Filter Incoming Velocity to manipulate recorded midi velocity?

I guess someone will start accuse me in self advertisement... publishing the same links to my site more then once per day
 
From what I know, there is no way to modify what is recorded into MIDI clip inside Sonar. So whatever is coming on MIDI input is recorded verbatim (the same as with audio). But it is possible to process it on the fly by MIDI FX.  Live: Input -> Track (recording) -> MFX -> Output and on Play Track -> MFX ->Output, so from VSTi/hardware synth on output perspective the result is the same as modification during recording. But in PRV you still see "original" MIDI, there is no way to change that.
 
If you want to "fix" the effect, for example to tweak the result in PRV, you should "bounce" the clip first. There are 3(!) ways to do this, depending on situation:
1) if you apply MFX to clip instead of track, bouncing the clip will apply the effect
2) if you have MFX in the track, you can "Process/Apply effect...", Sonar will ask you either you want to remove the effect after bouncing (to avoid doubling the effect)
3) you can "Process..." clips by effect of choice, note that even in case you already have it in the track, absolutely new effect instance will be used for such processing, so you need to set required effect parameters again (you can save settings into Preset in the track instance and select the preset in processing to speedup that)
 
And now the links:
* with this one you just draw the curve, default (no changes) is linear, for example 50->50. For what you describe, you need another slope, for example 0->0 and 50->30. How it should look like for other regions is up to you:
http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,275.0.html
 
* if still not exactly what you want and you know how to sum two columns in Excel (or have better programming experience...), you can write the algorithm yourself (without leaving Sonar):  http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,286.0.html
 
 

Did you try inserting the Cakewalk mfx midi velocity plugin into the fx bin of the midi track? 

Steve_Karl
As an example what I need is to be able to decrease the incoming velocity range by about 20 to 30 values, making a 50 a 30 or a 20, or maybe even making a certain selectable range of velocities respond one way and an other range respond in a different way.

 

Steve_Karl
But it seems much easier to just scale velocity.

Steve_Karl
It gets the bottom end right but with a loss at the top end.

Either easy or custom. You have asked for multi-range response but prefer just scale, which does not work then. I see a loop there

May be some additional words about AZ Velocity can help. MIDI notes has precisely 128 (if counted with 0) possible velocities. If there is no processing or you see strait diagonal in the plug-in there are no changes. Each column in the graph is one velocity value, and so 1-1, 2-2, ... 50-50 ... 127-127.
Let say I can reasonably well control the range ~ 50-100 while I produce random velocity in the range 20-50 when I want 'p' and random 100-127 when I want 'ff'. In that case, my curve can be:

So, if I produce velocity under 50, it will always be ~25. Then it is linear till 100 (but more "dynamic" or "light" then original). After 100 (output ~115) it is again almost flat.
NOTE: 0 should produce 0! Sonar/VSTi can be confused otherwise (depending from your keyboard).
 
If you want correct "out of velocity" notes only, for example when you hit too hard/too soft some note between other, that requires offline processing and (the program should know previous/next note). Till some degree that is possible to achieve using plug-in in the link two. But that requires programming the algorithm of correction (I have originally put one example here... but I have decided to remove it, we are in music forum.. let me know if you want to try it).