When someone talks about left and right hand in the context of a piano it's likely he literally means hands, as in the left hand plays on the bass side and the right hand on the treble side of the keyboard. That's not at all the same as left and right channel of the stereo image (even if the piano is mic'd player perspective, bass notes still also sound on the right stereo side and vice versa). Note velocity is the correct way to handle this.

Another (but likely more involved) approach is possible if the piano instrument in use has a means to attenuate the sounds triggered by lower notes. Or you use separate piano instrument plugins for the notes of left and right hand.

CJaysMusic

what is IYO the fastest easiest way to take a piano midi track (using Cake real piano or equiv.) and adjust the volume between the right and left hand

Hey Mike, i just tried this with the channel tools and i can raise the just the left and right channel and i can lower just the left or right channel.

 

Of course you can... that's how the channel tool works.






The point is that the left and right hand of the piano player are not split to the left and right channels of the stereo playback.

People play pianos with their hands; a left one and right one.




By the time the piano track is playing back in stereo 2 track audio it's a blended sound of a piano and all the channel tools will do is that thing you just said.




You can split up the midi a bunch of different ways and work on just the left hand or the right hand parts.

You can even do it in the.... gasp.... staff view!!!



Happy New Year.

best regards,
mike


       

OK I tried what I thought was a easy way to control both right and left hand (not channel) volumes. I copied the midi track, Deleted the right hand notes from the one track and the left hand from the other track.Problem is the "volume slider" on the midi tracks don't work as expected (surprise). One didn't do anything while the other pulled both track volumes down/up. Do I have to change channels or something to do this? Of course it couldn't be as easy as I was trying to make it. I'm pretty good with audio but don't have a ton of experience with cake's handling of midi.This just seems like it should just work. Update: Of course If I opened 2 pianos synths and sent each hand to a separate synth/ output it works fine using the synth's audio out to regulate the volumes. Why do the midi sliders not work like a slider should ? Is there a way I can do this with just one synth & two tracks?

this is pure midi at work - not an error by any means.  you can have separate midi channels running to a vst but any volume or pan messages on those channels are going to the same plugin, so there is only one volume or pan, etc. setting allowed at a time.  the only thing i know of that can do what you're asking of right now is a daw and synth that supports vst3 standards - i.e. cubase.  the newest version has per-note settings for ccs, etc. http://www.steinberg.net/...ression.html#/nxp_demo

in sonar all you can do is duplicate the plugin and send the left and right hand notes to separate instances of the plugin.   or, if you're using dimension pro for example, you could set it to multitimbral and copy a piano sfz into a second element - then you would have duplicate elements not eating up any more memory with notes for left hand going to channel 1 in dp and right hand going to channel 2.  you would control the volume of the elements via automation or midi learn.  cc7 for overall volume in dp would adjust both hands. 

hth



what softsynth are you using btw?

Figures. Seems like things that should just easily work. SO if yo have more than one track going to a vst one track slider works them all?? In TTS you can have a bunch of tracks with volume control over each but not true pianos? This just baffles me as to why it wouldn't/shouldn't work. My setup is simply 2 midi tracks (attempting) to go into 1x true pianos and have easy quick volume control over both tracks.

yeah that's why vst3 is being actively developed.  steinberg are the leaders in that area far and away.  with true pianos you need separate instances of the plugin - which i actually like because it gives me more control over the output. it's a vst design limitation not a sonar limitation.  here's a sample file with dimpro pianos if you're interested:
https://skydrive.live.com...d=5DBE71A770FCC390!314  it's pianoLRhand.cwp.  sonar x2a version.

xxxsoundxxx


Figures. Seems like things that should just easily work. SO if yo have more than one track going to a vst one track slider works them all?? In TTS you can have a bunch of tracks with volume control over each but not true pianos? This just baffles me as to why it wouldn't/shouldn't work. My setup is simply 2 midi tracks (attempting) to go into 1x true pianos and have easy quick volume control over both tracks.

TTS is a multi-timbral synth, so it's like sixteen synths stuck together.  True Pianos is mono-timbral.  You could not have two midi volume sliders controlling one channel of TTS, only two separate channels (the equivalent of two separate synths).  In the same way you need two instances of True Pianos to get the same effect.
 
I use two instances of TP if I want to control relative left/right hand volume, and split the midi track.

Thank you everybody & JB,That confirms what I will have to do. I had really thought there was just something simple I wasn't setting right,but I never considered the limitation of only allowing one input track to be the cause.

What do you mean "each hand?" 

Each midi track is for a specific set of notes?  
Do you mean left and right channels (stereo) with low notes on the left,... as is output by a piano patch?
 
Most current piano keyboards have velocity selectable curves to accommodate playing style.
 
'''''
From an audience's point of view a piano is a mono source with the room deciding the "feeling" of stereo placement. It is a strange sound to have a piano spread wide. Same with drums.
 

I mean Your actual right and left hand. I don't want to spread them I just want instant control over the balance of the two. Sounds easy right?. I recorded a midi track and the right hand notes got a little loud. I could just select them and drag down or enter new velocities but I want to make the adjustment real time like using mixing sliders so I don't have to go back and forth undoing if something isn't' right or later it needs to change to suit added tracks.