MIDI compression VST?

[Peter Widdicombe]

Hi - has anyone come across a MIDI compressor, rather than an audio compressor?

I find sometimes that the dynamic levels of a MIDI keyboard are good for a Piano, but the same dynamics may not be desirable for, say, string or brass rompler. I know I can adjust the keyboard's velocity curve, but it becomes awkward to do so, and would like to just place a "MIDI compressor" in front of those to effectively scale velocity input on those tracks, so (say) 1-127 on input is "compressed" to (say) 32-100; to avoid potential harsh bursts when playing faster pieces.

Unfortunately compression applied AFTER the VST can tame the volume differences, but the velocity layers within the VST have already kicked in and altered the tone somewhat.

[mikoatkvr]

There may be something in the piz midi collection that would do your job , the 'midiVelocityScale' or 'midiCurve' look interesting. I haven't used zny piz midi plugins in years, but generally they can do most things a user would be trying to accomplish. see here https://web.archive.org/web/20170712045 ... ?p=pizmidi

* updated with a working link via waybackmachine *

[Watchful]

Peter, what a great question. Never occurred to me that such a thing would exist, but your description is a perfect encapsulation of the need. Look forward to any solutions here because I've experienced what you're describing.

[asprog]

There is the VeloScaler midi plugin from CodeFN42 which may help you: https://www.codefn42.com/veloscaler/index.html
Some interesting midi plugins on the CodeFN42 site!

[Steve Bolivar]

CodeFN42 plugins are great. I miss the midi compressor function from my old Roland MC-50. It's such an obvious function, it's odd it is left out.

[mikoatkvr]

oops I just realised that the links are dead to my post above regarding the piz midi plugins, I will see if I can find them and update the post, sorry about that for not checking the links.

[Peter Widdicombe]

I actually HAD the codefn42 and piz libraries - but only the 32-bit versions !

[mikoatkvr]

I now have the piz midi plugins in 64 bit Linux installed, thanks to FalkTX courtesy of his KXStudio repos ( I dont see the windows version there, but he does have binaries for a lot of win plugins ).

The link in my original post has the pizmidi_x64.zip file for download, which I checked with the file command and they are indeed windows 64bit plugins.

These are great little plugins for doing some obscure stuff that is almost if not impossible in the DAW alone.

[fde101]

Some DAWs actually have related functionality built-in. For example, in Studio One, there is a command that brings up a window that lets you add a value to the velocity of each note or multiply the velocity of each note by something - you could multiply by 0.5 (or other value 0 < n < 1) to squish the velocities together then add whatever is needed to get them up to the desired levels.

[Peter Widdicombe]

For simplicity, the piz velocity-scalar is small, fast, simple... exactly what I was looking for. I'll do more testing, but as a first shot, it's simple and works well.

CodeFN42 is much more adjustable, ranges, etc if you need zones (ie to create a 3-range curve or just to tame top and bottom velocities). Might be good for some VST's or romplers that are properly scaled but ocasionaly "wimp out" when played very gently.

[mikoatkvr]

@fde101 I have never tried Studio 1 , but it seems to be a very capable DAW.

@Peter Widdicombe Cool that the Piz Midi plugin worked out for you, I had forgotten about them, but since your post I was playing around with a few of them in series and I was able to get some really creative results in conjunction with some clever automation of an Instrument and FX automation.

[ON BEATS]

I had never heard of or even thought of this! Not a bad idea, although there is a button in the midi clip editor which says 'Angleichen' in mine, which should translate as 'Make Similar' and when I click it has two options, 'make all note lengths the same' 'make all velocities the same'.

I've always used this waveform feature for synth sounds. I'll look at the mentioned solutions - that's interesting!

[Peter Widdicombe]

I didn't really want to make all notes the same; just occasionally the playing unintentionally gets an errant note added in, or playing an accompanying bass note run over a high chord "takes over" because you're using the weight of the hand and hitting one note instead of 4 <grin>.

Then you hit something like the Spitfire BBC orchestra that thinks all notes should be the same velocity and you use the mod wheel to control velocity of ALL notes (which annoys me). Keeps it all nice and stable, but I find mod wheel for dynamics very non-natural.