Session Drummer vs ezDrummer: midi pattern velocities

The killer aspect of ezDrummer is the variable velocities on each drum within each midi pattern file. Session Drummer and SI drums midi patterns have a set velocity for each drum. ______ I know there is a tool somewhere in Sonar that can "randomize" those velocities. Does anyone here use it for this purpose, and is there some kind of trick to getting it right, and getting it done fast? ______ Like creating a velocity map from an ezDrummer midi clip, and then applying it to a Session Drummer midi clip of similar style? Oh the joy such a tool would bring...!

APro300 controller - Keystation Pro 88 controller - UM 3g - Roland TD-8 eKit - Korg M3 - FantomS

I'm a little surprised that someone who owns four keyboards and an e-drum kit would even consider trying to humanize a programmed drum pattern by editing velocities offline.


If you have any kind of keyboard or e-drum chops, it's so much easier to record drum parts from a controller in real-time, giving them natural dynamics that are far from "random".


To my mind, it's better to have to massage the timing and dynamics of a real performance to tighten it up than to try to add nuance to a programmed one.


That said, I'm surprised to hear that Session Drummer patterns do not have natural velocity variation. I haven't looked that closely at any of them, but from what I've heard, many or most of them seem to have been recorded as real-time performances with natural timing and dynamics.

I'm getting warmer - I think what I want to do can be done in The Event Filter page: To select events using the Event Filter 1. First, select an initial set of tracks, clips, or events. 2. Choose Edit > Select > By Filter to display the Event Filter dialog box. 3. Set up the event filter to find the events you want. 4. Click OK. SONAR searches the currently selected events and weeds out those that do not meet the requirements of the event filter.

Sorry, I don't have X1 on my laptop but I'm sure this is accessible in X1 as well:
Select MIDI Track then -
Ctr+F1 or Process/Run Cal (may be hidden - look for a grey bar at the bottom of the Process menu.

There should be a VARYVEL and a Scale Velocity script available.

However, like others have said, I'm not sure a random velocity is any better than constant if it still doesn't have a reasonable human feel to it.

EDIT: For individual drums, run the CAL script Split Notes/Channels to Tracks first then apply VARYVEL.

Broke my own rule about answering the OP's question, and not questioning the motive. 

In addition to the VaryVel CAL there is the Velocity MIDI FX plugin, which has a Randomize option. MFX are applied non-destructively on playback, but after setting the FX parameters to get a real-time result that you like, you can use Process > Apply Effect > MIDI Effects to destructively apply the randomization to the clips in the track. Note, however that the randomizer will be "seeded" with a different value each time it runs, so the pattern of variations will be different every time you play or apply the FX.

If you selectively apply randomness to individual drum parts (e.g. Kicks at 80 ±10, Snares at at 95 ± 20, etc.) you can begin to get something that sounds human. If you also use the Event Filter to select according to what beat the hits fall on (i.e. to put variable emphasis on the downbeat kicks or the closed hi-hats after open ones) it could sound even more natural, but that could get to be a huge amount of work. This is why I recommend just recording the parts from a controller in real time; even with multiple takes to get it right, you'll be ahead of the game in terms of how much time it takes to get a good result.

BTW, I did check out some of the included Session Drummer patterns from Groove Monkey and Smart Loops, and they all had variable (with human emphasis) velocities within each drum part.