I’ve been working more with virtual instruments lately (HALion, Groove Agent, and some 3rd party libraries), but I often find my MIDI tracks sounding a bit “robotic” or static.
Beyond basic velocity changes, what are your favorite tricks to make VSTis sound more like a live performance? Do you rely on Expression Maps, manual CC automation, or perhaps specific “humanize” settings in Cubase?
Looking forward to hearing your workflow tips!
Quantized MIDI with a regular velocity in the sequencer is 100% perfection, so it will sound Robotic and clean and pristine, very unhuman.
To make it more human, you will need to change certain aspects of the MIDI.
Midi note positioning | Using Groove quantization presets, or manually moving Notes off the grid positions slightly, or partially Quantizing, you can also use Swing.
Velocity | Use random velocity settings across patterns utilising the Logical Editor. Also using Modulators to modulate Velocity settings.
Modulation to modulate Note Envelopes, like Attack, Decay & Release. Also Modulating Note Pitch, Reverbs, delays and Distortion settings.
Modulate pan positions, making certain elements sway and swagger, not stay in an isolated position, when a guitar player strums a guitar there hands move about, they rarely hit the same place exactly twice, sound moves through the air differently.
There many methods, the goal is to make things irregular and unpredictable to the human ear.
The human touch isn’t perfect, its always modulating, changing and slightly off.
This is why analog tape sounded sweeter than digital, because sound hit the tape and warped and modulated as it imprinted into the tape, digital is purity it is unforgiving in its crystalline clarity, so you have to use methods to mimic the randomness and modularity of imperfection.
Unless you desire cold digital purity !!!
Many do.
What @7am3s_UK said, but also:
I used the Logical Editor to create several presets that randomise note position and velocity. This makes the randomisation “stick”. If you use on-the-fly randomisations, they will be different every time the part is played. Maybe that’s what you want, maybe not.
An obvious trick with drums is to bring the snare and/or hi hats a little bit in front of the beat (adds edginess) or a little bit after the beat (adds laziness). Same applies to any instrument.
The occasional “wrong” note in the right place works wonders.
Separate the notes of chords by a few ticks. If different groups of instruments are playing much the same chords at the same time, move one instrument a few ticks back or forward.
In a word: Randomise!
If you’re using Cubase, there are MIDI Modifiers which are non-destructive and very powerful. You have two slots for Random 1 and Random 2. You can fill it with Position and Velocity for example, add minimum and maximum and Cubase automatically randomizes notes. You can have perfectly quantized robotic performance and with right values, you can inject life into the composition. And if two slots are not enough, another MIDI Modifiers can be added as MIDI Inserts. You can find both in the Track Inspector. And I will repeat myself. it’s non-destructive AND ALSO, it’s original every time you play the track, because it randomizes the parameters on the go. It works with Instrument tracks, MIDI tracks, the new Pattern tracks even. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reach “into” any VST. If your synths have an arpeggiator of some sort, it’s better leave the modifiers away.
One more thing. It depends on music, you’re making. I do electronica mainly. And randomizing some synth parameters helps a lot. Try using a spare LFO for Envelope parameters in Mod Matrix. Every “hit” should have different behavior. So envelope parameters, Filter Cutoff and Resonance, micro-Pitch adjustments on every Oscillator… Everything that had some capacitors should change with every note slightly. Don’t overdo it. It doesn’t need to sound “broken”, just random. On the subconscious level. Don’t hear it, just feel it. When you turn it off, it should sound the same, but less lively. If you don’t have a free LFO to use, try Modulators (Cubase) or some sort of randomizing third party MIDI plugins. In the combinations with Velocity and Position described earlier, you can achieve pretty impressive results.
For drum patterns you could also use Groove Agent | Velocity Mapping on pads.
Example: You have a snare on a pad, process 4 different snare samples of 1 sample origin, that each trigger within a certain velocity range on the pad.
Snare 1 | Velocity trigger → 0-70 | Dry Snare
Snare 2 | Velocity trigger → 71-80 | subtle processing, harder attack, room reverb Snare
Snare 3 | Velocity trigger → 81-100 | medium processing, longer release, saturation Snare
Snare 4 | Velocity trigger → 101-127 | harder processing, longer release,Distorted Snare
Depending on the velocity of the notes, you will get a different version of the snare, it will get rid of the ears fatiguing after hearing a consistent sound over and over again, which causes the brain to fog and close the ear canal, which is why many people don’t like listening to certain songs for more than 60 seconds.
The brain can only tolerate identical repetition so much before it senses an artificial environment is being sensed, so it becomes hard to listen to for a long duration in comfort.
The real world is modulation and each sound has a warping nuance, when rain falls in reality no rain drop falls or hits the same as the next. In digital it is a consistent exact pattern, this creates an artificial listening experience.
But you can use techniques to closely mimic the real world.
Frequently, especially for drums & percussion, I turn off snap and draw the Notes in just using the grid as a visual guide. This also facilitates @Googly_Shakespeare suggestion of placing hits before or after the beat.
Another thing that can spiff up a drum part is to occasionally add ghost notes - light hits that you more feel than hear. The new Play Probability really helps with this. Say you’ve got a 1-2 bar drum Part that you repeat for the chorus. Take the loop and add a half dozen ghost notes scattered about. Normally that would be too much and not sound realistic. But if you set the Play Probability on those notes to something fairly low, like 15%, each ghost note will only play occasionally creating a performance that is constantly varying while maintaining the same overall groove.
Also real drummers almost never hit two drums at exactly the same time even though they are on the same beat. One will always be a smidgen behind the other. Our brains subconsciously notice these subtleties.