A real musician ( with cred 
) demonstrates pushing and pulling the beat without a silicon chip 
12min 36sec in ; John Paul Jones Lesson (Part 1) - YouTube
So no comments on the device he mentions where you can get an extra lift in the chorus by slightly dragging in the the verses and slightly pushing in the chorus . 
Oh well , ā¦
Yes Iām completely with you Steve . It is human to leave the mistakes in . ( Sorry if that sounds sarcastic , I have Aspergers ) When you say elivator do you mean lift ?
It confuses me when Texans talk about a flat tire groove , I get the first impression of something exhausted and laid-back .
The one-spot, just behind the beat āfeelā or āgrooveā is a MYTH. Thereās much more to it than that. Ask to go see an orchestra rehearsal one time. You might see them discussing the feel for a couple of days.
Stress or accenting is a much easier and more effective approach. Get a midi drummer (because the signal is easier to see) to record some song parts and youāll see that the (leaving the timing or groove out of it for now) accents and changes in volume, aside from being rather less than youād think, are rather less extreme than you might think. Youāll find itās more to do with the āclusteringā and the odd spike of notes that makes all the difference.
I wonder if we could persuade surferās neighbour to comment on this, he was there ; