Piano Keyboard Limitations
Mar. 6th, 2022 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI thought it would take longer for my piano practice to encounter limitations imposed by my hardware.
I can nearly get through Prelude in C without lengthy pauses to look at the sheet music, so I decided to start on Eric Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1. The prelude is entirely arpeggiated except for the single five note chord at the end. The gymnopédie heavily uses three-note chords from the beginning though, and my keyboard can't manage too many notes at once. I'm using the sustain pedal, and I can clearly hear sustained notes dropping out as I play notes on top of each other.
As well as the onboard (pretty low-quality) sound synthesis, my keyboard is a MIDI controller. I have Plogue Sforzando installed to use with a really nice Steinway concert grand piano library. I was playing that way in the Netherlands, but I didn't bring my MIDI keyboard with me when I moved. The one I bought here has significantly better key action, but it doesn't pass the sustain pedal state through the MIDI interface, so I basically can't use it for MIDI unless I'm willing to forego pedaling, which I'm not. Sforzando allows something like 128 simultaneous sounds, but this keyboard must be limited to 6 or 8? And beyond that I really miss the Steinway sound: the difference is night and day.
The most affordable solution may be to find a USB foot pedal I can map to the sustain pedal in Sforzando. I do have a USB foot pedal--it's in the states with the rest of my stuff.
I can nearly get through Prelude in C without lengthy pauses to look at the sheet music, so I decided to start on Eric Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1. The prelude is entirely arpeggiated except for the single five note chord at the end. The gymnopédie heavily uses three-note chords from the beginning though, and my keyboard can't manage too many notes at once. I'm using the sustain pedal, and I can clearly hear sustained notes dropping out as I play notes on top of each other.
As well as the onboard (pretty low-quality) sound synthesis, my keyboard is a MIDI controller. I have Plogue Sforzando installed to use with a really nice Steinway concert grand piano library. I was playing that way in the Netherlands, but I didn't bring my MIDI keyboard with me when I moved. The one I bought here has significantly better key action, but it doesn't pass the sustain pedal state through the MIDI interface, so I basically can't use it for MIDI unless I'm willing to forego pedaling, which I'm not. Sforzando allows something like 128 simultaneous sounds, but this keyboard must be limited to 6 or 8? And beyond that I really miss the Steinway sound: the difference is night and day.
The most affordable solution may be to find a USB foot pedal I can map to the sustain pedal in Sforzando. I do have a USB foot pedal--it's in the states with the rest of my stuff.
