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MIDI Velocity Sometimes Doesn't Work


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I have been very puzzled for a long time by the fact that some instruments respond to MIDI velocity changes very well (ex: Steinway Grand Piano) but some do not.

 

In the grand piano example, if I want to soften a note's volume, I can reduce the velocity of the MIDI note.

 

In the attached screenshot, I am using the Retro Synth instrument on a string patch. The difference in volume between the note that has 100 velocity and the note that has 1 velocity is negligible. If anything, the note with 1 velocity sound like it has a different attack envelope or something.

 

Am I thinking about velocity incorrectly? Is it not always intended to control note volume? If so, what are alternatives to velocity to get some notes quieter than others?

1623224903_ScreenShot2021-05-24at7_29_59AM.png.d7233a6bd9dd91b1b528494075fb19f7.png

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In a synthesiser, you can route many things to modulate many things. Or not. A given synth patch may not have velocity routed to volume - it may have velocity routed to the filter, or it may have velocity routed to something else, or not at all. The patch designer is free to use any modulation source to do whatever he/she wants - there is no need to slavishly implement velocity to volume, especially as many early synths didn't even respond to velocity at all.

 

So, if velocity isn't doing anything on a synth patch, and you want it to, just edit the patch to make velocity do what you want it to do.

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  • Solution

Velocity is an attribute of the MIDI note. The MIDI note is sent to the instrument, and the instrument (and even the patch that is currently dialed in on that instrument) determines how (and if) the instrument responds to velocity. There is no absolute rule that says that all patches on all instruments MUST respond to velocity, or how they should respond to it.

 

For example, because some real-life instruments don't respond to velocity (organs, harpsichords), most of their virtual counterparts are programmed to not respond to it either. That is just one example though, and it's entirely up to the person programming the patch to determine how and if the patch should respond to velocity.

 

If you want to share which patch/instrument you're trying to respond to velocity we can help you figure out how to program it.

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Thanks, guys. Yes, that's pretty much what I expected. And I think I generally know how to program the instruments. For example, I don't like it when the mod wheel is not mapped to pitch (vibrato), and instead is mapped to filter, or something like that. So, I'll go in and re-map the mod wheel to pitch. Velocity is going to be similar to this.

 

Although, I also use a couple of "lazy man" tricks, like putting different notes from the same instrument on different tracks and set the track volume. Or, use volume automation on the track.

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More things to consider...

 

Velocity is not necessarily affecting only the volume though. For realistic acoustic sounds such as horns for example it often can be affecting filter cutoff, so that softer notes are more rounded off and louder ones contain more of the brighter overtones.

 

As for volume automation, it doesn't work as soon as you have multiple notes of different velocities at the same time, or even if it's just the sustain release of a note overlapping the attack of the next.

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Not to hijack this topic, but I've experienced weird issues with velocity lately. Mainly that the velocity of a number of notes could be changed without audible effect. The case involved a velocity "fade in" done with the line tool; all notes showed the new velocities ok but did not change in volume at all. Even switching to a different region and re-opening the editor didn't help. However after simply clicking directly on one of the edited notes everything sounded as intended. Not sure if this is a bug but it was extremely irritating.
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Not to hijack this topic, but I've experienced weird issues with velocity lately. Mainly that the velocity of a number of notes could be changed without audible effect. The case involved a velocity "fade in" done with the line tool; all notes showed the new velocities ok but did not change in volume at all. Even switching to a different region and re-opening the editor didn't help. However after simply clicking directly on one of the edited notes everything sounded as intended. Not sure if this is a bug but it was extremely irritating.

That's not a known bug, and I personally haven't experienced it nor heard about it, so it would be interesting to study further. If you ever experience this again, start a new topic, and attach a project file that exhibits the issue so that we could have a look?

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  • 1 year later...

Hi I have been perplexed by this problem for a long time. I am using soft synth plug ins so I draw the midi notes in. Changing the velocity on the midi notes never changes the volume of the notes like all the you tube videos shows it doing. Do you have any idea why?

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28 minutes ago, Mark M said:

Hi I have been perplexed by this problem for a long time. I am using soft synth plug ins so I draw the midi notes in. Changing the velocity on the midi notes never changes the volume of the notes like all the you tube videos shows it doing. Do you have any idea why?

Hi Mark, and welcome to Logic Pro Help !

Did you get a chance to read the post marked as the solution here?

What synth are you using exactly? 

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1 hour ago, David Nahmani said:

Hi Mark, and welcome to Logic Pro Help !

Did you get a chance to read the post marked as the solution here?

What synth are you using exactly? 

Thank you. Yes I did read all the posts, some applied to real instruments and the other answers I couldn't work how how to apply to my situation. I use Serum and Diva plug in synths. There is a velocity mapping control on Serum for example which you can use to patch to things like cutoff filter. I can't see how a setting in serum could help adjust the velocity in logic midi notes though. Any help would be great thanks.

