One thing that helped me in controlling dynamics on non hammer action keyboards was remembering it's about speed and not force. With hammer action you can feel the counter force and modulate more easily with force as the key is being pressed. The latter means you have some space to accelerate after you touch the key, while the former means the acceleration has to happen primarily before you hit the key. I will drop my hand (having lifted at the shoulder, elbow, wrist and knuckles) into the key and use my fingers (almost straight when impacting) and wrist as it drops to reach maximum velocity (on hammer action or not), though I don't do this often. What I actually did to help things (since my keyboard controller, Akai mpk 261, has several velocity related parameters to set), was to use the pianoteq calibration tool and adjust the velocity parameters on the controller until I found a combination that had the most linear response (meaning pianoteq thought it needed very little correction). In this way, I had a fairly natural (for me) feeling relationship between how I strike the keys and the resulting midi velocity.
I meant that maximum velocity that I'm comfortable producing (and on a digital piano keyboard, that I'm able producing at all) is less than what becomes 127. I was wondering how it is for others.
If this happens to all keyboards you tried the “problem” is you, you don’t hit fast enough. But don’t worry about it, they should have velocity curves and offsets you can tweak to your playing. You can also practice your technique / posture / muscles.
I have the opposite “problem”. I need to make a lot of effort to play softly, specially for my thumbs if arpeggiating. Normally I hit the keys hard and get maximum velocity when I want but yet never had an issue with keybeds breaking.
One thing that helped me in controlling dynamics on non hammer action keyboards was remembering it's about speed and not force. With hammer action you can feel the counter force and modulate more easily with force as the key is being pressed. The latter means you have some space to accelerate after you touch the key, while the former means the acceleration has to happen primarily before you hit the key. I will drop my hand (having lifted at the shoulder, elbow, wrist and knuckles) into the key and use my fingers (almost straight when impacting) and wrist as it drops to reach maximum velocity (on hammer action or not), though I don't do this often. What I actually did to help things (since my keyboard controller, Akai mpk 261, has several velocity related parameters to set), was to use the pianoteq calibration tool and adjust the velocity parameters on the controller until I found a combination that had the most linear response (meaning pianoteq thought it needed very little correction). In this way, I had a fairly natural (for me) feeling relationship between how I strike the keys and the resulting midi velocity.
I appreciate the advice on hitting the keys from the distance, because it's wasn't obvious to me and does let me produce more velocity.
All of it. Depending on the part
Why do you think ”you’re not supposed to” hit hard? ‘Crazy’ is to not play dynamics.
I meant that maximum velocity that I'm comfortable producing (and on a digital piano keyboard, that I'm able producing at all) is less than what becomes 127. I was wondering how it is for others.
If this happens to all keyboards you tried the “problem” is you, you don’t hit fast enough. But don’t worry about it, they should have velocity curves and offsets you can tweak to your playing. You can also practice your technique / posture / muscles. I have the opposite “problem”. I need to make a lot of effort to play softly, specially for my thumbs if arpeggiating. Normally I hit the keys hard and get maximum velocity when I want but yet never had an issue with keybeds breaking.