Best thing that ever happend to my Drum MIDI editing was to record a Good drummer to click on a good electric drumkit.

You can see exactly what a dynamic human performance looks like in the MIDI realm.
 A couple slight tweaks to perfect, then play it back through the module.

Instant brilliance.

I subsequently bought a TD-9KXS and my drum tracks now sound great.

Here are some things Ive noticed.

The dynamics of 1 and 3 beat compare to the 2 and 4 beat make a huge difference.
You can impart alot of Life to the track by making the all note in a 4 beat sequence have slight different velocities, while maintaining the accents.

Then copy that dynamic down the track, then apply a slight randomizer.

If you want volume swells, leave that to mix time, after you have bounced each MIDI drum to its own audio track. Then simply apply volume automation to the audio tracks for thoes big urgent swells or dynamic lows.

I often copy grooves out of the ride cymbal and apply its slight swing to the other drums.

Make a Drum Map in the Drum Map Manager, you will be better able to visualize the dynamics.
Dont work on a piano roll, its not a piano.

If you havent already, try learning a basic drumbeat on a drumkit.
Being able to visualize what it feels like to move around a drumk kit is very insightfull when editing drums.

Good luck.

Glyn Barnes


One of the most versatile automatic ways is to use Franks midi Plugins.
 
http://www.midi-plugins.de/

+1 -I have been using franks midi plugs for many, many years. I( secon hat choice. Great midi plugs in the bundle-extremely inexpensive too!

Thanks for the tip about Franks Plugs, Stratman and Jeff.  I had a look at the page, and I see the list isn't very long for these MIDI plug-ins, but the descriptions sound promising.  All of them have their counterparts in CAL scripts - for $35 you're guaranteeing you find these better than the CAL scripts we already have?

Randy B.

Randy I am someone that does not use Cal Scripts so much. They seem a harder way to go about the same job. Do Cal scripts offer as much adjustment and control over midi data as does Franks Plug Ins. I tried achieving the same thing with Sonar and found it harder to do.

They are not all that expensive and yes the others may be doable in Cal srcipt mode. I think the Humanize plugin is one of the more interesting and complex plugins in the Frank range. It is probably worth the money alone.

The good thing about that plugin too is that you can very easily alter settings and listen almost in real time. Also you can create presets easily and reload them for even quicker setups. I found myself tweaking ranges for timing and velocity from song to song just to make sure there were more variations between songs etc.

Randy,

I think it comes down to two things...

do you enjoy 'rolling your own' over buying something?
-and-
do you want or need complete control?

I like scripting, I spent a large part of my career writing shell and PERL scripts to do tasks, the concept just makes sense to me. Some call it the "tool builder" mindset that permeates the unix world<G>!

But, I have grown a bit weary of having to write scripts to accomplish things in the studio. That, and CAL is starting to get a little long in the tooth. If a more modern scripting language were adopted I'd give it a whirl, no question, but at this point I am looking for tools that other folks have built, and Franks Plug-ins are once again on my radar.

I don't think that they do anything that can't be done in CAL, which is why I never got around to purchasing them in the past.  But Jeff's points are all valid.

Getting back to the OP - my favorite tools for humanizing drum tracks for a very long time were Slicy Drummer and Fill-in Drummer from MusicLab. I'd write my own patterns, and then let these two plugins vary the velocity and timing for me, and dang, but the end result was always very musical.

Over the last 12-18 months I've started using Jamstix a lot more for this application. When I first got Jamstix (v1) I let it create the patterns, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not - in the context of the composition. Over time I got more adept at adjusting the settings to satisfy my tastes.

Then I discovered that I could let it process my patterns. That's when I switched from the MusicLab plug-ins<G>! Now Jamstix is a DEEP program, and I'm still learning new things about it (haven't upgraded to 3 yet because I'm still wrestling with 2).

And of course it does quite a bit more than the MusicLab plug-ins which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

I'd have to recommend both MusicLab and Rayzoon as viable solutions to humanize drum parts. Perhaps I'll add Frank's plug-in suite after I've given it a fair trial...

Thanks, Bill "wst3" and Jeff for more info on the FrankPlugins.  I'm not into scripting and "rolling my own," so I do rely once in awhile on a CAL routine.  Frank's sound more sophisticated, I should look into them.  So thanks for bringing them up.

Randy B.

Yeah, I'm old school as well and CAL scripts work for a lot tasks.

I guess you guys are talking about writing your own cals because I have downloaded (over the years) every cal I could find and none will do what Franks Midi plugs do. Combined some will, Humanize is a good example. You cannot do that with one Cal (unless you write it yourself) Or I really missed that cal download. I am a computer tech (used to be) but not a programmer and I don't dabble in any of the languages. I find Franks midi plugs to be far superior to the existing cals-actually RB's term "sophisticated" is even better. 
That's just me. If I could write my own I would. do I want to learn-Nope, I'd rather but Franks plugs(as I did about 10 years ago) and go about writing music and playing my guitar.And of course recording.
\Pretty sure you can download them and try them out for free-use to be anyway
 
Please tell me which cal can do what the Humanize plug in FMP can do? Sorry I don't see it.

When I am doing drum tracks, I find that tweaking the velocity definitely gives the track a more human feel. I prefer to go through the track and tweak any parts that seem to sound unnatural. I find that using Humanize can be a little hit and miss. Does anyone else find this to be true? I prefer to tweak by hand, but maybe I'm old school lol.

stratman70
 
Please tell me which cal can do what the Humanize plug in FMP can do? Sorry I don't see it.

You miss the point. It's not whether a CAL script can do what that plug in provides. There is no standard for humanize, no framework for what is good and what is bad. Humanize at best can be defined as trying to make a midi track sound like it was really played by a human. If you like what a CAL does, you're done. If you like tweaking each note and getting favorable results, you're done. If you like using your plug in, you're done. I would not want to take a guess at what is and what isn't proper humanization. The shortest route to getting results you are pleased with, is good.