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MIDI questions/issues/comments
Just thought a thread to address midi might be worthwhile. I'll start it off with asking if someone could explain the difference between velocity and volume. I've seen both implemented but unclear on the distinction.
Comments
I was just recently reading this article on velocity. I'm sure you'll get more comments on comparison of volume and velocity. I just thought this was interesting.
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/support/view/midi_velocity_and_audio_record_levels
velocity is the control of an individual note's volume, originally controlled by how fast or hard you hit a key. volume is a midi cc which controls the overall volume of a synth.
Start a tape recorder.
Take a piano. Press a key. Press it again, only softer.
Take the recorded audio and load it into a wave editor. Make them both the same volume.
Notice how the sound of it is different. They both have the same volume but the softer one just sounds... soft.
If you want to compare it to vocals: with this method you can make the sound of a whisper the same volume as a scream. But the way vocal chords behave is different depending on if the person sings, whispers, speaks or screams.
@funjunkie27 Don't get me started about MIDI.
I have so many questions about MIDI and they are all to do with the implementation of it within IAA and maybe Audiobus 2.
Thanks guys for the describing the distinction. Makes much more sense now. @Multitouch - definitely curious on the IAA side of it. I haven't heard much on that aspect yet.
It helps a lot if you are into sampling. Take @Sebastian's example with the piano. You can have both samples normalized (volume maximized), but the recorded sound will be different depending on how hard the instrument was played (Velocity). I like to think of it in terms of a sampled drum. The sound that you hear when you lightly tap the drum head will be much different than the sound you hear when you really, really hammer the drum head. The sampled sound is different between the two hits of the same instrument. However, you can turn the volume of the hit sound up or down. So, while volume and velocity are both tied to each other, they are two different things. :-)
Velocity and volume are not tied to each other. Higher velocity usually means that stuff is louder but that's about it.
You are correct @Sebastian. I should have worded things better: So, while volume and velocity seem similar, they are two different things. :-)
Outside of the digital world, volume and velocity are indeed tied together which is what I think you meant @audiojunkie. And the default for most synths is play harder = synth louder.
But specifically re:midi someone already said it. Sending cc7 (volume) will change the level of the whole patch where as velocity is per voice or key. Additionally, as exemplified by animoog, velocity information can be mapped to affect several parameters like filter cut-off or LFO depth in addition to (or instead of) level.
Velocity is also useful to cross-fade between different sample sets in a sampler. Like the Roland Alto Sax S-550 sample - low velocity plays the breathy sample, high velocity plays the squeaky sample, and there's a cross-over range where one fades down as the other fades up. Very effective. BM2 implements switching by velocity, VoKey has cross-fade overlaps.
Many synths also let you through a mod matrix or some other mechanism, control many things with velocity. For example you might be able to control the filter cutoff frequency by how hard a key is struck, making for some really interesting expressive playability. Also noteworthy that you (depending on the synth) might be able to do this while the velocity has no impact at all on the volume. So how hard a key is struck controls timbre but volume is consistent.
Here's my MIDI question. I have a couple MIDI controllers that can send channel pressure (similar to aftertouch, but only one controller for all keys instead of message per individual key). I think this is a nice controller because it doesn't require you to free up a hand to use it. But only a handful of iOS synths support receiving and doing something with this message. Has anyone found a good way to translate that message into something like a CC that most synths recognize? E.g. Can MIDIBridge do it?
Thanks to all on some of the additional "tricks" with velocity messages. I'm looking forward to playing around with that.
@SuperNiCD - MidiBridge can remap CCs.
@funjunkie27 - Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure neither channel pressure nor aftertouch are CC messages. They are controllers, but mapped differently than CCs 1-127. Pitchbend is implemented similarly (it is its own MIDI message). So just wondering if MIDIBridge (or anything) can also remap those messages to a CC.
Looks like someone else asked the same question (and got an answer) over at the MidiBridge forum
If they're not CCs, I don't know. I'll try to take a look later on today.
Btw one of the stupid bits of the MIDI spec is that velocity isn't mapped on a CC but instead a separate thing that goes with every midi note.
Stupid? Surely having a different velocity for each note is essential?
@snoopy - thanks, looks like I have an answer, and that the post was just updated a few minutes ago with instructions on how to remap this with one command! I see Midibridge in my future!
Yeah but I think it would be more clear if it was just another CC that could be triggered with each individual note. I dunno... MIDI still confuses me.
@Sebastion - on the bright side, many synths (virtual and otherwise) seem to expose velocity as a controller that can modulate things. So from an end user perspective anyway, making velocity affect something (volume or otherwise) is usually a pretty simple config...
As far as I know, the MIDI spec has not changed and no other standard has managed to replace it since the 1980s when it was invented, so those guys must have known what they were doing! :-P
I was thinking soft velocity is related to ADSR, softer notes will have longer attack, is it something like that?
No, although many synths will allow it to be mapped to that. And many other mod targets.
If you think of a synth as a mixer with a channel input per polyphonic voice, then MIDI Volume is the Master, and each voice has its own level pad and fader into that mix; the pad is set by the note velocity at the start of playing the voice, and the fader is moved by the ADSR after that while the voice is sounding.
Here's a quick and dirty example, using Nave since I'm betting most people here have that.
Initialize a patch and choose something with a lot of spectral content for W1 - I used the Saw Sync 1 wave table. With Naves keyboard, notes struck near the bottom of the key have the highest velocity, striking near the top will have the lowest. So you can observe that keys struck near the bottom are louder than those touched near the top of the key.
Interestingly, Nave doesn't have a control to remove the effect of velocity on the notes volume (at least that I've found), but you can minimize it. Go the the mod & keys page, and turn on the first mod slot, blue light on. Source: velocity, amount -0.6 or so, Destination Wave 1 Mix. Now you should notice that the volume of the note is roughly consistent whether you strike it at the top or the bottom of the key. Not 100% perfect but the impact of velocity on volume is greatly reduced.
Now, map velocity to something else. Go to the Filter & Env page. Turn on an LP filter, 24db. Set the cutoff to around 1400. If you strike a key now, it should sound a lot less bright.
Finally go to back to the mod & keys page. Turn on the second mod slot. Source: velocity, Amount: 1.0, Destination: Cutoff. Now when you strike a key at the bottom, it has a very bright sound, strike it at the top and it warms up. They should both be at about the same volume although the brighter version might sound louder as it has more high frequency content. If you play through a connected MIDI keyboard then notes played "softly" should be warmer, and as you strike keys hard, the filter opens up.