High Level - strange phenomena SOLVED

[airflamesred]

Start with 700 and raise it one notch at a time until only hardest hits produce velocity 127.

At the risk of repeating myself I started at 700 and it was too low. The reason I know that is that I can reach 127 velocity very easily. So, As I've explained above in great detail, I now have moved it in incraments up to where it is now, and that is at 900.
What I would like to know is why my MD is only outputting a maximun velocity of 109.

[dmitri]

Why did you move it up to 900 if at 900 you only get max velocity 109? Why did you even move past 800 if at 800 you only get max velocity 122? Somewhere between 700 and 800 you already reach a level when you cannot get velocity 127 and you should stop at that level and lower it a bit so that you can get velocity 127 reliably but not too easy.

[airflamesred]

I can't believe we are on page 3 of this.
Sadly Dmitri, I'm going to have to call it quits here.
Thank you.

[ignotus]

I've read through this 3 page saga and I'm sorry but I have to say I'm with Dmitri on this. Nothing you have described indicates your piezo is too hot. If you can't get 127 velocity at high level 900 and you reach it too easily at 700, it means that your optimal value is somewhere in between. End of story. Is the piezo in a DIY pad? How did you fit it? Etc... Sometimes piezos behave with a non-linear output (ie, they go from low to high velocities too suddenly) because of how they are physically set up in the pad. Piezos from different makers or batches behave differently; either way, I can't understand why a high level value of 900 is so essential. What Dmitri is saying makes perfect sense - you're misdirecting your frustration.

[airflamesred]

If you can't get 127 velocity at high level 900 and you reach it too easily at 700, it means that your optimal value is somewhere in between.

I see what is not being understood now.
At 900 I can get (theoretically) 127 velocity its just that my MD, for some reason, will not output above 109. If you look at the centre pic on the previous page where the high level is set to 900 you can clearly see that the hit values shown will not exceed 109. I can't falsify those constant 109 hits.
Imagine you have added compression- the same type of effect . It's not compression because that would be constant no matter the high level.
There is a direct corelation between the high level value and the velocity output from MD as measured in the MD midi log and also a midi monitor in Kontakt.
Here are the full figures
high level - up to 774 MD output up to 127
high level - 775 to 780 MD maximum output 126
high level - 781 to 786 MD maximum output 125
high level - 787 to 792 MD maximum output 124
high level - 793 to 799 MD maximum output 123
high level - 800 to 805 MD maximum output 122
and so on.
Now, what I am frustrated about is no where in these 3 pages has it been said that this is exclusive to me. If thats the case then I shall have to deal with it.
So, can somone do me a favour and set the high level of one of your pads to 775 and see if you can register a velocity above 126.

[ignotus]

At 900 I can get (theoretically) 127 velocity

But how did you reach that conclusion? Some of my pads can't output 127 with a highlevel of 600 (e.g. the snare with the rectifier circuit), others need a pot because they still got to 127 too easily with a high level of 1000. Looking at your figures, your ideal high level is 774, which is a perfectly good value. Can you reach a velocity of 127 too easily with that value? Is that the problem? If so, I suspect it's either the piezo itself that's the problem, or how it is physically attached to the pad, but that might also be fixed with curves.

So, can somone do me a favour and set the high level of one of your pads to 775 and see if you can register a velocity above 126

You're going to get all kinds of answers to that question because every pad behaves differently. As I said above, some of my pads will easily reach 127 and others will only get to about 80.

[privatex]

All my pads can reach full 127 velocity no matter what hi level they have (above their nominal ofc). Yesterday I had one piezo that on 1023 hi lvl easily reach full 127 scale so I have to cooled with changing material below piezo (one way yes). He want to know why his md won't behave like this.
If you overpump your hi level you have to get full 127vel. no matter what (without compression), but his md wont do that (it have some kind of blockade like on fast cars).

[airflamesred]

Thank you Privatex. The problem clearly resides with my set up

[dmitri]

Let me try to understand it once again.
1. With HiLevel set to 900 the maximum velocity you can get is 109 but this velocity is reached even with not very strong strong hits. Right?
2. This behavior is produced only with one particular pad/piezo, right?
3. This behavior is the same no matter which input you plug this pad/piezo into, right?
4. You have other pads which don't exhibit this behavior, right?
5. You tried to configure it starting with default settings and the result is the same, right?

[angr77]

Hi!

I my world of logics...if you do an auto high level sequence and the system shows 900...I would estimate that the piezo is not too hot and my espectations using this high level would definitive be that MD generate a value between 1-127.

If you need to lower the high level value to get the hardest hits to show 127, I would claim that there must be something wrong in the algorithm.

Advantage Airflamered....I am going to test it tomorrow.

Angr77