Velocity Editor

Velocity Editor Panel

Choose Tools in the menu bar.
Choose Velocity Editor... from the Tools menu.

When you select the Velocity Editor... menu item, a panel appears that allow you to modify the playback velocities (i.e. volumes) of selected notes in your score. The panel can be used at any time and can be used to edit any quantity of notes -- from a small group of notes to an entire score.

Clicking on the Load Notes button loads all selected notes into the panel where their playback velocities are displayed. All notes are displayed against a background which shows the measure numbers and barlines. The horizontal zoom of the display can be altered using the zoom in and zoom out arrows at the bottom of the panel. The example below shows a selected group of notes and its appearance in the Velocity Editor:

- All notes occurring at the same beat location will be displayed at the same horizontal location, so if their velocities are the same, the markers representing these notes will be placed at the the same location.

- Accents and other articulations will be applied to the score playback as added velocities, so you can edit the velocities without concern for articulations -- accented notes will still play back with a slightly increased volume.

There are 4 tools located on the left side of the panel. They are:

Pencil tool - is used to drag individual velocity values or freely draw and set velocities in the display area.
Selection tool - is used to drag across the display area to select only some of the notes for editing
Line tool - is used to a draw horizontal line in the display area and to create linear changes to the velocity values
Curve tool - is used to draw a curved line in the display area and to create non-linear changes to the velocity values

- The shape of the curve will depend on the direction that you draw (either right to left or left to right).

In the example below, the curve tool was used to create a velocity fade out of the passage:

At any time you can click on the play button (near the bottom-left corner of the panel) to listen to the passage with the altered velocities. However, the altered velocities are not applied to the score until you click on the Apply Changes button.

There are 4 editing buttons located below the four tools. These buttons alter the selected velocities in the following ways:

Add button - adds 10 to the velocities
Sub button - subtracts 10 from the velocities
Expand button - expands the velocity values so they are more extreme (lower values lower and higher values higher)
Compress button - compresses the velocity values so they are less extreme (lower values higher and higher values lower)

With the example above, the velocity values were expanded to create a more dramatic fadeout:

The Clear button is used to remove all notes from the Velocity Editor.

The Revert button is used to return all velocities to the values they had when they were loaded.

The Apply Changes button is used to return all velocities to the values they had when they were loaded.

- Changes to the velocities in the score only occur when you click the Apply Changes button.