MainStage ist using the wrong sample using sustain pedal

If you hit a note on a real acoustic piano, it will also sound different depending on whether the damper pedal is depressed or not. The "Steinway Grand Piano" patch in MainStage emulates this behavior by using different samples.

Klavierstuhl wrote:

I also play a acustic piano, but the sound is not changing when I press the sustain pedal.

Depending on your particular piano, the effect may be more or less pronounced. If a note is hit with the sustain pedal up, only the damper of that particular note is lifted off the associated strings. So only these particular strings are free to vibrate. If however the sustain pedal is down, all dampers are lifted, so all strings are basically free to vibrate. Off course you will predominantly hear those strings which are actually struck by the hammer, but depending on the natural series of overtones, other strings will resonate to some degree.

Sometimes this is called "sympathetic resonance" and practically all modern digital pianos (and sample libraries) make some effort to simulate this.

Whether or not MainStage succeeds in your opinion, is of course another question. I am not saying that the result is particularly convincing either. But it remains a fact that this is done on purpose.

If you have a look at the actual EXS sampler instrument, you will find that there are specific groups which are programmed to be selected via CC64.

Klavierstuhl wrote:

Is there a possibility to limit or remap the cc64 values to max. 20? As above mentioned everything would be perfekt.

Yes, it should be possible to edit the sampler instrument and save a customized version. I assume we are talking about the "Steinway Piano 2" EXS instrument?

Open the instrument editor and go to the "Groups" page. You need to enable the group selections under "View". There you will find that for the groups which play the "pedal" samples, the "Control" parameter range for CC64 is 64 to 127. For the regular groups it is 0 to 63.

Theoretically, what you need to do is delete the "pedal" groups and set the Hi-value for all remaining groups to 127.

Be sure to first save a copy of that sampler instrument under another name, before editing it.

OK, I've just tried it myself and it works perfectly. But there is one additional step: After deleting the groups which select the "pedal" samples, the respective zones which were originally assigned to these groups are still present and must also be removed. This can be done on the "Zones" page. Just select all zones which are not assigned to any groups and delete them.

The result is quite nice actually. I can imagine that for certain musical styles, particularly when a bit more "bite" is required, this edited version might work considerably better than the original.

I agree with you that the "pedal" samples in the original "Steinway Piano 2" EXS instrument are too dull.

EDIT: OK I see. You left the groups in place and just edited the controller values. That's of course another way of doing it.

Anyway, it's nice to see that you accomplished what you were looking for.