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2 hours ago, Mark M said:

Thank you. Yes I did read all the posts, some applied to real instruments and the other answers I couldn't work how how to apply to my situation. I use Serum and Diva plug in synths. There is a velocity mapping control on Serum for example which you can use to patch to things like cutoff filter. I can't see how a setting in serum could help adjust the velocity in logic midi notes though. Any help would be great thanks.

 

This will be somewhat a repeat of things already said, but sometimes going over things again (and in different words) can help clarify things.

First, if by real instruments you mean something like sampled instruments that are meant to emulate real instruments, then generally speaking those are more likely to already be set up with velocity-to-volume modulation than your average synth patch. However, whether it's a sampler or synth, if and to what velocity is mapped is (usually) up to the sound designer. So conceptually at least, there really isn't a distinction between 'real' instruments and synths as far as that goes.

I haven't used Diva, but I'll comment on Serum. If you initialize a new Serum patch (Menu->Init Preset), you get a simple patch with no modulation whatsoever (other than envelope 1 to volume). You said you can't see how a Serum setting could adjust note velocities, but that's backwards - instruments have no effect on incoming note velocities. Rather, you program the instrument to use (or not use) the incoming note velocities in whatever way you prefer.

To round out, here's a practical example (forgive me if I miss any steps here). In Serum, choose Menu->Init Preset. At this point, there's no velocity-to-volume mapping. Go to the Matrix tab. In row 1 (or any row), choose Source=Velo, Destination=Global->Amp, Type=Bipolar (click the single arrow to turn it into a double arrow), and Amount=max (full right). If everything went ok, you should have typical velocity sensitivity at this point.

I don't know if this helps at all (or if I'm even understanding the question correctly), but maybe working through an example like the above will help clarify things.

 

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Hi thank you for responding. If I use alchemy for example then it all works ie I can adjust the velocity of the midi notes and it changes the volume. So it must be a synth specific setting. I tried your suggestion above in Serum but unfortunately it made no difference. Every note was the same volume no matter if I reduced a note to 1 or 100. So I am not sure if this is the right forum to help with this? Regards Mark

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5 hours ago, Mark M said:

There is a velocity mapping control on Serum for example which you can use to patch to things like cutoff filter. I can't see how a setting in serum could help adjust the velocity in logic midi notes though.

Velocity is just an instruction, much like you'd write "Forte" or "Piano" on a score and give it to a musician. If the musician is playing an instrument that isn't capable of interpreting those (such as for example a harpsichord, which always plays all notes at the same volume), then the instructions are ignored. 

So it's up to the instrument (Serum in your case) to determine if, and how, it interprets the velocity instructions that you've adjusted in Logic. 

1 hour ago, Mark M said:

So it must be a synth specific setting.

Yes it is, definitely. 

1 hour ago, Mark M said:

I tried your suggestion above in Serum but unfortunately it made no difference. Every note was the same volume no matter if I reduced a note to 1 or 100.

Can you attach a Logic project where you have a track with Serum and a few notes that have different velocities, where that makes no difference, so that one of us can see if we can help troubleshoot? 

Meanwhile here's one way to make the default patch in Serum velocity-sensitive: 

  1. Drag the "VELO" pointer on top of the Osc A Level knob,
  2. Lower the Level knob,
  3. Raise the little "Velo > A Vol" knob at the top left of the Level knob to increase the range of velocity sensitivity:

Serum.gif

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6 hours ago, Mark M said:

I tried your suggestion above in Serum but unfortunately it made no difference. Every note was the same volume no matter if I reduced a note to 1 or 100.

 

Just for completeness I'll add that what I described earlier should work. It's possible you missed a step while trying it or I missed something while writing it out, but it should work (I just tried it again from scratch and got the correct results). A difference that might be relevant is that the method David described makes only oscillator A velocity-volume mapped, while the method I described makes the entire patch velocity-volume mapped. Sometimes you may want the former, sometimes the latter, but it's good to understand both methods, how they work, and why they produce different results.

I know you may be unlikely to upload a project just for this purpose, but if you were to provide your project where the method I described didn't work, I'm sure I or someone else could identify what's wrong. In any case, that the method I described doesn't work and you can't velocity-volume map Serum globally would be the wrong takeaway from this thread! 🙂 Just FYI.

 

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The main thing to remember is that velocity is a property of the *notes* you play, and what an instrument *does* with that information is a property of the instrument/sound.

If you are using an instrument that doesn't respond to velocity (eg, an organ), then it doesn't matter what changes you make to the velocity of the note events in Logic, the instrument playing the notes is ignoring the note velocity completely.

And consequently, just because velocity is commonly used to control the "loudness" of a note, like for a piano, doesn't mean it *has* to be used that way - in synthesizers, velocity is commonly just another modulator which can be used for all kinds of purposes, not just for loudness, but for things like filter cutoff, changing the speed of envelopes and so on, or for samplers, to play different samples or articulations.

Velocity therefore shouldn't be thought of as "note volume", it's just "how hard to play the note" - which *can* be used for volume, but that's just one use among many, particularly with synths.

Edit: Just realised I basically rewrote what David already wrote above. And here's me trying to be helpful..! 😝

Edited by des99
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