I wanted to know more about accessing velocity layer information and specifically figuring out which velocities correlate to their respective dynamic hits. Most manuals do not include this information. Is there a way to see which hits are triggered at specific velocity levels?
Another question I have, how often is it that dynamic hits are artificially spread out throughout all velocity levels?
That's totally up to the sampler you are triggering, Reaper can't possibly know unless there was some standard for reporting this that it could then display in it's GUI.
It's very common. Drums are often 8-12 velocity layers which play at ramping volumes into one another. A common way to set this up is to normalize all samples to the same volume, then do the volume purely in the software for a smooth transition.
Some samplers fake it using filters or compression.
Which sampler format are you using? Kontakt lets you load the instrument's mapping editor, which shows you over which range of velocity values a zone is mapped (ex: velocity 100 to 127 for fortissimo hits on a snare drum.)
Vienna Symphonic Library's manuals are very detailed in this regard. It's all depends on if the developer bothers to create a manual with this information, otherwise you have to dig into the sampler's editor to figure it out.
It's important information to know, certainly. The difference between velocity 90 and 91 can mean a completely different sample being triggered, with completely different sound characteristics.
Question about velocity layers.
Linear Mode
