Weird velocity problem with many MIDI keyboards

Hi,

as the black and white keys have very different lever arms, they often come with a different relation of force applied and velocity achieved. In fact because of this some keyboards (like the Doepfer LMK4+ which I own) allow to separately adjust a "velocity reduction factor" for the black keys relative to the white ones. May be the PK88 has the same adjustment possibility and it's accidentally set to a wrong value?

Regards, Thomas

The PK88 does not have any editable parameters, neither a MIDI in, so I can't use the PianoTuner software that would solve the problem.
From what I understand, Fatar is responsible for this since they are the suppliers of keyboards for most companies.
I don't think the lever arms should be responsible for the problem, because one would expect for all keys to play the same.
Now, I have to send the keyboard back to Germany from Greece, which is a major hassle..

Another vote for PianoTuner. A great program that sits between your midi keyboard and Pianoteq (or any other musc program), intercepting the midi velocities and converting them, for each key, to a different velocity scale that you select with a simple visual interface.

(It may take you a few minutes to set up, since you do have to download and install midi-yoke, but the little time that this takes is more than worth the effort. It will give you a new keyboard, with the exact velocity response that you want, since you can control every key individually.)

Well, "PianoTuner" is the kind of feature that would be a blessing if integrated into PTQ itself. Just my 2 cents...
Oh, and just for those who still didn't find it:
http://users.belgacom.net/gc813607/index.html
;-)

In my experience, there is a inherent design flaw in the fatar keyboards.  These fluctuations in velocity response can either just be the way the keyboard plays out of the box, or they can happen suddenly. It's happend to me with two kurzweil boards and one Studio Logic, and rendered them completely useless, until I fixed them. Some times a note wouldnt sound, other times notes played full volume only.  Sometimes it was just a unnerving unevenness in the response between adjacent keys.

You have a new board, so I don't know if they've changed the design.

If you have the patience and mechanical aptitude, this is what I ran into. The culprits are these rubberized strips that are only exposed if you remove the keybed, turn it over and unscrew the circuit board that covers them.  There is a set of 2 soft rubber cups that are assigned to each key. They fit  12 notes to a strip and are subdivided with a little space in the moulding into groups of 4. They can be pulled off, as they are secured simply by friction to the circuit board, with little rubber protrusions that are sort of squeezed in to these pre-drilled holes.
I've had them replaced professionally, (a pain, and not cheap), cleaned them and repositioned them myself, all with sucessful, but obviously not lasting results. Don't ask me why, but sometimes swapping  an offending contact to another key position has been the answer. You'll notice that some of strips of contacts have probably been cut into different denominations so as to fit the necessary number of keys. This can be done if you cut carefully in the neutral area between the pairs of cups.

I've been told that a microscopic piece of dust can make the difference. So with that in mind I actually tried standing the board on its end, and shook it back and forth hoping that whatever debris was in there would be dislodged by gravity.  It worked once!

I've done the actual repair myself 4 times on two different boards so I'm a little more secure opening them up.
Sorry to say this but if you're having these kinds of problems with a new keyboard you might consider not settling for a fix. You might want to insist on a replacement, or another brand entirely that doesn't have the fatar keybed.

On the positve side, evolutionary products like Pianoteq are sure to push the hardware makers to more exacting standards.

Hope some of that is helpful.

Hello,

my Clavia Nord Stage had a Fatar keyboard also but I never noticed any velocity problems (sometimes I watched PTQs velocity display to check the best settings). So this could be a pure Fatar problem. I dont know which sensors are used in the NS88, Fatar or Clavia.

BTW, I own a Kawai MP8II now, which has adaptable velocity settings, and even can be 'trained' to adapt to the individual playing habits of the user. I will try this and see how PTQ reacts.

Rainer

I have a similar problem, but, when it comes time to buy a portable (not 40 kilo like my midiboard) weighted-action keyboard I imagine I'll just get a stage piano of some sort and ignore the onboard sounds. But it's certainly an insurance if the computer goes awry.

AlexPI wrote:

Just to point out that Hugh Sung (here http://www.pianoteq.com/reviews) mentions the Casio Privia series of keyboards on his blog here http://hughsung.com/blog/index.php?itemid=796. Also Google inside his blog for further mentions. These keyboards are sensibly (?) light for traveling with, and relatively inexpensive. Could be worth looking at (and into, I suppose).

I played with a Yamaha CP33 which seems quite good.
It has a nice keyboard a little on the heavy side, and a 'master' button which bypasses the onboard sound and makes the instrument behave like a controller only.
I will test the Studiologic VMK188, and if it isn't satisfying, I will go with the Yamaha.

Apologies for pinging this thread 15 years later lol, but I have the exact same issue with my PK88 and it's driving me up the wall. This 'pianotuner' software doesn't have a Mac app, is there another midi calibration tool I can use to fine-tune each note's velocity response across multiple virtual instruments? Thanks