tnipe
In my mind, these functions are good for midi parts that have been programmed by mouse, not played.

Ah, I see what you want. It helps if you change timings idiomatically - for example with a guitar chord, the timings aren't random, but the lower strings play before the upper ones with a typical strum.
 
Also you can give a song a more "laid-back" feel by moving the snare a little behind the beat, or "push" a song more by moving hi-hats ahead of the beat. These kind of techniques really humanize a part, but they're not random.
 
Michael Stewart wrote a ground-breaking, definitive article on imparting feel to MIDI sequences. I recommend it very very highly!!!!

Great stuff, thanks!

I've had good luck with Frank's Midi Plugins Humanize:
 
http://www.midi-plugins.de/#Plugins
 
HTH
 

When I humanize, I don't screw with the timing too much. it can sound too sloppy.
I focus more on Velocity's. Drummers if ever, very rarely hit the hi hats or cymbals at the same velocity.
Kick and snare I find are different but only because we use a compressor to even things out.

As I always say when this topic comes up, try Groove Quantitse. And remember you are not limited to the presets, you can use any MIDI o the clipboard.

The "humanize" feature of so many tools has variation capability (+/- values too wide) to sound musically accurate. If the initial source is perfectly timed with matching velocities, humanization with narrow bands and variation has more chance to sound realistic. If the source already has some variation, a humanizer may make it sound musically worse.

So many tools like this entice people to spend hours tweaking a track that could be played in 10 minutes.

Further to my last post a few thoughts on Groove Quantise.

It works both way, tightening a sloppy part or adding feel and variation to a rigid step sequence.

Try this, program a hi-hat part, say straight 8ths them try some of the Cakewalk DNA grooves. Play around with velocity and timing settings. You should be able to come up with endless variations that are more musical than randomisation would deliver.

Try it on a non percussive part, say bass and try the duration setting too.

Using the same groove template with different parts should mean they lock together, varying the strength will add a little bit of variation.