This is concerning a velocity control signal, not a stream of audio samples. This control signal would be mapped the internal processing of a synthesis or samp

This is concerning a velocity control signal, not a stream of audio samples. This control signal would be mapped the internal processing of a synthesis or sampling engine, resulting in an audio signal whose data format (analog or 16/24/32-bit digital) comes down to the physical characteristics and design of the synth. Once it leaves the synth, a host can convert to whatever it needs to have enough headroom for further processing. This is orthogonal to the issues remediated by oversampling (harmonic artifacts due to aliasing in non-linear processing like saturation, not distortion issues related to bit-depth). 16-bit velocity signals, if linearly mapped, means 96dB of velocity sensitivity which is pretty good. And it won't be linearly mapped, because exponential velocity mappings are already prevalent in the industry.