5 ms·

> 16bit note velocity For electronic drums I would of much prefered at least 24bit. Volume is by far and away a drum's most expressive dimension, so it will be

> 16bit note velocity For electronic drums I would of much prefered at least 24bit. Volume is by far and away a drum's most expressive dimension, so it will be limited by a 16bit velocity range. Adding velocity curves just masks the problem Though of course 16bit is orders of magintude better than the current 8bit range

royjacobs 7y ago
Why wouldn't 65536 separate velocities not be enough, even for the most expressive drummer (or indeed for any other instrument)?
coldtea 7y ago
>For electronic drums I would of much prefered at least 24bit. Volume is by far and away a drum's most expressive dimension, so it will be limited by a 16bit velocity range. It wont be limited at all, real human players have no control as subtle as 256 levels, much less 65K levels... Nobody would even notice anything...
- edejong 7y ago
  Not my experience. The expressive control is exponential, so either you clip on either end of the velocity spectrum, or you get discrete steps at the lower end.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    You wouldn't be able to tell between a hit in velocity 1 or 2 or between 254 vs 255 is my point.
    - edejong 7y ago
      If the velocity is a^x, with a a number like 1.1 and v a number between 0 and 255, I would agree. However, what I’ve seen is that 2 is twice as loud as 1 and 256 twice as loud as 128. That means soft passages become discretized and uneven.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    I agree with the previous person that 256 levels of amplitude should be sufficient purely when it comes to velocity as long as these levels are spread appropriately (i.e. non-linearly). If the expressive control is exponential, that suggests to me that the data itself should be exponential. I know literally nothing about drumming but I've no doubt there are plenty of other characteristics of a drum strike than velocity. Such as the mass being applied to the hit (e.g. is it being hit with the weight of the stick alone or is it the drummer's whole arm) or the location of the strike, or the release time.
    - teetow 7y ago
      Speaking as a producer who's programmed a lot of natural-sounding drum tracks... There are plenty of variables other than velocity -- location on the drum head being the prime one, but there are others. Because of this, sampling an acoustic drum kit involves capturing a suitable number of random variations, and the end result is often gigabytes (i.e. hours of content) in size, even though each sampled hit is just a few seconds long. Not having enough variation in your sample set makes the programmed drums sounds unnatural, since excessive repetition doesn't gel with how we experience acoustic drums. Certain variables are more important than others, though. One notable sound is the 'rim shot' which means striking the drum head and rim simultaneously, which causes all kinds of constructive interference and results in a very powerful sound. It's the holy grail of rock drumming. In drum programming, rim shots are often a separate stack of samples with its own velocity layers, each layer with a set of random variations.
      - tsegratis 7y ago
        I'd agree with you for synthesizing, particularly with a master volume knob. But playing live my volume range is from audible to just me (So I can plan what people will hear), to easily the loudest thing going ;) Which is louder than you want to set your CD player :) Also, I strongly believe in using dynamics throughout the set. The min-max range I use is one of the strongest impacts I have on what people feel. Tinkled whisper to roar Though yes, like you, I love my other variables too like strike position, angle, etc
      - 7y ago
phs2501 7y ago
99% of digital recorded music only has 16 bit velocity for every sample. I think it'd be fine.
- mrob 7y ago
  16bit is sufficient for listening, but it leaves no headroom for production. Modern music is often recorded in 24bit and only rendered to 16bit as the final step.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    That is correct for recording with microphones, however that is largely to avoid having to be overly precise with setting levels in order to maximise the value of those final 16 bits. This doesn't analogise well to digital instruments, as the minimum and maximum velocity/amplitude/whatever is already known and defined. You already know what the exact potential dynamic range is before the first note is ever played. The concept of headroom doesn't exist. Anything that you can think of which you might define as "headroom" is either beyond the input and/or output capabilities of the device and therefore irrelevant, or it should be within the normal scale.
    - mntmoss 7y ago
      No, because digital processing adds distortion to the signal, which means that having an input beyond perceptual accuracy still matters to a production needing to apply lengthy effects chains. It just matters less than the case of a quiet signal recorded at a linear bitdepth. For this sort of reason many digital effects operate at an oversampled rate(i.e. they apply a FIR filter to represent approximately the same signal at a higher sample rate like 1.5x or 2x, do the processing there, then downsample again). Contemporary DAW software has tended towards doing processing in 64-bit floating point, while source recordings typically go up to 24-bit/192kHz, which is probably "way more than good enough" even if some room to inflate the specs further exists. For playback, 16-bit/44.1khz stereo is still as good as ever. You're limited more by the other parts of the signal path in that case.
widdershins 7y ago
Remember that music on a CD has only 16bit depth. It's plenty of dynamic range, especially for a control signal that can map to any output amplitude range.
- mrob 7y ago
  It's plenty of dynamic range only when you know in advance what the lowest and highest values are going to be so you can scale it correctly, or if you're using a logarithmic scale. Neither are as convenient as higher bit depth linear scale.
kyberias 7y ago
Your resolution problem with electric drums is not MIDI, it's your drums.
ClassyJacket 7y ago
I'd bet money on it that you couldn't tell even if it was 10-bit. 16-bit gives you 65536 levels of volume, that's surely overkill for anything a human can control or recognize. You certainly can't consistently drum with 65,536 different levels of volume. You wouldn't be able to even do 256.

