions or not… espechally that middle button.
any opinions you have on that are most welcome.
also I just noticed that Yamaha makes an FC3-A pedal which is a single continuous sustain pedal.
I think it depends on whether you stand, sit, and if you sit are you on a stool or a bench.
On a real piano I’ve never pressed the wrong pedal, but that’s probably because I don’t move my body much from sitting right in front of middle C. When I was learning piano as a kid my teacher used to hold a book a little below my chin so that I couldn’t look at my hands. Playing like that for a long time I think you just naturally develop a pretty good muscle memory for where things are, so sitting in front of a full size keyboard, as long as I’m oriented it’s not really a problem.
Sitting on a bench and playing multiple keyboards (master and secondary) I actually shift side to side sometimes for certain songs. In that situation I actually have been on the wrong pedal sometimes. I’ve thought I was on the sustain pedal, but it’s not sustaining, and then I pretty instantly know I’m off to the left. After a few times doing that your brain kind of automatically adjusts, or at least mine does.
If I’m standing up I pretty much always have to look at what I’m pressing, but I don’t play keyboards standing up anymore.
I sit and pretty much lean side to side, mostly to the right. I think I would limiti what I put on those other pedals to non-catastrophic things should i hit the wrong one.
The XK-5 doesn’t have aftertouch and it’s setup for the classic left hand switching… but I really like using my left foot and changing leslie speeds as a momentary switch vs. fast/slow toggle… to me it’s more emotive, not unlike after touch but I don’t have to press harder with my hands to ‘squeeze’ the speed faster and when I step off the pedal, the release feels like a natural way to slow the rotor back down. Plus i can change notes etc with out the speeds dropping. Everyone plays differently but this works well for me.
I haven’t read all the posts on this topic, so sorry if I’m repeating something.
For compatibility purposes with an M-Audio controller keyboard, Roland pedals are supposed to have the right pedal wiring. But your controller has only two pedal inputs, so you won’t be able to make use of a third pedal.
I own a Roland RPU-3 which has three continuous pedal with my Arturia Keylab 88 MKII. I configured the sustain pedal as a continuous controller in the Keylab, while I configured the other pedals to be considered as simple switches. In your M-Audio controller, it seems that you cannot configure how the pedals behaves. The sustain pedal has to be a switch pedal while the expression is supposed to be continuous. So there seems to be no way to benefit from the half-pedalling with the sustain pedal, but you could eventually customise the expression pedal, perhaps in pianoteq (if Pianoteq sustain, usually CC#64 can be mapped to CC#11) and for sure in GP (using a Gig GPScript) to use it as a continuous controller for half-pedalling.
The Roland DP-10 single pedal seems appropriate for your use case as it can itself be set to “switch” or “continuous” mode. The idea would be to use two of them. You could think of using only two pedals of the Roland RPU-3 as it has three separate jacks, but I have no idea how it would behave with the sustain of your M-Audio supposed to be a switch pedal.
I wont be using any of the 1/4” inputs on the back of the M-Audio. I will be plugging the three plugs into the AudioFront Quattro and from there into a USB input. After that, it’s midi learn.
Ohh - It is not only that I didn’t read all the posts of this topic, it is also that I even didn’t properly read your first post…
So, of course no problem to add a Roland RPU-3 to your rig if it is connected to an AudioFront Quattro
I have the Roland three pedal unit working now using the AudioFront Quattro interface through USB. PianoTeq has many options for what the pedals do. The left one (soft) is fine, but the middle and right default to harmonics and sostenuto respectively. Not having a great deal of experience with three pedal pianos, I am after suggestions on how to set up the middle and right pedal functions. I do want 1/2 pedalling.
Also, the Quattro has a fourth input and PianoTeq has four pedals. If I added another single Roland sustain pedal, what could it be used for? Cheers
As far as I know half pedaling is only interesting for the sustain pedal. No idea if pianoteq reproduces it well or not. I use it with Ivory American Concert D and it is very convincing to me. But, I know that many keyboardist only use a switch pedal as a sustain pedal and survive it. So I am not sure you really need 4 pedals to play a piano plugin. But, if you are happy with that…
