Blithering idiot question about resonance

[Pingu]

I just had my first really long play on the Steinway yesterday, and was amazed by the 'realness' of the sympathetic resonance.

I'd like to write some pieces using the technique of depressing chords silently, and then using their resonances to reinforce what the other hand plays. The problem is I know absolutely nothing about velocity curves and the like. No matter how slowly I squeeze down a key I can't get it to play a note silently, or even close (I haven't checked what velocity value it's outputting, but it's miles off being quiet enough to ignore). I dare say I could alter the velocity curve to achieve a near silence, but it would have to be quite an extreme curve, and probably ruin the feel of the instrument for other purposes.

Is there any way to have a 'velocity offset' so that, say, the first 20 velocity values don't trigger a sound, but ARIA is still aware of those notes being held down?

[Raymond62]

This might not help, but I noticed the following:

A chord/note starts with an attack (velocity value). After this initial attack nothing happens to increase/decrease the volume. I did this with velocity value zero (or very near zero, can't remember). Now press the sustain pedal and voila you will hear the resonance. Lift the pedal and you will hear a soft "click" and all sound dies out.

Of course you must have set the ARIA player to "give" those resonances and /or mechanical noises. It is more obvious when you raise the velocity curve at the ARIA player.

Raymond

[eltiare]

Seems there really is no way to do what you ask - of course I'm not sure how the algorithm for computing resonance goes and so it may not matter which keys are depressed. I was quite shocked myself to find the same thing that you did: that notes with a velocity of 1 were still quite audible. I used a sequencer to verify this.

[buckshead]

Solved it! Buy a piano ! Ho ho

[susanmusic]

Hmmm. I had a demo of Pianoteq and I think I was able to press a key silently and then play an octave above with a sharp staccato to hear the resonance. Now I wonder if that's a feature peculiar to Pianoteq (which doesn't use samples).

Susan

[Pingu]

of course I'm not sure how the algorithm for computing resonance goes and so it may not matter which keys are depressed.

As far as I could tell it worked just like the real thing, in that notes from the harmonic series of the one you're holding will cause it to resonate.

Gary - is there any chance, in the update, of some kind of velocity offset, so that we can manage to get keys down silently?