Midi Piano sounds quieter than audio tracks

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Hi,

After much useful advice and help from this forum looking for a good MIDI piano sound, I chose addictive keys Grand Piano plugin, sounds nice and is fine. However when I record a piano backing track ready for vocals, the recording  sounds quiet through the phones even when they are turned up full through my Steinberg UR22  interface. This is not the case when I record things like vocals or guitar so I assume its a MIDI thing. How do I get this to have more volume? ( Novice here obviously).It sounds fine but quiet if you know what I mean. 

[abacab]

On 1/22/2021 at 9:48 AM, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

Hi,

After much useful advice and help from this forum looking for a good MIDI piano sound, I chose addictive keys Grand Piano plugin, sounds nice and is fine. However when I record a piano backing track ready for vocals, the recording  sounds quiet through the phones even when they are turned up full through my Steinberg UR22  interface. This is not the case when I record things like vocals or guitar so I assume its a MIDI thing. How do I get this to have more volume? ( Novice here obviously).It sounds fine but quiet if you know what I mean. 

The piano seems to be very velocity sensitive. I would suggest that you check your MIDI controller's velocity curve settings, and the velocity settings in the Cakewalk track. Mine is set to [Vel+ ='0'] there as well. You could also review a MIDI clip that you have recorded and see the recorded velocity levels for that track in the piano roll.

Edited January 29, 2021 by abacab

[John Vere]

Yes Velocity.   Piano sound best with a good variation in velocity but keep in mind going over 115 can sound too harsh with some VST's. The velocity has bearing on the timber of the sound just like a real piano being played soft or hard. So don't think of velocity for Volume but timber and dynamics.  AD Keys is a very loud piano that I use because of it's ability to cut through when mixed with blues or rock guitars. 

If the meter for the piano VST audio track is showing a healthy level then there should be no difference in the mix than your other instruments. Make sure it's outputting to your master bus. 

[Kurre]

When it's midi you can try the gain knob.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Thanks all I will  look at these suggestions tomorrow.

[Richard Lloyd]

I was looking at this thread and in the meantime just found the solution. In my case, I'm using a Roland E-09 as midi input, which was noticeably quieter than when using the virtual keyboard. The reason was that I had the "keyboard touch" button on. When turning it off, the midi signal with the same (max) velocity as on the virtual keyboard was transmitted.

Edited February 20 by Richard Lloyd
Typo

[John Vere]

That button is actually very good feature. But you have it backwards.
Piano is a touch sensitive instrument that will sound boring if played flat at one velocity. 
But other keyboards like Organ are not touch sensitive so that feature is used when you play those instruments. 
The timber of a real piano changes as you play harder or softer.
 

Midi emulates this by inputting  different velocities and some VST’s respond in very good ways. They sample he instruments at different velocities. The more split point the better. 

This makes for a more realistic performance. 

Some don’t at all. I don’t think the TTS-1 will. Those just get louder. 
So I depends on what the piano is being used for. If it’s just a choppy rock and roll part it doesn’t matter.
But if you are actually wanting a nice piano ballad sound then you would need the dynamics. 
 

Reading Richard’s post again I think the issue was actually a headphone or monitor set up issue. As in the balance between the computers audio and the mike level. 
 

Midi instrument tracks are audio tracks an treated the same way. You set them at a decent level and do not go into the red. 

Edited February 20 by John Vere