Fit PianoFlex to your keyboard

No two MIDI keyboards feel the same. On one, an ordinary touch already sends loud notes. On another you have to hit the keys hard for any power. The piano then seems too loud or too dull, when it's really the keyboard. PianoFlex's Velocity Curve panel fits the piano to the keyboard you play, so your softest and loudest playing come out where you expect.

Before you start

• Choose your keyboard under MIDI in at the top of the window. The Velocity Curve panel names it at its top right, for example "Keyboard: nanoKEY2".
• The panel is in the bottom row. If you can't see it, set Piano settings to Mix & touch or All (F2 steps through them).

1. Find out what your keyboard sends

Play one note as softly as you can, then one as hard as you can. A dot on the curve shows the last note you played, and the panel reads, for example, "Last note: 84 in, 62 out". The first number is what your keyboard sent (1 to 127). The second is what the piano gets.

• Your softest note already reads 40 or more, or an ordinary touch reads over 100: your keyboard is loud too soon. Choose Heavy.
• It's hard to get past 100 however hard you play: your keyboard is stiff. Choose Light.

2. Pick a shape

• Light makes notes loud sooner. Use it for a stiff keyboard.
• Heavy makes you play harder for a loud note. Use it for a keyboard that's loud too soon.
• Amount sets how far Light or Heavy bends the curve.
• Fixed plays every note at one loudness, set by Loudest. It's for keyboards with no touch at all.

Play a phrase after each change. The dot shows where the last note landed.

3. Set the two ends

• Softest is the quietest note your playing gives the piano. Raise it if your soft notes vanish.
• Loudest is the loudest note your playing gives the piano. Lower it if your loud notes are harsh.

They limit only what you play on your keyboard. Files, ComposerFlex and the keys on the screen keep their own range, unless All notes is ticked (below).

You can also drag the small squares at the two ends of the curve.

4. Draw your own, if you want

Drag any round point on the curve up or down. Shape switches to Custom, starting from the curve you had, so you can fine-tune just the part of the range that feels wrong.

Things worth knowing

• The curve belongs to the keyboard, not the sound. Presets don't change it, so you can try every piano with the same touch. PianoFlex keeps one curve per keyboard by its name. Two keyboards each keep their own.
• Reset goes back to Linear, every note as your keyboard sends it.
• All notes, beside Reset, uses the curve for everything PianoFlex plays: the keys on the screen, MIDI files, Render to audio, Make video and ComposerFlex's songs. It's off at first, so files play as they were written.
• What it reaches: the curve also shapes your keyboard's notes that PianoFlex sends on through MIDI out, and Record keeps your playing as you heard it.
• In the plugin, the curve shapes the notes your music program sends, and it's saved with your project.
• It isn't the Velocity response slider. That slider, in Touch & pedals, is part of a piano's sound: how that one piano answers being played. It's saved with the preset. The curve is how your keyboard is fitted, whatever the piano.

More: all the Learn guides and the PianoFlex user guide.