I can add that for composing brass and woodwinds that it truly helps to keep the phrasing to a sort that mimics the breathing required to play particular parts.  For example, the higher the register, the more breath required, in general terms, so if you have ever seen a sax player's head look like it was getting ready to explode, it was because they were trying to squeeze the last bit of breath in their body into completing a particular phrase.  Mirroring the reality of needing to take breaths in laying down brass/woodwind parts is essential, in my opinion.  

I also think that constructing musical phrases into multiple sections makes them stand out more than if they are all just one endless stream of notes.

I used to practice for hours on end playing massive numbers of notes when playing keyboards, and over the years I have drastically scaled back on that, coming to firmly believe that I could say much more through better CONTENT, as opposed to just numbers of notes played.

Good luck with it all - a fine thread.

Bob Bone

get your velocities tweeked as well,not every hit will be the same

Chregg


get your velocities tweeked as well,not every hit will be the same

Indeed
 
I will lay down a bar or two of MIDI drums, either using step sequencer, PRV or playing a keyboard, and then I'll do a bit of cut and paste, to flesh things out a bit, and I'll then keep revisiting every individual bar, adding grace notes here and there and changing each individual velocity by hand. It may sound a bit long winded, but it helps me create something that is almost believeable, although, having said that, for the style of music I produce, it doesn't matter that much.
 
And I'd rather do that than use loops, but that's just me
 
I'm a Midician afterall LOL

"I'm a Midician afterall LOL " lol me as well, i like that one, thats ma new war cry, am a midician

How any instrument is played comes down to its particular capabilities and limitations, and the limitations of human appendages to manipulate it. These are usually non-intuitive to someone who hasn't actually played a particular instrument himself.

IMO the best way to figure this stuff out is to closely watch people playing instruments that you don't play yourself. YouTube provides an inexhaustible supply of music videos, and while most are useless the sheer quantity of material on YouTube assures that plenty of helpful material can eventually be found.


If you're the book-larnin' type, go to Amazon.com and search on "MIDI orchestration". Multiple titles can be found there. Be sure to scroll down to the "customers who bought this item also bought..." section where you can sometimes discover unexpected gems.

C'mon....maybe a basic rock and roll drum beat, but you can't do anything even close to the skills of a real drummer without using audio drum loops. You can't even do a convincing roll with MIDI. 

If you have drumming skills, using a nice V-drum kit as a MIDI controller goes a LONG way toward making sequenced/MIDI drum tracks sound authentic.  The mesh V-drum pads are extremely sensitive... and you can perform and effectively record rolls and other subtle nuances.


I have heard some great drum sequences produced using just the PRV, but I just wouldn't have the patience for that...   
A real drummer's clock/time isn't perfect, but it isn't random either.  It has ebb and flow.  The time is pushed/pulled in an "elastic" manner.


Generally speaking, to program realistic MIDI parts, you have to be able to think like a bass player, guitar player, drummer, etc.
If you have skills playing bass, guitar, drums, etc... sometimes it's just quicker/easier to record the real thing.

Just my opinion:

What you play is more important than the humanizing of the timing. Although I am not necessarily the perfect example, I try to think about a human playing the instrument and how he or she would play it.  This is extremely critical in guitars, violins, etc.

For drums and bass, listening to records and paying attention to what is played is very helpful; but keep in mind that a very large percentage of records use MIDI bass and drums.   Rock and country are more likely to have real players than pop, but there is no guarantee.  Older rock records can be a good source of licks and styles.

Drum and bass VIs that have round robin samples—that is, playing the same note repeatedly will cycle through several similar but not identical samples—and VIs with mutliple velocity layers sound much more authentic.  If you don't have that, you can still work around it with good playing.

My biggest weakkness is bass lines.  For some songs I write, I come up with bass parts I really like.  For others, I can't seem to get an original motif.

daveny... C'mon....maybe a basic rock and roll drum beat, but you can't do anything even close to the skills of a real drummer without using audio drum loops. You can't even do a convincing roll with MIDI.

Meh. I've got a tune on the go with some very complex drum parts I programmed in PRV and am running through BFD. With the humanize and anti machine gun features in BFD and a bit of manual tweaking in the PRV it's sounding pretty darned real. It's a lot of work though. I also used to play drums too so that helps.