Soft, medium and hard: why do all my MIDI hits look alike?
Plug your kit in
Don’t guess, measure. The kit check is open to everyone and needs no account.
Check my kitAn electronic drum can send every expected note while translating your dynamics poorly. If soft strokes already start high, most of your playing is squeezed into the upper part of the MIDI range. No note is missing; what you lose is contrast.
eDrumWork measures the kit response at separate playing levels to check whether playing harder still produces higher MIDI values.
A wide range does not guarantee a useful response
Seeing an occasional low velocity and a value near 127 can be reassuring for the wrong reason. What matters is where each kind of stroke lands. When light strokes overlap normal ones, reaching a high maximum does not bring back nuance.
The diagnostic compares groups of strokes, not just the minimum and maximum.
Use three explicit levels
- Play where you normally play.
- Play a soft series without aiming for silence.
- Play an ordinary series.
- Finish with controlled accents.
- Compare the center of each group and how much the three overlap.
Separate levels are more reliable than an improvised crescendo, because the intended level of every stroke is known.
Check raw MIDI before changing the trigger
A compressor, velocity remap or plugin mapping can flatten the audio while the module output remains correct. If raw MIDI groups are distinct, fix the software or mix instead.
Fixing D03 means making the pad respond less eagerly to weak signals. The cost can be a pad that feels too quiet, or a top range that becomes hard to reach. Retest strong strokes so that solving D03 does not create D04.
eDrumWork does not expect a universal value for ghost notes. It checks whether your own soft, normal and strong strokes stay distinct.