I have my school's 5 octave Xylosynth attached to a Mac Mini running Ableton Live 9. I'm using Kontakt Player 5 to load a vibraphone patch from VDL 2.5.5. I've selected the patch with the sustain pedal option, but the Xylosynth's sustain pedal has no affect on altering the sound. I've done this same thing with a MalletKat in the past with no issues. Is there something different in the way the Xylosynth passes sustain information to the software? I've also tried the chime patch with the sustain pedal option and got the same result (or lack thereof I guess). The pedal seems to work as expected with the sounds built into the Xylosynth itself. Anyone have any thoughts?

I remember talking to the xylosynth people about this several years ago. It's a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I seem to recall that the xylosynth doesn't use continuous controller 64 for their sustain pedal control. In most MIDI scenarios, CC64 is synonymous with the sustain pedal, which is why it's programmed that way for the ";sus pedal"; chime/vibe patches in Virtual Drumline.

I'm not familiar enough with the xylosynth to know if it's possible to assign specific CC numbers to the pedal port, but if it's possible, assign this to CC64 and you should be good to go. If it's not possible and that pedal is controlling some other CC number, can you let me know what it is? Perhaps we can provide a patch specific for xylosynth usage.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your quick response. At the same time I posted here I also sent an e-mail to Wernick (the manufacturer of the Xylosynth). Here is the response I got from them in case it helps to shed more light:

";Hi Ron,
The Xylosynth Sustain function holds sending midi 'note off' messages (or technically note on of zero velocity) rather than sending midi 'sustain on' and 'sustain off' messages. This function is obviously working internally and you should see the blue led next to the midi output on the Xylosynth flash when playing a key and then releasing the pedal (to say it is sending externally). Have you set up the software to ignore midi 'note off' messages (or technically not recognise midi 'note on' of zero velocity)?
Hope this gets you somewhere,
Kind regards,
Will";

I think what you had mentioned previously is at the heart of the issue. It's interesting to note that a Grand Piano sound hosted directly in Ableton (rather than using Kontakt Player) responds correctly to the Xylosynth's pedal. So it seems to be an issue either with Kontakt Player or the way the VDL patches themselves are coded. The other day I thought I had seen a place in the Kontakt Player settings somewhere that talked about ignoring MIDI ";note off"; messages, but I can't for the life of me locate it now. I'm not sure if altering that setting (if I can find it) would remedy the situation or if it would, as you suggested, require a specialized patch.

I see. Thanks for the reminder about what's going on with the ";note on/off"; messages. That's jogging my memory now.

Here's something you might try. It's not perfect, but it might just work.

Load a ";ModWheel"; vibraphone from VDL (rather than a pedal controlled vibe). Then, turn down the ";Release"; knob all the way to zero (0).

This will limit the amount of natural decay that would typically occur from the default loading of a MW Vibraphone from VDL. Technically, you won't be triggering actual unpedaled notes (as you would if using the true PED instruments with CC64), but it may be sufficient. Give it a spin and see how that fits for you.

Similarly, in the Grand Piano/Ableton example you cited, holding down the xylosynth pedal essentially equates to keeping your finger pressed on the piano keyboard. So you aren't technically triggering a ";pedaled"; sample (where you may hear sympathetic vibrations of other strings), but just a string that continues to ring openly while the key is depressed. Again, quite possibly sufficient for what you may be doing. It's just not the ideal method designed by sample developers which would make use of a typical MIDI sustain pedal.