I want to reduce audio peaks by pinpointing the original midi velocity peaks that cause them.  

 
Easy way is to render an audio file from your midi and examine the audio file to see WHEN exactly the peaks occur.   Then you can find the corresponding midi velocity peaks and lower those midi velocities.
 
Easy but crude.    Is there a faster (dedicated program or vst) way to find the velocity peaks in a midi file that correspond to (cause) peak in the rendered audio file?
 
 

Hey there, in Track View go to Options/Meter Options/ click on 'Show Track Peak Markers'  Carry On

You could always pop the midi velocity plug-in on the offending midi track and set velocity to a percentage less than 100% - sometimes this will do instead of tracking down the offending notes. It all depends on the material.

Thanks for the quick responses.
 
I'm wanting to drop just the occasional velocity to kill any spikes in the resulting audio, because the spikes limit normalization (where you're normalizing the WHOLE file.)  An overall vel reduction would affect all the velocities, which is sometimes not what you want.
I'll do the Options/Meter Options/ thing.   But you can see how it might be useful to make a program that takes the audio peaks and shows where appox. in the midi file the offending note velocities are. 

Wouldn't it be easiest/fastest just to check the velocity bars in the piano roll view? Or are there so many tracks that
it's more practical to go via audio wave?

Kalle Rantaaho
Wouldn't it be easiest/fastest just to check the velocity bars in the piano roll view? Or are there so many tracks that
it's more practical to go via audio wave?

That's the thing: In many cases a midi velocity peak does not always correspond to an audio peak in the rendered audio file!  

In X3 and other Cakewalk DAWs, there is a Show Waveform button next to the Mute and Solo buttons (looks like an audio waveform) in a soft synth audio track. Clicking that and playing the song all the way through will show the peaks. Then you can open the PRV of the MIDI track and lower the corresponding MIDI velocities.
I don't have the latest version, but they wouldn't remove such a handy feature, would they?

57Gregy
In X3 and other Cakewalk DAWs, there is a Show Waveform button next to the Mute and Solo buttons (looks like an audio waveform) in a soft synth audio track. Clicking that and playing the song all the way through will show the peaks. Then you can open the PRV of the MIDI track and lower the corresponding MIDI velocities.
I don't have the latest version, but they wouldn't remove such a handy feature, would they?

Yup,  makes sense.  But I'm not sure this is in 8.5.   What I do--and it takes too long--is freeze, normalize (to bring up the peaks), and match visually against the midi file.   Works, but kinda slow.  
 
Being of Scottish descent ("Grant" as in "Whiskey"), the prospect of laying out a single a nickel for yet another upgrade eats me up.  
 
Oh... almost forgot... good stuff at your sites!

 I described how to do "MIDI limiting" in a previous Tip of the Week - cuts peaks, leaves everything below untouched. But I don't have 8.5 installed any more so don't know how to do it in that version.

If I'm understanding correctly, the challenge is that the audio is rendered from a multitrack MIDI file/project, so the net audio level is the sum of levels from different MIDI instruments.
 
If that's the case, there's no magic bullet to identify which event in which MIDI track is making the greatest contribution to a given peak.
 
I would (and often do) use some combination of the following approaches to put a lid on 'outlier' velocities:
 
- Solo and visually scan velocity levels in the PRV controller pane of individual tracks to find and lower outliers.
- Use HiVel.CAL to find the highest note velocity in a track.
- Use Process > Find/Change (or MIDI FX) to narrow the velocity range of overly dynamic performances.
- Use the Timbre Detection and Isolation function of Human Auditory Input Devices (a.k.a. 'ears') to identify which instrument is contributing the most to peaks, and adjust MIDI velocities (or use volume automation/compression/limiting) to lower the peak levels of that instrument.