How to attenuate incoming midi velocity?
French
United StatesPosts: 10
Hello, I'm trying to use an external sequencer with the Deluge but all patches sound blown out or distorted. I don't have a way to lower the default midi velocity my sequencer sends.
After some research on this forum, I tried a few things:
1. Turning down the default velocity in the global menu. That seems to only affect note played on the Deluge, not incoming midi.
2. Changing the master level of each patch. That methods seems to lowered the volume of the blown out notes (they are still blow outs, just not as loud haha).
3. I tried using an external controller (QuNexus Red) and still getting blown out notes when I hit the pads hard.
When I look at YouTube videos of people hooking up external keyboards, they don't seem to have that problem so I must be doing something wrong. Any ideas?
Thank you.
Best Answer
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reza
los angelesPosts: 611
firmware 4.0.0 introduced midi velocity defaults, which is different than velocity default that you mentioned.
in the menu > midi > devices > (din, usb) > velocity. change from OFF to something like 10 or 15 so velocity doesn't impact the max volume as much.
basically what this does is override the 'master level' of a synth/kit row being modulated by velocity and sets it to the number you have set it to in the previously discussed menu.
before changing the menu value, you can also just hit SHIFT+MASTER LEVEL then SHIFT+VELOCITY and adjust the amount from 0-50 and see where you find the right sweet spot for velocity of a given patch. if you set it to 0, velocity has no impact on volume.
Answers
i have to do it the other way around b/c my Alpha Juno 1 is not velocity sensitive, but i use it to sequence other gear that is. i got a Yamaha volume foot pedal which allows me to dial in whatever velocity i want on the gear that AJ1's keyboard is sequencing into Deluge (though even any old non-velocity sensitive keyboard should output 64 MIDI velocity as a default)
I'm not getting the results I would expect but I will do some more exploring with the settings you mentioned this weekend, thank you!
sounds good! also, another simple solution is to just lower the volume of the synth/kit sounds that are clipping, either via the Level Gold Knob, or by adjusting down osc1 level, osc2 level, and/or master level parameters
I have experienced this too. There's no standard for what a normal velocity corresponds to in MIDI, and so manufacturers (and synth patch designers) do whatever works with their gear. But even so, some folks play soft and some play hard.
The default velocity on the Deluge seems to be 64, halfway up the 0-127 range, so the synth patches are designed around that, AFAIK. I have a keyboard where a normal hit plays at MIDI velocity = 100, and Deluge patches all seem "loud" when played by it -- this could be your case.
With (many?) controllers, you can change the velocity response curves. Or, as @reza mentions, you can tweak the Deluge's overall velocity scaling for the same effect. These approaches might lower dynamic range, but they can keep you from blowing the sounds out.
There are also MIDI volume/velocity re-scaler hardware gadgets out there. (No experience.)
Or you can get deep into individual patches and lower at least their initial oscillator volumes and velocity scaling to match what your keyboard is putting out. This is probably the best way, but it's patch- and player- and controller-dependent: if you have a patch that adds distortion when you play "hard", you need to know what "hard" means.
That's a lot of work for a lot of patches, though. And if you switch among multiple controllers...
So yeah. It's tricky.