Key velocity

Key velocity, also called note velocity, is the MIDI data that describes how hard a key was struck. A note’s key velocity usually determines its volume, although velocity can be programmed to affect other playback elements, depending on your MIDI keyboard. Finale can record the key velocity for every single note you play using the HyperScribe Tool. See also Auto-Dynamic Placement Plug-in.

There are two ways to affect the key velocity of notes in your score. The quickest method uses the MIDI Tool to directly edit note (key) velocities. The other method involves placing into the score standard musical markings that have been defined for playback (an accent, a forte mark, and so on).

To edit key velocity with the MIDI Tool

1. From the Window Menu, choose Advanced Tools. Click the MIDI Tool  . Choose Key Velocities from the MIDI Tool Menu, if it’s not already selected.
2. Select the region whose playback data you want to affect. Click to select one measure, shift-click to select additional measures, drag-enclose to select several on-screen measures, click to the left of the staff to select the entire staff, or choose Select All from the Edit Menu.
3. If the selected region is only on one staff, double-click the highlighted area. You enter the MIDI Tool split-window. At the bottom of the window you see the music on the staff you selected. Above each note is a thin vertical line; in essence, these lines are a bar graph of the key velocities of the displayed notes. Click the up, down, left, and right arrow buttons to move through the score.

While in the MIDI Tool split-window, you have note-by-note editing powers for the displayed notes. To select the notes whose velocities you want to edit, drag through the graph area of the window, highlighting it; the handles of all displayed notes are selected. You can also click an individual note’s handle, or shift-click additional handles, or drag-enclose groups of handles—or even shift–drag-enclose additional groups.

4. Choose the appropriate command from the MIDI Tool Menu.Set To gives all selected notes a velocity value you specify. Scale creates a smooth gradation from one value to another (ideal for crescendo effects). Add alters every selected note’s velocity by a value you specify. Percent Alter alters a note’s velocity by a percentage of its current value. Limit lets you specify a maximum and minimum velocity value for the selected notes. Alter Feel gives you selective control over downbeats, offbeats, and backbeats, letting you alter each by an absolute or percentage of current value (ideal for “boosting the backbeat”—in other words, making the backbeats louder). Randomize changes the selected notes’ velocities by a random amount, to the degree you specify (ideal for giving a more human “feel” to the piece).
5. If you have the MIDI Tool split-window open, and want to hear the effects of your work along the way, choose Play from the MIDI Tool Menu. It’s important to understand that you’re editing the performance data of the selected music. Performance data is a set of velocity (and Start and Stop Time) playback information that Finale associates with each note in the score. At any point, you can hear your music played strictly as it appears in the score, or you can hear it played using the captured MIDI data (from the Document Menu, choose Playback/Record Options).

If the music you’re editing was from a performance in HyperScribe, and selected Retain Key Velocities in the Quantization Settings dialog box (or if you clicked Save Key Velocities before transcribing in Transcription More), in the MIDI Tool you’d see (and be able to edit) the actual key velocities of the notes as you originally played them.

6. When you’re finished, close the MIDI Tool split-window. In order to hear the changes you made, choose Playback Controls from the Window Menu. Click the expand arrow, and then Playback/Record Options. Make sure Play Recorded Key Velocities is selected. If it is, you’ll hear the score played back using the performance data—in other words, you’ll hear the effects of your velocity editing whenever you play back your score.

To copy or erase key velocity data

See  MIDI —To copy or erase captured (or edited) MIDI data.

To affect the key velocity of a single note (Articulations) or Expressions

See Articulations; Crescendo/Decrescendo; Dynamics.

To record key velocity information

For complete information on recording with the HyperScribe Tool, see Transcribing a sequence and Recording with HyperScribe.

1. From the MIDI/Audio Menu, choose Quantization Settings and then click More Settings. Ensure Retain Key Velocities is checked.
2. From the Document Menu, choose Playback/Record Options. The Playback/Record Options dialog box appears.
3. Make sure Play Recorded Key Velocities is selected and click OK. When Play Recorded Key Velocities is selected, Finale uses the original key velocity information it recorded when you created the performance—even if you edit the durations of notes in the score. You can edit the captured velocity information visually by using the MIDI Tool (see “To edit key velocity with the MIDI Tool,” above).