Giving midi that lovin' feeling

Oblongus

I'm interested in what people do to 'humanise' midi files. Creating pulses and stresses with velocity seems like the most obvious 'correction' to make to help the piece sound less like a public speaker with anxiety issues reading from a script, but there are probably many other things I could do. Moving notes slightly 'off the grid' is presumably one of them, but what results are achieved by either lagging or bringing forward the timing? And how much to do it by?

I suppose the obvious answer is "experiment and see what works" but that would bring me to my second question, what's a good app environment to do this all in? Most of the things I have in mind worth fleshing out or experimenting with have been 'composed' within Different Drummer. As much as I love that strange and peculiar beast, dialling in particular changes without altering things I don't want altered is difficult, so I'm hoping someone will mention a piano roll midi editor into which I can export my midi files, the best I have at the moment is Pro Midi which sadly lacks an overt song mode. The obvious candidate would be to upgrade Auria. Has anyone been brave enough to upgrade to Auria Pro without backing up projects and found that everything was still all hunky dory? I backed up one (smallish) project to Dropbox and it took an age, so doing it with everything I have would be quite an investment in time.

CalCutta

Great thread!

This won't work with the UI of every drum app (off the top of my head, I'm thinking Different Drummer may be tricky), but I like to quantize everything except the hi-hat in a beat. Or if not the hi-hat, one element of the beat, I leave unquantized. This can help a surprising amount.

aaronpc

Agreed. Very good idea for a thread, as this has bugged me plenty. One of the many reasons I still find myself returning to Digital Performer on the desktop is its great MIDI tools, with one of them being Humanize. It's great not just for drums but percussion, arps, keys, whatever. Choose a % range of +/- timing and/or velocity and dial in the humanity.

All my iPad work ends up on the desktop for polish eventually (which is why I'm not an Auria Pro customer), but I would love to humanize as I compose rather than as a post process. It would be a great as an option in the piano roll of your choice. It might also work as a standalone midi effect app that would take midi, humanize, then spit it out to the same app or some other. Kind of a hack but better than nothing, so I would pay a buck or two for the option. You devs listening?

Will

Think the fastest way to do this or experiment with it is with 'groove templates'. Basic idea is to have these small midi templates with a particular feel (say, heavy swing with the one emphasized) and superimpose that same set of parameters onto an existing midi track (your music).

Not sure if Auria Pro or Cubasis (or anything else) support groove templates. Feel like I may have seen them in Cubasis but I don't own either. Most desktop sequencers support them.

CalCutta

Auria Pro does have groove templates

AndyPlankton

The best way is to play using a controller and dont quantise. This is where good quality controllers with decent velocity response really can make a difference.
I will often program a beat when first composing, and then record a performance later once the main structure is in place.

Oblongus

I wasn't aware that midi groove templates even existed, and since they (presumably) require little effort or knowledge on my part they might be my ideal solution. I shall look further into this. And the fact that Auria Pro supports them pushes me further into making that upgrade.

I would love to be able to play things live with a controller @AndyPlankton, but unfortunately I tread that fine line between being dissatisfied with the results of a strict, unfeeling robotic grid and the disappointment with my own inability to play by hand with any consistency.

AndyPlankton

@Oblongus said:
I wasn't aware that midi groove templates even existed, and since they (presumably) require little effort or knowledge on my part they might be my ideal solution. I shall look further into this. And the fact that Auria Pro supports them pushes me further into making that upgrade.

I would love to be able to play things live with a controller @AndyPlankton, but unfortunately I tread that fine line between being dissatisfied with the results of a strict, unfeeling robotic grid and the disappointment with my own inability to play by hand with any consistency.

When trying to play, rather than thinking about playing, think about making your hands dance, see if that helps, it certainly helps me, once my hands are dancing instead of trying to play, everything becomes much more natural and fluid, and the results can be surprising.

