Volume Problem - MIDI input too soft

LeShawn,
First, it would be easier to understand your problem if you describe BOTH your MIDI VELOCITY experience AND your audio VOLUME experience.  (Keep in mind that the slider on an audio track controls volume, but the slider on a MIDI track controls velocity.)
 
I have had situations where for some reason, the MIDI velocities were being recorded at a very low level, and I had to increase the velocity on the MIDI track to hear them at a moderate volume on my MIDI synth.
 
If that's the problem you're having, I'm not sure what to tell you, because I never did figure out what was happening then.
 
But if you're recording the MIDI at a moderate-to-strong key velocity, then perhaps the reason you're not hearing it very loud from the synth is that the velocity slider on the MIDI track is turned down, or perhaps SONAR is somehow sending the synth a VOLUME controller code (or some other controller code) that causes it to play softly.
 
There is a different set of possible problems if you're recording MIDI from a hardware controller and playing a softsynth than if you're playing via a hardware synth, and yet another angle on the problem if you compare the sound you hear when playing a hardware synth while recording MIDI with the sound you hear when playing MIDI back.
 
Two things to check when playing MIDI into a track armed for recording:
1. Check to see if the pass-through button is activated.  If it is, then what you play into SONAR will be sent back out to the synth.  I don't know, but it may be that a note going back to the synth right after being played at the keyboard somehow affects the controller negatively.  IN that case, turn off the pass-through.
2. Check the controller's Local On/Off setting.  I had a weird problem with a keyboard that would play just fine with the computer powered up and SONAR loaded, but as soon as I loaded a project into SONAR, it suddenly went silent.  I couldn't hear a thing when I played it.  I think the SONAR project is sending some kind of initialization to the keyboard, and the keyboard is then going into Local off mode, which disconnects the sound module from the keyboard.  In that case, the keyboard will only play sounds when it gets MIDI from SONAR.  I'll have to go into the synth's internal menu and re-enable Local On.  This problem showed up because I was using the keyboard with a different program than SONAR, and it played everying on the keyboard that I entered with the mouse even when it was on a different channel than the one I had set the keyboard to--which is why I turned Local Off at that time, odd as that may sound.   When I turned the equipment off, it reset to Local On, and the next time I played the keyboard I had no problem.  Then I loaded a SONAR project and all of a sudden, the keyboard would'nt play again.  Evidently SONAR was reminding it that I had turned Local Off the previous day. So that's another thing to consider: If you're using more than one computer program with the controller, one of them may have told it to do something that it has remembered and it is still doing that when you're running SONAR.
 
These are just offered in case their helpful.  It sounds like you may be having a different kind of problem, but the MIDI feed-through button in SONAR and the Local ON/OFF setting of your controller would be things to check in any case.
 
Another thing you can check:  After you record MIDI into a track, go into the Piano Roll View for that track.  Look for the velocities in the window as vertical lines.  By looking at these lines you can see at a glance what MIDI velocity is being recorded when you play.  Another way to check the MIDI velocity of the recorded notes (in case they're not visible otherwise) is to right-click on a note in the Piano Roll View, and look at the value in the dialog box that pops up.  If the velocity value is around 100, you've recorded a good mezzo forte or forte--a nice loud sound.  If it's 65 or so, it should still be loud enough to hear distinctly for most kinds of patches.  If it's down at 40 or lower, it might be barely audible for some patches when the volume of the audio gear is fairly low. Once you know what kind of velocities you're recording, you can better understand the nature of the problem you're having.
 
Good luck with it.
 
--thndrsn
 

LeShawnDurellis


Hi,

I have a VirusTI as my controller and I'm having the same problem I have with a much older MIDI keyboard. Basically that when I use an external controller to play soft or hard synths the volume is super low.

Then I have to jack up the volume to play it. But then when I play the song back I have to lower the mains again. This is very frustrating. Why is MIDI input so soft?

Thanks for your help

MIDI velocity can only have a value of 0 to 127. So unless your controller is not using the full range of values, the problem is with the configuration of your audio interface. Check the Windows mixer and the soundcard's mixer / control panel software to see if any of them are set too low.

One thing you might try is to record a midi track playing softly and then playing hard. Open the PRV and look in the velocity controller lane to see what velocity levels are being recorded. You should see a range of 0-127. If not getting these values then maybe there is a velocity curve setting in you controller that would better match you playing. You can also use the vel+ slider in the track view to add velocity.

Also, in PRV view, if you have the controller pane showing, you can select all the notes and then move the vertical line up/down with your mouse to scale the velocity of ALL the notes in the track. Makes for an easy and quick way to scale the velocity up/down without screwing up the dynamics of the part. It scales all the notes up/down together based on which notes you have selected. If they are all selected, then it moves velocity up/down for all the notes together. 
 
gabo