I often have a midi recording where the velocity is all over the map. AFAIK, my only options are to increase/decrease absolute velocity values as a group with the edit tool or the velocity dialog. or else drag over them from the velocity pane in PRV. I end up spending huge amounts of time editing velocities note by note, by seeking out the outliers and editing them one by one. Ugh!
 
But what I want is to leave some of the velocity variance in there, just way less than I played. How can I quantize velocity the same way I quantize midi start times and durations? I want to be able to "compress" the velocities so there is less variance. Then I can change the absolute velocities using one of the methods I already know. Is this possible?

 
Sounds like a situation for a little CAL program.  Shouldn't be hard to throw together, but I'm not in a position yet to tell you how as that sort of thing is still on my to-do list.
 
 

Ignore the following... I didn't read the last part about keeping some of the nuances but I'll leave it up in case someone else finds it useful. What I would do is set a minimum and maximum velocity threshold on the MIDI track so the incoming notes remain within that range. I believe this can be done in the Track Inspector. I don't know how you would do it after recording. Sorry.
 
My initial post:
 
I'm pretty sure you can just select all the notes you want to change then use the that MIDI Event Module thingie (add it to the Control Bar) to change them all at once.
 
So lasso all the notes or do a range select or whatever, then the Event Inspector (I forget its exact name but I think that's it) dialogs will all clear (because it is dealing with multiple notes) and you just need to type in the velocity you want the notes to be and they'll change.
 
Scott Garrigus has a video about this up over at Digifreq that shows how to do this. I can try to dig it up if you need.

I just draw them in PRV with the draw tool.

Have you tried the MIDI FX "Velocity MIDI FX"? There you change the velocity in different ways. Set limits or scale the velocity. And by inserting it in the effects bin you can set it in real time to control the effect.

Interesting thread. It's not something I've tried to do yet in Sonar but I know it's easily achievable in Reason so I'd be surprised if it can't be done in Sonar.  

finalymetten
Have you tried the MIDI FX "Velocity MIDI FX"? There you change the velocity in different ways. Set limits or scale the velocity. And by inserting it in the effects bin you can set it in real time to control the effect.

+1 - all except the FX bin.  I would suggest you make your selection, maybe an entire track, and run the plugin so you have your track permanently the way you want it.  It's limiting the range of velocities that you're wanting to do.
 
Randy

You can compress MIDI data using the same concepts as analog compression. I believe there are also CAL scripts to do this.
 
1. Use Velocity Scale or the MIDI Velocity plug-in and multiply the notes by a percentage that correlates to the amount you want to compress. For example for 2:1 compression, multiply by 50%. For 3:1 compression, multiply by 33%.
2. This is like applying a compression ratio, but now you need "makeup gain." Use the MIDI Velocity plug-in's Change function to add a positive number.
 
Here's a practical example. Suppose the original maximum velocity value was 120 and the minimum was 40 (a spread of 80). When you scale these by 50%, the maximum becomes 60 and the minimum, 20. If you add 40 to these values, the maximum will now be 100 and the minimum will be 60. This is a spread of 40 - yup, 2:1 compression   If you add 20, then you'll still have 2:1 compression as the max will be 80 and the min will be 40 - again, a spread of 40 compared to the original 80.
 
The highest notes are lower and the lowest notes are higher, thus evening out the dynamic range.

Process > Find/Change. Enter the original range, and then the target range.  The trick is to know the high and low velocity of the existing range. There are HiVel and LoVel CALs that will give you this. If you guess the starting range, or use 0-127 you may end up moving the mean velocity in a way you don't intend.

brundlefly
The trick is to know the high and low velocity of the existing range.

For short passages the event list might do the job.