yorolpal

They do, of course, push and drag,".

Which is where "Groove Quantatise" comes in, you need to quantatise to the pushed or draged position, not the "grid". It also quatatises to the "grooves varying velocities, not a fixed value.
 
I suggest the OP also looks at groove quantatise. One thick is you can quantatise to the clipboard. This enables you to steal the feel from a midi clip. Either one from, say EZDrummer or one you have played correctly.
 
If you are fat fingered but can tap out the correct feel on just one or two keys you can use that as a template to groove quantatise the more complex parts.

I think Randy touched on this earlier, but let me expound on it a little bit:
 
First off, I agree with playing your midi stuff in to get a human feel.  Early on in my recording days, I was living in an apartment and couldn't track live drums, so I bought a DrumKat electric drum set (midi drum pads).  I played them like I would play a drumset (with sticks and pedals) and got great results, however, I did still have to do edits for both time and velocity to get the best track possible (nothing responds like a real drum and sometimes I had to make up for how the pads "interpreted" what I was trying to play).  When I quantized something, I only did it at maybe 75%, which I believe means that the program would move my notes 75% closer to "perfect" from where they were.  Because I wasn't off much to start, 75% sounded tight, but not mechanical.  There are some people who just can't play drums in time or with any groove at all, (yes, I'm looking at YOU lead guitar players).  Playing your drum parts might not be for you.
 
Secondly,  randomization is NOT humanization.  The subtle differences a drummer makes in timing and dynamics are not random...not errors.  They are carefully honed skills that bring a groove to life.  I purposefuly "hold back" on sections of a tune.   I selectively accent some hits more than others.  I mindfully push and drag to create tension and release.  Simply changing velocity and timing values at random does not make something more human, because that is not how humans play.  It is intentional and for very specific reasons.  When doing midi edits, you need to make musical decisions, not shots in the dark.

Butch has raised a good point and it has made me think there is another way to express these concepts. And that is in the form of degrees of what sounds great.

For example what sounds best live musicians playing with a great groove and no click.  And after all that is the ultimate experience. Drums fully acoustic so we have maximum variations in the drum sounds as well as velocity and timing.

Next what sounds very very good could be great musicians with a great feel playing to a click and drums still acoustic. The only thing here is that it is the same as the best version except for the click. Great music can be made to a click. (but the same music might just sound a bit better without it) This is what a lot of us do. It allows for the easiest addition of extra musical parts.

Then good might be live musicians playing with a great groove to a click and drums are now midi. Drums still can exercise greatness in velocities and timing but to a lesser extent the limitations of the midi sound variations. (but this is growing) Drums don't have to be quantised as a good player can make this part very tight. Good drum grooves can exist in midi. Groove quantise sits well here.

Now for average to Ok  might be drum parts that were fully quantised originally but then manipulated due to some plugin adding controlled randomness to the midi parts. I say controlled because you can influence the choice to a certain extent. This is where I see these types of tools being useful at this level and they can improve an otherwise stiff track. They are interesting and fun to use and experiment with. Especially when you start applying these things to individual drum sounds.

Bad is just plain full on quantize with no variations in velocity or timing at all and the sound also remains completely static and we have all heard this! Unless you want this for the drums and other parts of the music can express the emotion and the idea so it can also be very effective. (Kraftwerk!) So not necessarily bad either.

But what I think is also wonderful is back to best scenario above but now we get Sonar to tempo map to the live performance. (I had to record some great world percussion musicians playing and they wanted nothing to do with the click but when they played it was like OMG!) I have done lots of this and it kicks ass. It is time consuming but well worth it.  After doing the hard tempo mapping work then the bars and beats in Sonar sync to the live playing. (every crotchet at least) Sonar click is rock solid to the performance now. Now anything you do in Sonar on the other tracks will take on the feel of the playing. Even quantised midi parts.

The option is there to release from the live performance and still work on the other tracks to the internal Sonar clock at fixed tempo then hand back to the tempo mapped track. Whats going on there.?

If you played the extra parts in with feeling to a click then handed back over to the tempo mapped track your music will have even more feel. Or quantised parts will also take on the feel. This is getting easier to do. It does require excellence in the initial playing to start with for it work really well. It is one of the most beautiful ways to incorporate live playing and technology at the same time.

And BTW when you examine all the tempo variations between every crotchet there does not seem to be any pattern or organisation to it. Just had an idea. I should plot them all on a graph and look to see if there are any trends that way.

I used the actual drum sounds from the players themselves to trigger the tempo mapping. As opposed to me recording a live click track and sync to that. Despite it being hard to read anything into the tempo variations, it grooved like hell.

Maybe we need to do further study in this area to find out what is going on when we hear an exciting and relentless groove.

I use Reason's ReGroove Mixer for getting stiff MIDI parts to come to life.  It's a non-destructive groove quantize tool that has eight time feel slots.  You can assign your MIDI tracks to any one of the eight feels and the amount of quanitization and velocity is variable via sliders and the sliders are automatable. 

I am a huge Sonar fan, but Reason really is the bees knees when it comes to MIDI manipulation for me.  Cakewalk should definitely absorb this concept in the next version of Sonar.

Excellent thread!  Thanks for all the info!

rbowser




That's why quantizing to 99% is advice to be taken with extreme caution.

Randy B.

Well, I say the proof is in the puddin' Randy, ol pal.  I encourage you to follow my link to some of my noodlins.  Each and every one of them was played in by me and then quantized to 98-99%.  You tell me...I can take it...do they sound robotic in any way?
 

Let's Bring Arrangers into this. As they are known for sounding Boxed. Canned. Whatever term U use.
I use An arranger to write with. So I can add vocals to the finished Backing track.
Before I Sing. I want The Drums and Bass as Human as possible.
So I take the 16 track midi file into Live 9. 
I use the Humanize Tools on the Track(S)
This tool In Live9 . Sounds a lot like what Frank's Midi plug in does.(I will compare).
I have been fairly happy with the results of Live 9's Humanize tools. But if Franks is Better. Then I will spend the $35.00
Then I Use Sonar For the Rest.
On the Same Note. Sort of.
The New Yamaha Genos. Has a New Round robin Multi sample Algorithm. That make the Drums Sound Very Real!
I do not have $5500 for a new Keyboard. And The Humanize tools. I have do the job.

Zombie thread alert from 2010! There are more recent ones on the topic.

Don't forget you get AD2 free with Sonar....the transform button is your friend trust me 
 
https://youtu.be/MdVxig0QxuY

BrianC
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? 

Pretty much, yes...those "human" things that drummers do are driven by skill, not luck. However, do check out the Friday's Tip of the Week for Week 145, End Boring MIDI Drum Parts. I think you'll be shocked at how effective it is.