Re: dynamic and midi velocity

[Martin Tarenskeen]

On Thu, 4 Mar 2010, David Raleigh Arnold wrote:

> So why on earth is conversion from velocity to volume in decibels an
> issue?  If you are using ppp pp p mp mf f ff fff why convert at all?
> Just use velocity.  Regards, daveA

That was not the issue being discussed here.

When we are talking about "Velocity" and "Volume" we are talking - at 
least in this thread - about two different specific MIDI messages.

Velocity is a 7 bit value (0~127) that is part of a MIDI Note-On or MIDI 
Note-Off message. Each single note has such a value in a MIDI stream.

Volume is one of the MIDI Control Change messages, Nr. 7 to be exactly.
These can not be specified for each single note, but for each of the 16 
MIDI channels.

Velocity and Volume are used for different purposes in MIDI sequencers and 
MIDI files.

Currently if Lilypond scores are exported as MIDI files, the ppp mf ff and 
so on are written as MIDI Volume values, not as MIDI Velocity values.

In many cases MIDI Velocity messages are more suitable to translate such 
dynamics into MIDI. That's why people are interested in that conversion 
script. (including me)

--

Martin