MIDI velocity - bug, or just shoddy?

[Carl Kolchak]

Every once in a while, I'll have to record a live MIDI drum performance, and find out after the recording that the hardwares's velocity curve was not set as dynamically as I would like.

The Kick and the snare might be mostly all pinned on, or around a MIDI velocity value of 126 / 127.

In order to fix my mistake (rather than have the artist re-record their performance), I'll open the MIDI velocity events window, select a range of velocities (say, 119 - 127 for example), tick the "Limit Range" box, and hit "Randomise".

It seems, without fail, regardless of whether the strength is set to 100%, or 0%, all of the selected notes will move to the same velocity value (somewhere within the range I specified).

There is no randomisation whatsoever, other than which single value it is that they all change to.

Subsequently pressing "Randomise" another dozen or so times might make one or two notes move to different values, but for the most part there is no randomisation, just a uniform shift to a different overall value.

This function has never worked for me, regardless of PT version, or platform.

Am I expecting the wrong result?

Is this feature just completely hosed?

Have I missed some mega-thread where this has been brought up before, and perhaps even a solution offered?

Yesterday this happened again, and I finally snapped, and decided to post it here.

Maybe if I'd said something years ago, rather than manually fixing it / re-recording, on the grounds that I rarely need the feature, this would have been fixed a long time ago...

[musicman691]

I don't think the randomnise function was designed to function like what you are looking for (taking a bunch of notes and treating each one as a separate entity). This is one of those MIDI things in PT that's a pain to deal with.

There are things I deal with on a daily basis in PT's MIDI implementation I wish were done. Stuff like being able to select all notes of a particular note duration (was originally velocity) or note duration range (was velocity range), copy them, and paste them to another MIDI track. I need this for orchestral work to get a proper articulation for an instrument (staccato trumpet versus legato trumpet for example). Being able to overlay a velocity curve on a MIDI stream. Right now it's just a linear progression.

What would help with what I want is to be able to treat a MIDI stream like an Excel spreadsheet where you can organize/sort things based on multiple parameters at one time. Then do copy/cut/paste/mangle to suit.

So back to your question - bug or shoddy?
My vote is on shoddy programming.

[ronwasserman]

Never worked worth a damn for me either.

[gdugan]

I have done this many times, including just now to verify. Here's how:

1. Select the notes you want to randomize.
2. Go to Event Operations>Change Velocity.
3. Under "Options" select "Scale by: 100%".
4. Check and fill in the "Limit to" and "Randomize" boxes as you wish.
5. Click "Apply".

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by gdugan

I have done this many times, including just now to verify. Here's how:

1. Select the notes you want to randomize.
2. Go to Event Operations>Change Velocity.
3. Under "Options" select "Scale by: 100%".
4. Check and fill in the "Limit to" and "Randomize" boxes as you wish.
5. Click "Apply".

But you can only use one line item at a time in this window; that is - it only applies one line item at a time.

[Vovique]

"Randomize" only works in conjunction with any other processing before it, so I am used to first setting "Add +1" to velocities (which doesn't alter notes that much), then check the Randomize box with 10-15 value.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by gdugan

I have done this many times, including just now to verify. Here's how:

1. Select the notes you want to randomize.
2. Go to Event Operations>Change Velocity.
3. Under "Options" select "Scale by: 100%".
4. Check and fill in the "Limit to" and "Randomize" boxes as you wish.
5. Click "Apply".

That's exactly what I've always done (and what I described in my original post), it simply does not work.

You'll get a few stray "random" values, but everything else will remain uniform, albeit at a different velocity from it's original value.

If you hit "Apply" a bunch of times in a row, you'll get slightly different results, but the overall effect will be the same.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by musicman691

But you can only use one line item at a time in this window; that is - it only applies one line item at a time.

Not 100% sure what you mean by "one line item at a time".

You can select a bunch of notes, switch to velocity view, and "randomise" them, as described above - but it's a pretty patch idea of what random means.

The more times you hit apply, the more likely you'll see more random deviation, but it's still pretty uniform, and you're using up your undo quota pretty quickly.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by Vovique

"Randomize" only works in conjunction with any other processing before it, so I am used to first setting "Add +1" to velocities (which doesn't alter notes that much), then check the Randomize box with 10-15 value.

Tried that, but it didn't work in the way I was hoping, and seemed to give almost identical results as the previous method.

Maybe if you could give a little more detail.

Thanks for the idea though - it got me trying out a few more things.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by musicman691

There are things I deal with on a daily basis in PT's MIDI implementation I wish were done. Stuff like being able to select all notes of a particular velocity or velocity range, copy them, and paste them to another MIDI track. I need this for orchestral work to get a proper articulation for an instrument (staccato trumpet versus legato trumpet for example). Being able to overlay a velocity curve on a MIDI stream. Right now it's just a linear progression.

That's totally doable in Pro Tools - I've done it many times (assuming I'm completely understanding what you're trying to achieve).

1. From the Events menu, select the Event Operations tool / suit / do-whacky.

2. Choose "Select / Split Notes".

3. Input the note, and / or velocity criteria you want, then hit "Apply".

4. Copy the notes that have now been selected, and then select the new MIDI track you want as their destination.

5. Hit paste.


If on the other hand, you only wish to copy the velocity values, and apply them to existing MIDI notes, simply use Beat Detective to extract a groove temple.

One the Groove Template is saved, choose the MIDI notes to which you wish to apply the velocity curve :

1. From the Events menu, select the Event Operations tool / suit / do-whacky.

2. Chose "Quantize".

3. In the "Quantize Grid" options, choose the Groove Template you made.

4. In the Options pane, deselect everything, except velocity.

5. Hit "Apply".