The Piano is the LEAST instrument sound I use when I play an arranger KB....and when I do, my technique will mimic sustain when need with no problem. that's all I will say.
I will duck now

I agree with DNJ about the piano being the least used instrument (voice), at least during MY performances.

I still use a pedal, though, but for right hand instrument effects other than sustain. Most of the time I'm using various combinations of guitars, saxes, vibes, strings, and some custom voices I made. One of those custom voices is a grand piano with a strings layer, which I frequently layer with vibes. I guess everyone has their favorite right-hand voices. Of course, there is another pedal for the vocal harmonizer as well. You can do lots of neat things with pedals, but you can do those exact same things with registrations too.

Cheers,

Gary

You are right..original Hammond's don't have a sustain pedal....or a volume pedal...it has an "Expression" Pedal though. Its used for much more than just adjusting volume.

On an arranger a volume pedal will adjust total volume, but an expression pedal should only adjust the right hand sound (not rhythm). You can use the pedal to create a delay or decay on the sound as well as simply changing the volume as needed.

Also on a Hammond (going right back to day one) the expression pedal also adjusts frequency at the same time as volume. Not so many people realise that.

I remember very well, working the expression pedal on my B-3...a necessity for me.

That why I say...you don't play a B-3...you ride it.

The Leslie was just as much a part of the expression, and to know when to switch from slow to fast was an art...between the swell, and the half-moon Leslie switch, it was like playing a voice; a human-like voice, with tonal, and volume expressions from the drawbars and swell pedal, to the pseudo vibrato from the rotary speakers winding up and then down.

You could make a note seem to "hang" by stabbing at the expression pedal.

Ian

It's all the Technique my friends

Anybody thinks they can play a real piano part without a sustain pedal is just kidding themselves. Just as you can't play a sax part without bending and scooping notes, guitar parts without hammer-ons and -offs, violin parts without legato and staccato notes, and an organ part without an expression pedal...

You might be playing the SOUND, but you are not playing the PART...

Just as it is painfully obvious to an old accordionist that someone playing an accordion sound isn't really getting it right, trust me, anyone playing a piano part without a sustain pedal isn't fooling anyone that KNOWS what a piano is supposed to sound like.

Just themselves...

Yea Diki.....fooling anyone? give me a break it's an arranger KB NOT the "real LIVE instruments" no matter HOW you do it.....

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 04-16-2010).]

Interesting comments...

I guess it really comes down to the players approach with their arranger. If the user is using MIDI files or having the OTS cover the rhythm section, then all that's left is fills, solos, coloring...and you wouldn't have to have a sustain pedal for that.

I play piano through most of my tunes main sections. I also do several tunes a gig where I don't kick in the arranger function at all and am basically playing a straight acoustic piano, for which I certainly need a sustain pedal.



------------------
Bill in Dayton

Would you please go into detail on how you do this? How do you mimic sustain with no problem without a pedal when you're using a piano? Do you avoid certain styles (legato with large sustained chords) in favor of only more staccato uses?

How exactly do you do this?


------------------
Bill in Dayton

Must be a case of D�j� vu...
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/017468.html
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/020274.html
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/006379.html

------------------
Bo pen nyang.