Oblongus

@AndyPlankton said:
When trying to play, rather than thinking about playing, think about making your hands dance, see if that helps, it certainly helps me, once my hands are dancing instead of trying to play, everything becomes much more natural and fluid, and the results can be surprising.

I can surprise myself sometimes when playing unwatched, but press record or, God forbid, set a metronome going, and I'm suddenly unable to play anything which has a meter more complex than 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'.

eustressor

I personally have a blast playing with velocity, quantization on, then off, and scooting notes a hair this way and that when using Bilbao as a drum machine in Gadget. Gadget's excellent piano roll editor is a great playground for quickly exploring ways to humanize ...

In a general sense, scooting notes to the right tends to add "groove", while moving notes slightly before the beat adds a bit of "urgency," but it's all kinda subjective - just play around and have fun

'Course, there's a time and place for everything. Sometimes I want my passage to sound like perfectly-timed playing ... Never understood the whole "that sounds too quantized" critique, myself. That's more or less saying, "that sounds too much like impeccable timing."

AndyPlankton

@eustressor said: Never understood the whole "that sounds too quantized" critique, myself. That's more or less saying, "that sounds too much like impeccable timing."

I think velocity makes the most difference for making it not sound too programmed

Will

@AndyPlankton said:
The best way is to play using a controller and dont quantise. This is where good quality controllers with decent velocity response really can make a difference.

Agreed. I took the original question to be about working with already-recorded material.

@Oblongus said:
I would love to be able to play things live with a controller @AndyPlankton, but unfortunately I tread that fine line between being dissatisfied with the results of a strict, unfeeling robotic grid and the disappointment with my own inability to play by hand with any consistency.

Well, you might be excited to hear that Auria Pro also has something called 'Quantize Strength'. So you can tell it to quantize to rigid 16th notes but only at 50%. That will move your late notes half way between where you actually played them an the closest 16th note division. It's another tried and true desktop feature that's just making it to iOS now. Bonus: Auria Pro does it in real time as a sort of MIDI effect on the track so you can experiment away.

Another thing that can help is to quantize selectively. Say, select all the notes in a track, deselect the stuff on/near the 2 and 4 (making this up) and only quantize the remainder.

Sometimes, particularly if you're playing to an existing groove/recording/loop whatever, quantizing will destroy the earth. Often it's not so important that everything is 'on time' but that it's in-time together. Say you have a guitar riff and that rushes the one a little on it, try rushing the one on everything else (even if that requires manually nudging notes around) instead of quantizing them.

eustressor

@syrupcore said:
... you might be excited to hear that Auria Pro also has something called 'Quantize Strength'. So you can tell it to quantize to rigid 16th notes but only at 50%. That will move your late notes half way between where you actually played them an the closest 16th note division. It's another tried and true desktop feature that's just making it to iOS now. Bonus: Auria Pro does it in real time as a sort of MIDI effect on the track so you can experiment away..

The devil you say?!? resumes self-flagellation for still not having Auria Pro. Pauses Doesn't Beathawk have a similar feature? resumes self-flagellation for still not having Auria Pro.

@AndyPlankton said:
I think velocity makes the most difference for making it not sound too programmed

I agree - spent too much time in school band working on my timing to toss that out, but just enough time in jazz band to appreciate the importance of dynamics – and the occasional touch of swing

AndyPlankton

@eustressor said:
I agree - spent too much time in school band working on my timing to toss that out, but just enough time in jazz band to appreciate the importance of dynamics – and the occasional touch of swing

I spent far too much time in a band where no one had any training or regular timing

Will

@eustressor said:
The devil you say?!? resumes self-flagellation for still not having Auria Pro. Pauses Doesn't Beathawk have a similar feature? resumes self-flagellation for still not having Auria Pro.

I don't have it either. iPad 3. I am a recovering catholic so I do have lots and lots of self-flagellation experience.

Brain

'The MIDI Files' by Rob Young. Great book to explain MIDI but moreover how to get more 'humanness' in your MIDI tracks.