royjacobs 7y ago

Why wouldn't 65536 separate velocities not be enough, even for the most expressive drummer (or indeed for any other instrument)?

coldtea 7y ago

>For electronic drums I would of much prefered at least 24bit. Volume is by far and away a drum's most expressive dimension, so it will be limited by a 16bit velocity range. It wont be limited at all, real human players have no control as subtle as 256 levels, much less 65K levels... Nobody would even notice anything...

edejong 7y ago
Not my experience. The expressive control is exponential, so either you clip on either end of the velocity spectrum, or you get discrete steps at the lower end.
- coldtea 7y ago
  You wouldn't be able to tell between a hit in velocity 1 or 2 or between 254 vs 255 is my point.
  - edejong 7y ago
    If the velocity is a^x, with a a number like 1.1 and v a number between 0 and 255, I would agree. However, what I’ve seen is that 2 is twice as loud as 1 and 256 twice as loud as 128. That means soft passages become discretized and uneven.
- sjwright 7y ago
  I agree with the previous person that 256 levels of amplitude should be sufficient purely when it comes to velocity as long as these levels are spread appropriately (i.e. non-linearly). If the expressive control is exponential, that suggests to me that the data itself should be exponential. I know literally nothing about drumming but I've no doubt there are plenty of other characteristics of a drum strike than velocity. Such as the mass being applied to the hit (e.g. is it being hit with the weight of the stick alone or is it the drummer's whole arm) or the location of the strike, or the release time.
  - teetow 7y ago
    Speaking as a producer who's programmed a lot of natural-sounding drum tracks... There are plenty of variables other than velocity -- location on the drum head being the prime one, but there are others. Because of this, sampling an acoustic drum kit involves capturing a suitable number of random variations, and the end result is often gigabytes (i.e. hours of content) in size, even though each sampled hit is just a few seconds long. Not having enough variation in your sample set makes the programmed drums sounds unnatural, since excessive repetition doesn't gel with how we experience acoustic drums. Certain variables are more important than others, though. One notable sound is the 'rim shot' which means striking the drum head and rim simultaneously, which causes all kinds of constructive interference and results in a very powerful sound. It's the holy grail of rock drumming. In drum programming, rim shots are often a separate stack of samples with its own velocity layers, each layer with a set of random variations.
    - tsegratis 7y ago
      I'd agree with you for synthesizing, particularly with a master volume knob. But playing live my volume range is from audible to just me (So I can plan what people will hear), to easily the loudest thing going ;) Which is louder than you want to set your CD player :) Also, I strongly believe in using dynamics throughout the set. The min-max range I use is one of the strongest impacts I have on what people feel. Tinkled whisper to roar Though yes, like you, I love my other variables too like strike position, angle, etc
    - 7y ago

phs2501 7y ago

99% of digital recorded music only has 16 bit velocity for every sample. I think it'd be fine.

mrob 7y ago
16bit is sufficient for listening, but it leaves no headroom for production. Modern music is often recorded in 24bit and only rendered to 16bit as the final step.
- sjwright 7y ago
  That is correct for recording with microphones, however that is largely to avoid having to be overly precise with setting levels in order to maximise the value of those final 16 bits. This doesn't analogise well to digital instruments, as the minimum and maximum velocity/amplitude/whatever is already known and defined. You already know what the exact potential dynamic range is before the first note is ever played. The concept of headroom doesn't exist. Anything that you can think of which you might define as "headroom" is either beyond the input and/or output capabilities of the device and therefore irrelevant, or it should be within the normal scale.
  - mntmoss 7y ago
    No, because digital processing adds distortion to the signal, which means that having an input beyond perceptual accuracy still matters to a production needing to apply lengthy effects chains. It just matters less than the case of a quiet signal recorded at a linear bitdepth. For this sort of reason many digital effects operate at an oversampled rate(i.e. they apply a FIR filter to represent approximately the same signal at a higher sample rate like 1.5x or 2x, do the processing there, then downsample again). Contemporary DAW software has tended towards doing processing in 64-bit floating point, while source recordings typically go up to 24-bit/192kHz, which is probably "way more than good enough" even if some room to inflate the specs further exists. For playback, 16-bit/44.1khz stereo is still as good as ever. You're limited more by the other parts of the signal path in that case.

widdershins 7y ago

Remember that music on a CD has only 16bit depth. It's plenty of dynamic range, especially for a control signal that can map to any output amplitude range.

mrob 7y ago
It's plenty of dynamic range only when you know in advance what the lowest and highest values are going to be so you can scale it correctly, or if you're using a logarithmic scale. Neither are as convenient as higher bit depth linear scale.

kyberias 7y ago

Your resolution problem with electric drums is not MIDI, it's your drums.

ClassyJacket 7y ago

I'd bet money on it that you couldn't tell even if it was 10-bit. 16-bit gives you 65536 levels of volume, that's surely overkill for anything a human can control or recognize. You certainly can't consistently drum with 65,536 different levels of volume. You wouldn't be able to even do 256.