How to Add Sustain Pedal to Any Piano in FL Studio

By Aehras

Piano parts sound clipped without pedal. Notes cut off right where a real player would let them ring, and the whole thing feels stiff.

Here's how I set up sustain automation in FL Studio. It works with any piano plugin, not just the one I'm using.

Sustain pedal automation walkthrough video

The video was recorded in FL Studio 21, so a few menus look slightly different in current versions. The steps are the same. Written version follows if you'd rather read it.

The quick version

Open your piano plugin, Browse parameters, right click MIDI CC #64, Create automation clip. Raise the start and the mid point to 100 and leave the end at 0. That's a pedal that holds through the bar and lifts at the end.

Everything below is the same thing with screenshots.

Only zero matters

The pedal is a threshold, not a fader.

So the shape of the line between those points doesn't change what you hear. A curve is fine, I usually end up with one. The only thing that matters is where the line reaches 0, because that's the moment the pedal lifts.

Worth getting your head around first, because it changes what you think you're doing. You're not drawing a gesture. You're placing a release point.

Create the automation clip

  1. Open the plugin and click the little arrow at the top left of the plugin window.
  2. Under Parameters, click Browse parameters. A panel opens off to the side.
  3. Scroll down to MIDI CC #64 (Damper pedal (sustain)).
  4. Right click it and pick Create automation clip.
The LABS plugin menu open, with Browse parameters highlighted under the Parameters section
Browse parameters opens a panel listing every parameter the plugin exposes, including the MIDI CCs.
Right click menu on MIDI CC 64 Damper pedal sustain, with Create automation clip highlighted
Right click MIDI CC #64 and choose Create automation clip.

You'll get a flat automation clip in the playlist.

That CC #64 is the standard MIDI sustain controller, which is why this works on any piano plugin and not just the one in the screenshots.

Shape it

A fresh clip is flat and doesn't do anything useful yet. Two moves:

  1. Raise the start to 100.
  2. Raise the mid point to 100, but leave the end at 0.

Now the pedal holds down through the bar and lifts right at the end.

Three panels showing a flat automation clip, then the start raised to 100, then the mid point raised to 100 with the end left at 0
Flat clip, start raised to 100, then the mid point raised with the end still at 0.

Duplicate it and make it Unique

This is the step that trips people up.

  1. Drag or copy the clip to where you want it in the playlist.
  2. Click the icon at the top left of the clip.
  3. Pick Make unique.
  4. The clip renames itself with a #2 on the end. That's how you know it worked.
Automation clip menu with Make unique highlighted, opened from the icon at the top left of the clip
Make unique lives in the clip's own menu, from the icon at its top left corner.

If you skip Make unique, every copy of that clip is the same automation data. Edit one and you edit all of them. You'll move one pedal release and watch every other pedal in the song move with it, and it'll look like something broke.

Two one bar sustain pedal clips side by side in the playlist, the second named Sustain Pedal hash 2
Two independent one bar pedals. The #2 on the second one means it has its own automation data now.

Shorten the hold

The clips are one bar long. By default the pedal holds for all 4 beats and lifts at the end of the bar. If your chords change twice per bar, you want it lifting halfway instead.

Drag the point where the line hits 0 back by two beats, so the pedal is only held for 2 beats instead of 4. The clip stays one bar. It's the release that moves, not the clip.

Let it off a little early

I typically hold ALT and drag the point slightly before the end of the beat I want to let the pedal off on. It gives a cleaner drop off and keeps the sustain from bleeding into the next chord and sounding muddy.

Letting off exactly on the beat is technically correct and sounds worse.

A note on the screenshots

These are taken inside a piano template I use, so you'll see Tempo, Expression and Dynamics lanes above the sustain lane. You won't have those in a fresh project, and you don't need them for any of this. The sustain lane is the only one that matters here.

If you want the rest of them, the gear I play these parts on is over on the setup page, and my templates live under tools.