Question about "compressing" MIDI notes using a drum map

2013/03/06 19:46:35

jaunderw

I am using Sonar X1 PE with a Simmons SD Xpress v-drum connected to my DAW via USB MIDI. The drum pads on the SD Xpress are low quality, with each pad having a hot spot in the center. That is, if you hit dead center on the pad, you get a MIDI note with decent velocity, but if you hit the pad slightly off center, then there is a significant drop-off in the MIDI note velocity. The problem gets worse as you hit closer to the edge of a pad.

What I would like to do is use a drum map to "compress" the velocities of the MIDI notes so that there isn't a huge dynamic range between the hot spot and the edge of the drum pad, and then boost the "gain" of the compressed notes.

The Sonar documentation seems to indicate that I can do this using the V Scale parameter to compress the MIDI Note velocities and the Vel+ parameter to add a velocity offset to boost the velocities. What is says is:

"The V Scale value sets a level of compression or expansion. A value below 100% is compression. A value above 100% is expansion. The Vel+ setting allows for gain make-up."

However, after attempting to compress and then boost the velocity values, it appears to me that Sonar is boosting the velocities first and then compressing them. Does anyone know in which order the processing actually happens? That is, which of the following is the correct processing sequence that Sonar uses:

input -> V+ -> V Scale -> output
input -> V Scale -> V+ -> output

Any insight on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

jaunderw

2013/03/07 03:41:34

Bristol_Jonesey

You might want to consider just going with what you've recorded, bounce to audio & compress the audio

Though something at the back of my mind says there's a CAL script for this somewhere (Midi compression)

I'm not at my DAW so I can't help any further

2013/03/07 04:04:09

Kalle Rantaaho

I recommend doing that in the audio form as well.
Changing the MIDI velocity often changes also the sample that is triggered, which means the whole sound/feel of the drum track changes. Velocity manipulation is not the way to adjust volume/dynamics when you're using samples.

2013/03/07 05:26:26

John

This a great use for the CA2A.

2013/03/07 10:48:27

Dan Cate [Cakewalk]

Hi jaunderw,

You could do the audio compression thing, but I think you may want the velocity option as the sample playing back is velocity switching. I think what you might want is the Velocity plugin on your source MIDI track. There is an option to limit the velocity's threshold and input to get the consistent velocity you need (for example 64-127).

To do this, patch in the Velocity plugin to the MIDi track. Enable the Limit button and move the bottom part of the slider up to scale the input velocities to convert any input velocity below 64 to 64, keeping the ranges for anything above 64. When you're done and you're happy with the results, select the clip and go to Process - Apply Effect - MIDI effect.

This is ultimately more convenient than editing drum map velocity scaling and will let you do this task even without MIDI drum maps.

Hope this helps!
Daniel [Cakewalk]

2013/03/07 15:06:54

jaunderw

Thank you very much Dan, the Velocity plug-in just might be the thing I am looking for. I will give it a try.

However, even though editing the drum map is a pain, it does give me the flexibility of independently compressing and boosting each drum pad velocity. That is really cool, but if the Velocity plug-in can do somthing comparable then that would definitely be the way to go.

Regards,
jaunderw

Question about "compressing" MIDI notes using a drum map

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