How best to randomize mechanically created music notes?

[DallasSteve]

I have entered music notes in my songs mostly by using the Piano Roll view.  Using Snap To Grid this results in very perfect notes that don't sound human to the ear.  What method is best/easiest way to add some randomization (imperfection) to the songs?  Looking at the Cakewalk documentation I found 2 methods.  Maybe there are more.  The 2 methods that I found are:

Random Time.CAL

Quantize - Randomize

How much randomization do you think works best in ticks?  5, 10, 100?

 

[John Bradley]

See the CSHumanize midi plugin in this thread. Has the advantage that your notes are unmodified, and you can play around with the sliders non-destructively to find values that work for you.

 

 

[Promidi]

I use CAL scripts for this.  One for Random velocity.  One for random time placement.

[John Vere]

Be careful with timing randomizing. Actually good musicians have very perfect timing. So there is nothing inhuman about placing notes where they belong. But it's more about the "feel" which is all about how the instrument responds to velocity and after touch. 

[David Baay]

4 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Be careful with timing randomizing. Actually good musicians have very perfect timing. So there is nothing inhuman about placing notes where they belong. But it's more about the "feel" which is all about how the instrument responds to velocity and after touch. 

... and duration. Much of the "mechanical" sound of step-entered MIDI is due to a lack of natural use of duration as well as velocity. I've often posted that I can hard-quantize the start times of a live performance without totally killing the "feel" so long as the velocities and durations are preserved.

My advice is to get a keyboard controller if you don't already have one and spend all the time you would have used trying to humanize your step-entered MIDI learning to play it. I maintain the even with very limited ability to play a keyboard, you will still get better (and faster) results by recording an imperfect performance (at lower tempo if necessary), and removing the 'excess imperfection' than by trying to do the opposite. And the more you do it the better you'll get and the less you'll have to fix. Plus it's just way more enjoyable!

[Promidi]

22 hours ago, DallasSteve said:

How much randomization do you think works best in ticks?  5, 10, 100?

With Preferences | Project | Clock > “Ticks Per Quarter Note” set to 960 (The default value), I find a maximum deviation of 20 ticks works well.

The reason I mention the “Ticks Per Quarter Note” is because, with MIDI files imported from earlier versions of Cakewalk, this value is less - which affects the actual delay (in ms) a given number of ticks shift will produce.

Also, remember, with sounds with higher attack times, the trigger time needs to be slightly before the grid.  You want the peak of the sound’s transient to be the guide, not the necessarily the note trigger time.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Promidi

[Base 57]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

Actually good musicians have very perfect timing

This is true with the caveat that what is musically perfect is rarely mechanically perfect.

Before using any randomizer, I employ the Tempo Map. For the typical three minute song, a linear increase of the tempo by  just two or three bpm from the beginning to the end can add energy and help to eliminate the robotic feel. A Tempo Map can be as simple or as complex as you want but a static tempo is always going to sound robotic.

In addition, CbB has the Groove Quantize function that I think is more musical than any randomizer.

As always, YMMV.

[DallasSteve]

11 hours ago, Promidi said:

I use CAL scripts for this.  One for Random velocity.  One for random time placement.

Thanks.  I forgot about velocity.  That's a good one, too.

[Byron Dickens]

You got to be careful with this. Real musicians don't make random variations in either timing or velocity.  What they do is purposeful. Not robotically perfect, of course, but deliberate.

 

[Base 57]

3 minutes ago, bdickens said:

Real musicians don't make random variations

^^This^^

[DallasSteve]

These are all good tips.  I'm currently using a MIDI keyboard that is less than full size for composing.  Once I get my work area better arranged I may try to record live as David Baay suggests.  I can always edit the performance in piano roll view when needed.

[John Vere]

That’s what works for me. I use a Roland A 49 and it’s very responsive so I try my best to play the parts live and then I edit to taste. Over time my chops on the keyboard have most certainly improved. 

[David Baay]

On 3/6/2022 at 3:42 PM, Base 57 said:

A Tempo Map can be as simple or as complex as you want but a static tempo is always going to sound robotic.

This a really good point. I often record without a click and then use Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to measures as necessary to get everything close enough to the grid to be able to do a percentage quantize if needed. Even with very tight quantizing, leaving the tempo variations from one measure/section to the next in place helps preserve the live feel. And working in the opposite way, it will be a lot easier, and probably more effective, to change tempo every few measure than to edit individual note timings within the context of a fixed tempo. And ramping sections up/down with Insert Series of Tempos could also be  effective, and sound pretty natural if done correctly.

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by David Baay

[Starship Krupa]

At this point, I use a combination of tweaking note duration (and I remember those horrible MIDI songs from the 80's that seemed to use only one or two note durations for the whole thing) and manually fiddling with velocity. Messing with start times usually sounds "off" to me, unless as some have said, I nudge it behind the beat a click or two and do that consistently.