I used to think that velocity sensitivity was the most important thing to have when I bought my first MIDI controller, but now I kind of feel like recording synthesizers at any velocity other than 127 just introduces inconsistencies and unevenness that you'll have to fix with a compressor or something of that nature later.
Not to mention that depending on the kind of patch you've programmed (if it's very abrasive for example) you might want to already have an OTT or similar at varying degrees of wetness on it to mitigate extreme changes in dynamic range.
Now if you want to use velocity as a modulation source then of course it's quite useful, but even then I'd probably still want to disable the velocity controlling the volume.

On the other hand, you'd never want a piano to play at the exact same velocity with every note struck, but then again, the character/timbre of the sound of a piano changes significantly depending on how hard you strike the keys, not just the volume, so that's kind of the equivalent of Velocity = Volume + Modulation.
Furthermore, I tend to think that the dynamics (ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp) are usually already built into the timbre of the patch you've designed, as well as the amp and filter envelopes.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

 

Velocity is usefull for piano and everything that you could play longer than a 4 bars loops, but it doesn't have to be volume all the time. Volume is usually the easy choice made by preset sound designer to mimic the piano velocity, but in real life, a piano velocity is made by how hard the mallet will hit the chord. So it can give a louder/quieter sound, but it's more subtle than that.

To emulate that with a synth, just having the volume on the velocity control is note enough. If you want to consistant play (in volume) but at the same time keep some change that follow the way you play (or just use the velocity as a controler, and edit it after the recording) you can map the velocity to your filter, not necessary from 0 to 100, but it can be just a 20% difference from softer to harder, so it give a little movement.
Distortion can be mapped the same way, that way it can emulate the harder hit, like a piano. Having a little know on the attack mapped the same way is also a good way to add dynamic without the lose/addition of volume on the whole sound.

With those variation, you can already have a good use of velocity to add life and movement and still having a consistant volume.

But as you say, velocity on synth is just another modulation source, so it can be mapped to whatever you want. With DAW we can easily edit it after the recording so you can play your synth and them use the velocity to make small variation (or big variation if you want) in those parameter, or change the decay of a sound or add some chorus on harder note. Velocity was first probably there to emulate the piano sound and its complexity, but it doesn't have to be stuck on that, especially if it's only the volume parameter.

 

Use it how you want. Personally I can not agree with the passage in bold. You don't have to crush all the dynamics out of a performance with a compressor and recording everything at 127 is just a little sad. Besides Velocity is usually tied to more than just volume in most well made synth patches. Is can affect envelope speed, ring mod, filter max, the list goes on with whatever you want to affect timber.

Of course if all you want is a max volume 16th note bass square wave out of any synthesizer, 127 all the way. When all you have is nails, you always reach for a hammer first.

 

Short answer: no

Long answer: velocity, as well as other midi messages, can be assigned to any parameter in a synth, if the synth is programed that way, which should be in 2022.
.........
Answer to your exposé :
If you always encounter this problem of dynamic while velocity is involved, you should check these 3 things:
How the patches are programmed
Does your keyboard respond correctly to your playing
Are you playing correctly

I'm not a great player, but yet have never had this problem.
On the other hand I remember a M Audio keyboard which was so badly conceived that it would always restrict velocity into 40 to 100 range, no matter how hard or soft you would play, so may be your keyboard is doing the contrary, exaggerating velocity.

One solution, if you absolutely want to record into a certain velocity range is to use a midi compressor plugin that will allow you to control/restrict the velocity range.

If you could give the following information, answers could be more accurate:
Which keyboard are you using
Which synth and which patch
Show a midi velocity screenshot of one of your tracks

 

Last edited: May 4, 2022

Your DAW software should have about 3 or more different ways to deal with it. I'd rather capture the data and not need it, if you are recording your playing on a controller. Drawing it in manually is much slower than getting rid of, or editing it.

 

Last edited: May 4, 2022

Most synths have a variety of velocity curves to choose from - but they're not CC dependent.
There is a specific CC controller for Volume = CC7

Velocity is stored in note-on and note-off messages. You usually have to disable velocity at the the sender, very few devices let you filter velocity on the receive end. It is a different beast. You might be confusing amplitude and the ability to trigger other things with velocity curves other than volume of any given note. Without going too deeply, as an example, 'aftertouch' can be triggered at a certain velocity...etc...etc...etc..

Velocity can be altered to touch per user if it is a decent keyboard. Some have a lighter and heavier touch - look in the manual how to set the way it responds.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 4, 2022

Velocity is the volume of one voice not the whole synth, eg you can have different volumes for each not of a chord which can have a dramatic influence of the overall tone

 

I certainly don't like it hardcoded to volume, if that's the question, but depending on the intent of the patch I'm using it is often set to volume, but occasionally an additional filter cutoff boost, sometimes a resonance boost, sometimes it affects the filter envelope size, I even have it set to scale pitch envelope on a few presets (ones that mimic the famous 'what the?' patch work well with this)

But modulation options are a hard 'require' for me on synths, so I don't really use synths that lack the option to modulate just about anything, other than as tonal inspiration for working in ones that do.

 

Problem is, any keyboard is different and has different velocity response, good/bad/non linear,/lacking entire dynamic zones (I experienced this with a very badly midified piano).

If you want to play piano with a weighted keyboard, then you must carefully calibrate velocity curve, and that will influence volume AND envelope of the string blow (it's a tech term for piano), think of dynamics multilayers for sample libraries.

For synths, velocity can affect anything you want to program to, e.g. filter attack, pitch, or any other mappable parameter, or a combination of all.

Or you can just disable it at all and adjust it in daw post.

Use MIDI-OX to check the dynamics and linearity (difficult to get the last one, just by touch and ear) of your keyboard.
For example, my SY-99 couldn't reach 127, only 123 at most, it's a notorious flaw for this keyboard.