Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards My (definitive?) velocity curve. What do you use on your DP?

lol at the convexatious caving.

Yours is the closest curve to what makes sense to me that is required for a Kawai DP. Did you go through various versions of your curve via trial and error, or did you just create a shape that made most sense to you and that just works?

LOL! That's happen to be almost the same of my last curve I made today (that's a little more gradual than my previous one):



What DP you use?

It's reassuring to see people converging around these S curves. They've also tended to be my favourite, with the initial slope enabling a decent pianissimo range and the reverse slope of the "s" making it easy to play forte with just a little more effort. Classic/default "light" and "heavy" curves, being either convex or concave all the way, end up punishing you on one end for rewarding you on the other. Still, lately I've been experimenting with a kind of hybrid curve -- a "double U" -- that attempts to be consistent by replicating the U of the bottom end at the top end too:

[img]https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ej4d7v1zq2dsse/Screen%20Shot%202019-09-08%20at%2012.19.57%20PM.png?dl=0[/img]

I'm still trying to figure which style (S or double-U) I prefer or if it just depends on my mood or the style I'm playing.

It seems that my heavy hands need either (a) more skill or (b) a slow-rise at the low end of the touch curve. The latter is cheap, easy ... and lazy.

I sometime push upward the high end of the curve because this keyboard will not go much above 100. So I never get 127 with the curve I'm using now. But I don't think it's a big deal.

This is typical with most DP's I've seen, whether Yamaha, Roland, Kawai or others. So if I was using an NU1 or N1X, I'd be playing the same velocity curve games while using Garritan CFX.

Some "MIDI controller" keyboards seem to take pains to ensure that 127 is reachable (which makes sense), but the norm for DPs seems to be a "normal" velocity curve that tops out between 90-115. Which I think it's perfectly fine if the DP is designed around that, but as you mentioned, VSTs don't usually cap out there.

I recall in some vintage DPBSD threads there are some DPs that have an extra timbre layer that is completely unreachable with local control because the DP can't be set to reach the highest velocities.

I can't speak to many other Kawai DPs. The MP11 was similar to the NV-10 in this regard, and I don't know if there was anything changed with the NV-10 specifically. It could be I just don't have a particularly sensitive touch to be able to tell what you noticed?



I practice on a lot of different grands and uprights weekly, and I feel the normal curve with internal sound engine is perfectly fine on the NV-10 (whereas switching to light or light+ creates a too-loud/sensitive touch). At least for me, it's perfectly within the expected range a pianist would expect if sitting down and playing spontaneously. That's just me though, and of course there are customization options for a reason

Magicpiano...why does your midi velocity curve start almost to 0?, Acoustic pianos have silent key midi velocity, as we discuss in other post,.My custom midi velocity curve stars on 17, it´s precisely to simulate the acoustic pianos behavior. On acoustic pianos it takes effort to play pp or even p and on upright pianos it is more difficult...it's a matter of piano technique, control touch and practice and practice!!...if you want to improve your piano technique you cannot replace this by modifying the midi velocity curve, this is my advice!!!

Best regards!!

Then I have a question. I thought the MIDI velocities are being used to exactly simulate a piano. Are you saying that a real acoustical piano can't produce the "equivalent" of a MIDI velocity of "1"? Or are you saying a great deal of difficulty is needed to produce that dynamic on a real piano? Because if the latter, then indeed the curve should be set to be able to generate that value, but the "S" shape needs to be more pronounced to make produce it. Truncating it at "17" is the equivalent of say that no matter how carefully one plays the keys, values of 1-16 are just not producible on the piano.

I also have a follow on question- if the equivalent of MIDI values of 1-16 are just not produceable on an acoustic piano, then why are there samples for those velocities in many sampled VSTs such as VSL? How can VSL produce those levels to be sampled if they aren't produceable on a real acoustic?

Tyrone Slothrop... A MIDI velocity of 1 is not enough to accelerate the hammer and hit the strings...

http://www.ofai.at/~werner.goebl/papers/Goebl-Bresin_JASA2003_reproAccuracy.pdf

from https://nickleusmusic.blogspot.com/2013/07/midi-dynamics-note-velocity-values-for.html


MIDI dynamics note velocity values for ppp (piano pianissimo), pp (pianissimo), p (piano), mp (mezzo-piano), mf (mezzo-forte), f (forte), ff (fortissimo) and fff (forte fortissimo)
MIDI velocity values range from 0-127. According to the Apple Logic Pro 9 User Manual for MIDI Step Input Recording, here are the velocity values for the eight traditional dynamic (volume) indicators:
ppp: 16
pp: 32
p: 48
mp: 64
mf: 80
f: 96
ff: 112
fff: 127



where ppp is the softest and fff is the loudest.

Acoustic pianos don't produce MIDI velocity 1. Nor 17. Not any MIDI value at all. There is a just a range of hammer velocity.
The sound you get from any given hammer velocity depends on the piano. On the hammer voicing. On a multitude of other factors.

Similarly the sound you get from a given digital MIDI velocity depends on the piano. And the settings. And the chosen voice. And the volume control. And on and on.

So you cannot equate hammer velocity to MIDI velocity. There is no equivalence ... other than the fact that both types of piano have a lower limit ... no hammer movement produces no sound.

I imagine that the midi velocity of 1 in VSL Synchron Pianos is the first one that exceeds the silent hammer point, for this reason, my velocity curve on VSL CFX or D-274 starts on 17. You should be able to hit the piano key ( on your N1X), and feel the movement of the hammer without producing sound, as in an acoustic piano-I do it on NU1 !!-

Ok MacMacMac...I will say it another way,the minimum velocity needed by the hammer to hit the strings is not generated by a midi velocity curve of 1 on computer controllled grand pianos!!!

