Mac makes a good point (although I was at first confused by the term velocity layers).

A top notch keyboard will recognize and generate all 128 velocity levels for every key on the piano.

Another method that doesn't involve listening is to record a midi file by playing on your keyboard with varying degrees of loudness as you play. The simplest would be to play several notes at loudnesses varying from ppp to fff (note that there are keyboards that will not recognize the entire range - this has been discussed on the Pianoteq forum).

With the midi file saved, load it into Powertracks, and look at the Event List. The Velocity of every note is displayed, and they shouldn't fall into discreet velocity levels.

And read Mac's entire post carefully, particularly the last few paragraphs - there is a lot of information there that is important - especially the part about the response or touch curve of your keyboard.

Incidentally, Pianoteq can be adjusted to "react" to different ranges of velocity. The lower right corner of the interface is an Equalizer/Velocity curve. The velocity range is from zero to 125 (don't know why it isn't 127). Using the mouse, the range can be adjusted to better suit your keyboard. The default line consists of three points that form a straight line, but many more points can be added, and the straight line can be modified into many different velocity response curves. The simplest of course is to maintain the linear response curve (straight line) and define the range from zero to something less than 125 (say 100).

Last edited by Glenn Kolot; 12/16/08 09:38 AM.