I have a question about the velocity adjustments I’m trying to make using the note velocity option in the lower zone.
The instrument is a Marimba that I added using Kontakt as the VST. (I have set the plugin to ignore controllers - so volume is not an issue here as opposed to velocity)
The notes are playing back with a very wide dynamic range for some reason - some loud, some soft. The application of a dynamic affects the overall level, but not the discrepancy between the individual notes.
First question - when I am entering notes with a MIDI keyboard - are those velocities being recorded? If so, can I turn that off? I would rather add ‘humanization’ after entry than use my extremely imperfect human note entry velocities.
So I selected the uneven notes and tried using the velocity option in the lower zone. But it seems to only have 5 or 6 actual velocity levels. Going from 84-89 changes nothing and then at 90 it is suddenly much louder. I am using the default expression map here.
Second question: why is the velocity option in the lower zone not giving me 128 discreet levels of velocity?
The dynamics could be due to the dynamic curve that is set. This is adjustable for each Expression Map so that you can best match it with your VSTs. Send me an empty file and I can check it out.
I thought there was an option about the velocity input (something about “preserving”) but I can’t seem to find anything.
I’m assuming (without knowing which VST you’re using) that there are possibly two things at play here:
If you use Pitch Contour Emphasis in the Playback options–>Dynamics then there will be a difference between all the notes according to the rise and fall of the melodic line. Disable this if it’s making life difficult.
The difference between 89 and 90 almost certainly means that a new dynamic level is being triggered by your instrument at exactly that point. Some libraries are better than others at managing the transitions. No library has 128 different dynamic levels – if you need to manage the transition between abrupt changes, then you may need to also use a secondary controller such as CC7 Master volume
If you’re using step input to enter notes with a MIDI keyboard as I do, the actual played velocities will not normally be taken into account by Dorico.
I am ONLY using step input. But when I look at the velocities in the Play window, they are varied by about 7 or 8 levels. I am NOT using the Pitch Contour Emphasis in the Playback options. There is a single dynamic on the passage in question.
This is for the Marimba in the Kontakt Factory orchestral library. It probably has a less than subtle switch to a different sample at some point. But my concern is the discrepancy in velocities that is occurring during step input.
Is there some ‘humanize’ function at work here in Dorico?
I also found a suggestion elsewhere in the forum:
You can do Play > Reset Playback Overrides to remove the played performance of the notes you input in real-time, or those that come from MIDI import.
But still, I’d rather not have to go clean up velocities all the time from step-entered notation.
did you check that all other forms of humanisation such as beat stress are also disabled in the Dynamics Playback Properties? If they are then there should be no difference at all in the dynamics between dynamic markings and we’d need to see a sample score to work out what’s happening.