Just so that I am clear. From the above anything up 15 is silent. 16-31 is ppp and so on to ff which goes from 112-126 and has only 15 values compared to the others below it which have 16. But even stranger is fff which has only the one value 127. Good luck with getting that, though I suppose a player could just pound on the keys to always hit them harder than the maximum value. Just as long as the keyboard does not break.

Unless you change the velocity curve (if there is one).

Similarly a MIDI velocity of 1 is not enough to produce sound from a digital piano or VST ... unless you change the velocity curve.

This only makes sense if the VST and sound generator engineers also use a starting point of 17. How do we know their softest sound is at a MIDI velocity of 17 and not a MIDI velocity of 1? Perhaps we should ask them and the Pianoteq folks. I'm not doubtful about the theory. I'm doubtful about the value at the boundary.

Ok Tyrone Slothrop... Vsl CFX is a Yamaha Disklavier ENSPIRE PRO from https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Synchron_Pianos_Bundle/Yamaha_CFX

¨´The Yamaha CFX is a beautiful hand-crafted, full size 275 cm (9’) concert grand that represents the pinnacle of the manufacturer's tradition of piano crafting. We captured this beauty in the marvellous enviroment of Stage A of our newly refurbished scoring stage, Synchron Stage Vienna. Our very own instrument is equipped with Yamaha’s award-winning performance reproducing system “Disklavier ENSPIRE PRO“ that guaranteed utmost precision, resolution and consistency during the entire recording process¨´

If you read this :

http://yamahaden.com/resources-2/item/363-the-disklavier-reproducing-piano-as-a-midi-instrument

¨´The Disklavier’s Unique Velocity Profile
The acoustic portion of the Disklavier has a unique velocity profile. Sending note-on messages with velocities outside of the “boundaries” of human performance yields poor or even unintended results.

The MIDI specification offers a range of note-on velocities from 0-127, with the value 0 having the same meaning as note-off. In the case of digital instruments, higher note-on velocities mean louder sound and often brighter timbre.

In the case of the Disklavier, note-on velocities are related to the speed of the hammer as it strikes the strings. The hammer speed, of course, determines the resulting loudness and brightness of sound.

MIDI files recorded on the Disklavier itself will typically have note-on velocities in the range of 30-90. If the performance has wide-ranging dynamics from ppp to fff, the range may go from 20-25 up to 105-110. In “normal” playing, notes in the velocity range above 90 rarely occur unless supported by other notes that form a chord.¨

then, do you still think that the minimum midi velocity curve that VSL CFX played is below 16? when It is not physically possible

I have been investigating this since I tried VST PMI Bosendorfer on my Yamaha S90XS years ago!!

That just sounds like a particular scale Yamaha decided to implement on the Diskclavier. It's not based on any kind of universal MIDI scale (there's no such thing). If Yamaha's values under 17 are silent, and FFF goes to 110, then you could just slide the scale to the left and make it 2-94 instead. Or 34-127. Which values are silent and which are maxed out are arbitrarily selected by the particular hardware or software maker, without any bearing on what another may choose.

Gombesa...If it is a particular scale - as you say - and it is wrong VSL Vienna would have used his robot finger as in VSL D-274, but unlike the D-274, VSL CFX piano does not need a correction of its midi mapping curve with an update!!.Furthermore,Yamaha Disklavier pianos have systems self-calibration and The Disklavier PRO is able to capture 1024 levels of velocity of the hammer. In addition, pedal movement must be accurately detected. Disklavier PRO systems capture 256 steps of incremental pedaling.

http://yamahaden.com/resources-2/item/360-system-self-calibration/360-system-self-calibration

I wish we could calibrate our digital pianos with that accuracy!!!

I think you cannot say that the silent key should start at 17, because each acoustic piano is different. For example, from the document you linked before results that the Bosendorfer has a different minimum value (~10) from that Yamaha (~17) necessary for the hammer to hit the string. So, being that probably I will never have the pleasure to play frequently on an acoustic grand, for now I prefer to not lose resolution in my MIDI curve. I already lose resolution in mapping a digital linear curve to a digital not-linear one, so I don't want further resolution reductions.

And who says that a velocity value of X means exactly the same key press speed (in m/s) on every digital keyboard action out there? This would mean that keyboard actions from different manufacturers give all the same raw values from the same key press speed and I'm sure this is not the case. And we don't know how the raw values from the sensors are mapped to 1-127.

Anyway, I'll be happy with a curve that make it possible (with adeguate training) to play consistently in ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff and make it possible (for a human, not a robot hand) to gradually increase speed from a velocity to another, without sudden and unwanted jumps.

I agree.
VSL and, if I remember correctly, any other VSTi I have owned, responds happily to velocity 1 and if the lower velocities should be mute or not seems to depend on the particular digital piano.
I use a different velocity curve for each virtual piano as they respond quite differently to the full velocity scale.
Likewise, on the same VSTi I had to use different curves with different digital pianos - be it Roland, Yamaha or Kawai.

I use my acoustic to calibrate the velocity curve - so it is not a scientifically accurate approach - but I'm sure I would have different curves if I used a different acoustic piano!

What I am saying is that on Yamaha NU1 to simulate the behavior of the Yamaha B1 acoustic piano (similar action) and that I can to move the hammer without sound (silent key behavior), my custom midi velocity curve start on 17, nothing more!!.On the other hand, there is a logarithmic relationship between the speed of the hammer and the midi velocity curve .. but .. not comments.. my custom midi velocity curve is perfect for my NU1, every week my professor from the Conservatory of Music comes to play it!!

Best Regards!!