Abstract
A method to control the velocity of piano tones of MIDI tone synthesizers on the basis of equal loundness property is presented. The idea is a parameterization of equal loudness contour of velocity with a physical correlate to the loudness. A listening experiment was conducted to get the equal loudness contours on a particular sound synthesizer with the method of adjustment, where the standard stimulus was note C4 and the comparison stimuli were notes n in the chromatic scale C2 ∼ C7. A new unit velo was introduced to identify these contours so that a velo whose value is V refers to the loudness of a note that sounds equally loud as C4 sounded at velocity V. Regarding the physical correlate to the loudness, the single event sound exposure level (LAE) was chosen to fix the method. By relating the LAE-value, l, of C4 to the equal loudness contour, a mapping formula from (n,l) to velocity v, i.e., g:(n,l) |→v=g(n,l), was established. By this mapping, note n played at velocity g(n,l) produces a tone whose loudness is equal to the tone of C4 sounded at l dB in the sense of LAE; a unit name dyn was given to l to refer to this loudness.
