Topic: Dynamics control

I want to reduce the difference in loudness between notes marked "piano" and notes marked "forte" and assumed I could readily do this by reducing the level on the Dynamics control in Pianoteq PLAY. However, even if I change from a low value such as 20 to a much higher one such as 100 there is no noticeable change. Is there some way to address this?

Thanks.

Re: Dynamics control

pelleas wrote:

I want to reduce the difference in loudness between notes marked "piano" and notes marked "forte" and assumed I could readily do this by reducing the level on the Dynamics control in Pianoteq PLAY. However, even if I change from a low value such as 20 to a much higher one such as 100 there is no noticeable change. Is there some way to address this?

Thanks.

Answer = Velocity Curve!!! What keyboard do you own?
go to pianoteq home page, click 'community' then click 'velocity curves'. Choose your make of keyboard and then pick a suggested curve for your keyboard model. Once you get the idea of how the velocity curves effect the dynamics you will probably want to create your 'perfect curve! I've spent month and months tweaking, adjusting and modifying and have finally found my own personal 'perfect' curve for my CP33. Worth all the effort because now my piano keyboard 'feels' and sounds like a piano should sound and feel. All the best and if I can be of any assistance, let me know,

Chris.

Re: Dynamics control

Thanks, Chris. I will definitely try out any velocity curves available for my Novation keyboard and find out what works best. However, even a straight line from midi 0=p to midi 127=f is already giving me results much closer to what I want.

Re: Dynamics control

Pelleas, just some precisions, sorry if I seem to tell evident things:

A) When setting the dynamics to the minimum (1 dB), you have no more volume variations (well, only 1dB), but you still have the full timbre variation which itself, for psychoacoustic reasons, can be interpreted by our brain as a volume variation (because we automatically associate a certain loudness to a given timbre)

B) When setting the velocity curve to a straight horizontal line, the notes are always played at the same velocity, thus loudness AND timbre are now constant.

Selecting A or B depends of course on the desired effect.

Re: Dynamics control

Guillaume, Thanks for the additional information. It is most helpful to understand basic principles clearly if we want to know how to get particular sounds and to understand why we hear what we do and your advice helps me to do this.

Mike P.

Re: Dynamics control

My apologies, Philippe! I didn't realize until too late that I had used your surname rather than first name in my last message.

Mike P.

Re: Dynamics control

That's really not a problem: both Guillaume and Philippe are first names so I am very used to this