Colossus and MIDI volumes

[soundforgames]

Anyone else having trouble managing MIDI volumes in Colossus?

Let's say I'm playing one of the drum kits (e.g. Studio). I find it very easy (at least on a Radium 61 controller) to trigger the hi-hats way too loud. But if I play softly, then obviously I'm missing out on some of the samples.

Here's another example - the electric bass guitars. If I'm playing the '66 Silvertone, just in normal playing, I keep triggering the pitch bends at the top of the velocity range, which obviously makes a mess of the riff I'm playing. Are people altering their default volume maps for their controllers? I could do that, but I haven't had this problem with any of my other software synths.

Jamie

[Silver Dragon Sound]

Jamie,

This may not be the answer your seeking. I have two seperate keyboards I played this through, the Yamaha S90 and the M Audio keystation Pro. When I played the S90, I didn't experience what you did. Everything sounded find and responded as I expected. When I played the M Audio Keystation I had the same experience that you did with sounds coming out way to loud or to soft. I've had this issue with other sounds as well. Have I altered the default volume maps for these keyboards? No. I'm going to do this with the Keystation sometimes this week and see if ti helps. Believe me when I tell you I feel your frustration with this. Hopefully altering the volume maps will correct this issue.

[Nick Phoenix]

edit the hat group volume.


limit the velocity in your sequencer on the bass track.

[soundforgames]

edit the hat group volume.


limit the velocity in your sequencer on the bass track.


Hi Nick,

Thanks for the tip; both of these worked great. Something else I realized is that the Radium 61, at least on my system, is only outputting some MIDI volumes in SONAR - 90, 103, 111, 124 - and is missing all the numbers in between. What is this thing, a DX7? I'll keep looking into that, but that has nothing to do with East West. Thanks again.

Best,
Jamie

[fvicente]

Hi,

The M-Audio controllers, in my experience, are brutal for velocity response. I don't get consistent results. I own an Oxygen-8 and there are some notes on it which only ever seem to play at near full velocity every time, even when I play softly. I've tried out a few different boards from M-Audio, including the Radium 61 and the experience has been similar.

I've found that many of the controllers today are in the same ballpark. Some are better than others. The Edirol ones seem to be pretty good as are the Novation ones but I hate the joystick instead of a modwheel or I'd probably own one of those instead. I'm curious about the CME ones but I've haven't had a chance yet.

FVicente

[soundforgames]

Hi,

The M-Audio controllers, in my experience, are brutal for velocity response. I don't get consistent results. I own an Oxygen-8 and there are some notes on it which only ever seem to play at near full velocity every time, even when I play softly. I've tried out a few different boards from M-Audio, including the Radium 61 and the experience has been similar.


Thanks for the info. My general theory on this is that since the Colossus samples are so detailed, with the various sample sets playing at different velocity levels, the quality of the MIDI controller you're using suddenly becomes more important.

Setting a velocity limit in the sequencer works once you've played the riff, but there's probably a better way to program the MIDI controller so that you're not triggering the highest notes in the first place.

The '66 Silvertone is a stereo sample, but let's say you want it mono. Clicking the mono button in SONAR on that particular Colossus output does not help, because most of the low end disappears and it becomes very mid-rangey.

Aside from that, using different outputs is killer - it becomes way better than a workstation synth. You get the self-contained sound set without having to run 16 patch cords out the back and into a mixer in order to apply separate effects. Editing the group volumes as Nick suggested lets you dedicate a stereo output to the entire drum set without having to split those up (unless you're looking for the hyper-processed studio sound). This way you can just play the kit naturally and leave it as one MIDI track when you're done.