Moog Music Forum

Hey there,

while playing through an Arpeggiator, I noticed that my Voyager Select Series doesn't put out a Velocity of 0 when releasing keys. It is always at least '1'.
Sample output of the MIDI data sent from my Voyager:
19:28:19.063 To Session Note On 1 60 1
19:28:19.332 To Session Note Off 1 60 1

I can't release the key any softer.
It however is an essential requirement for the Arpeggiator to work correctly to receive Velocity '0' (makes it stop playback, or readies the Arpeggiator (in 'hold' mode) to expect a new set of notes once the old ones are released).

Is there an option to set up release velocity somewhere in the Voyagers settings?

Thanks!

Hi dualaud,

I don't think Release Velocity works quite the way you're thinking it does with Arpeggiators. Both Attack Velocity and Release Velocity are calculated by observing the time it takes for a key to travel between two measured points. For Attack (Note On) Velocity, it measures the time it takes to go between a higher point and then a lower point of the key travel. For Release (Note Off) Velocity, it measures the time it takes to get from the lower point to the higher point. In both cases, the faster the key travels from one point to the other, the higher the value.

Neither of these values do anything to a sound until they are assigned to something (like assigning Attack Velocity to make a Filter EG depth greater).

Arpeggiators are looking for all the notes to be released, but they're not looking for a specific Release Velocity of zero. Released notes are released notes, regardless of their Release Velocity.

As to why you can't get a specific Release Velocity of zero, I have a guess...

For Note On messages, we only use Velocities from 1 - 127. The MIDI Spec dictates that a Note On with a Velocity of zero is the equivalent of a Note Off message. This is useful for something called Running Status that allows you to use shorter MIDI message streams as long as the contiguous data is of the same exact type. By interpreting a Note On Velocity of zero as a Note Off, you're able to have lots of Note Ons and Offs in a row, but still have them all be the same message type (MIDI Note Ons). {Google "MIDI Running Status" to learn more.)

I suspect that a Note Off Velocity of zero has also been reserved by the gods of MIDI for either a future purpose, or a purpose I don't know about. In either case, not being able to generate a Note Off Velocity of zero is probably by design, and certainly not a problem.

I suspect that a Note Off velocity of zero will not turn a note off.