I recently bought a new digital piano, and have heard much talk about "velocity switching"… What is it in fact referring to?
It is a way for a digital piano to have a more "realistic" piano sound at different volumes. It means that there are layers of multiple sounds, and which sound is used depends on how hard the piano key is struck. If there was just one sample (a sample is the "recording" of the sound wave that will be played back) then it wouldn’t sound realistic because the resonance of the acoustic piano string changes as it is hit harder. Velocity Switching is a way of trying to reproduce that. You press the key softly, you get a sample sound that is "recorded" (recorded is not actually an accurate term here) from a acoustic piano playing softly; you press the key a little bit harder, then you get a sample of sound that is "recorded" from an acoustic piano being played a little louder. You hit the key really hard, you get a sample of a sound that is "recorded" from an acoustic piano being hit loud… etc… Hope that made sense to you.
"…recording different dynamics of the sound you are sampling. This process, called VELOCITY SWITCHING, triggers different samples based on the velocity value of the midi signal triggering it. "
It is a way for a digital piano to have a more "realistic" piano sound at different volumes. It means that there are layers of multiple sounds, and which sound is used depends on how hard the piano key is struck. If there was just one sample (a sample is the "recording" of the sound wave that will be played back) then it wouldn’t sound realistic because the resonance of the acoustic piano string changes as it is hit harder. Velocity Switching is a way of trying to reproduce that. You press the key softly, you get a sample sound that is "recorded" (recorded is not actually an accurate term here) from a acoustic piano playing softly; you press the key a little bit harder, then you get a sample of sound that is "recorded" from an acoustic piano being played a little louder. You hit the key really hard, you get a sample of a sound that is "recorded" from an acoustic piano being hit loud… etc… Hope that made sense to you.
"…recording different dynamics of the sound you are sampling. This process, called VELOCITY SWITCHING, triggers different samples based on the velocity value of the midi signal triggering it. "
References :
The quoted excerpt is from http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a-introduction-sampling-audio,1155-5.html