Recording MIDI keyboard and sustain pedal to GBand / Logic

[old-school]

Hi Chaps,

I'm struggling to record a sustain pedal keyboard track with a new M-GEAR pedal I've bought (into Garageband). The pedal is attached to my keyboard via jack and I've got a MIDI out from the keyboard (Yamaha stage piano) going into my macbook pro via USB using an M-AUDIO converter. My old sustain pedal which was a an old yamaha pedal worked fine and I've tried all types of polarity/startup with pedal held down etc. Garageband seems to be recognising the pedal as a mute switch rather than sustain pedal?

I'm wondering whether I need a MIDI controller to allow for the extra bandwidth? Please help, I'm at a loss! Any help greatly appreciated.

Old School

P.s. I am thinking of moving on to Logic in the new year and wondered what the advantage is of having the Studio pack instead of Logic Express 9 on its own?

 

[synth3tik]

You should be able to fix the issue in the preferences for the controller. M-Audio gear is really flexible so even if it was that the pedal was plugged into a port for muting, it can be changed to sustain. Or it could also be that it is the wrong penal. It does sound like it used to work fine for you, so I am sure you have everything set up correctly. If you still have the yamaha pedal I would give that a try.

As for you Logic question I really depends on what you want to do. If you just want a few more features and such, then Express is fine. If you need a lot of power, with high track count then I would say Logic Pro. Chances are if your just recording keyboard parts and adding some accompaniment to it, express will be more then fair to ya.

 

[old-school]

Hi Synth,

Thanks for your help so far. I am utterly stuck with it and losing patience! I downloaded the driver for the MIDI to USB box I've got. It's just a 1-to-1 (MIDI out of keyboard to USB into mac). I was actually using my old pedal fine without bothering with drivers until it broke, and now this new pedal won't work properly. In garageband when I first start the program the piano comes though fine, but once the pedal is pressed I get sustained notes which won't release, and after this point when the pedal is not pressed I get nothing coming through when i press the keys (until I press the sustain pedal down again to get sustained notes which don't die off).

It's driving me nutty! I'm sure there will be a simple answer to this but can't for the life of me work it out. I am only using 1 MIDI input (I thought this was enough to transport sustain pedal information through as well). In System Utilities I've now got a keyboard diagram going into the Uno MIDI Interface. Nothing else is lit up, and the keyboard is delivering and receiving 16 channels to the Interface.

PLEASE HELP!?

Old School

 

[old-school]

A few other things - meddling about with any of the settings in the Audio MIDI Setup doesn't seem to do anything. It's as if when the pedal is first used it mutes everything. I'm sure it's a common problem, just wish I knew how to solve it. Grrr.

 

[old-school]

Oh, and it works fine just using the piano. It's definately a MIDI problem...

 

[ChrisA]

Are you sure you have the pedal plugged into the correct jack on the keyboard? Many of the Yamahas have a second pedal jack that is programmable. Pedals are just simple contact switches, the SP2 is just an on/off switch. It does not send any data

Buy "express" then later if yu need to upgrade Apple offer prices that gives you back the price of express. So there is no way to loose if you buy Express.

 

[old-school]

Hi Chris,

I tried everything getting this to work, but gave up in the end and went and bought a new sustain pedal which works fine without any problems. The only reason I can think of for these problems is the man in the shop reckoned the pedal in question has a range of of sustain value (not just a switch). The pedal I've replaced it with for recording is another basic yamaha on/off switch style sustain pedal. I've ordered logic since, so I'll see if I can get my old pedal to work.

Old School