MIDI Velocity Very Low

[tpantano]

The velocity of my R3 seems very low in my DAW... I have the DAW turned up to max keyboard sensitivity, yet still the R3 keypresses are barely detected.

For example, when I play a piano softsynth in the DAW, the volume indicator moves up very little- even with max track and master settings.

This is fine for live playing as I can turn my speakers up, but for recording, mixes will sound weird.

[axxim]

Hi,

The keyboard velocity (KV) has not automatically to affect the volume. The KV is a value that like an EG, LFO, etc. can be assigned to several parameters like Amp, Filter, Modulation, Timbre-mix etc.

Usually it is used to increase the volume like in a piano but also to change the characteristic of the sound (i.e. harder) and depending on the sinth inclusive to change the timbre, sound or layer and so forth

The R3 can have different response curves for the KV which can be set under P40 Global-A/VelCurve (see also the manual to this setting).

If the volume of your DAWs-piano is low it may be a setting of the instrument itself.

You can check easily the KV values your R3 is sending when you record a MIDI track with the R3, play different velocities (soft to hard) on your R3 and then inspect the midi events that were recorded. How to check this depends on the recording software you are using. If the values increase and go near 127 (maximum) then the R3 is ok. If the results are not satisfactory for you, try a diferent KV curve. Maybe the actual KV curve is set to a fixed value or a very flat one

[tpantano]

My bluff. I realized after I posted, wait, MIDI is a digital signal, how could it possibly vary?

The particular softsynth i was using has a virtual keyboard on screen, so i set every click to be 127 velocity, and behold, it was still soft.

Guess it is the synth!