MIDI dynamics using velocity

[Darius Blasband]

Hi,

I'm not a specialist about these issues, so please feel free to 
contradict if I'm talking nonsense...

I use the MIDI files generated by Lilypond to produce demos of my music; 
I plug them into CUBASE
which, together with Sampletank, allows for an amazing level of realism 
when rendering instruments.
This works, except for the fact that as it stands now, this scheme does 
not take advantage of the sampling
in multiple velocities. Dynamics are represented by volume changes in 
MIDI files as generated by
Lilypond, and while acceptable, it is kind of
a frustration to me because I'm convinced the result would be much 
better if the samples in the various
velocities were used. \ff is not just an amplified, \pp, nor if \pp a 
damped \ff. Depending on the instrument
(think of staccato violins, for instance) the sound is intrinsically 
very different.The sampler supports this,
bu my MIDI files don't...

Besides, using velocities would make stuff such as :

<<
{ a1 \f b c }
\\
{ c8 \p d e f g h}
>>

sound better as well.

So I though, it should not be much of an issue, to use a single midi 
event with velocity, rather than
two events, one for the note (with maximal velocity 127) followed by a 
volume change. I checked the
source - not to correct it myself, but at least, to see how this would 
be possible - and it soon appeared
that it would be a non-trivial task, as notes and dynamic changes are 
just considered events, and the
fact that they ought to be connected together does not appear explicitly 
- as far as I could gather....

A sort of hack in the serialization procedure could do the job (keep the 
last note in cache, and if followed
by a volume change, change the velocity instead...) but I'm not quite 
sure of the implications...

Any advice, idea, suggestion, welcome ....

(And a merry christmas and a happy new year...)

Cheers,

Darius.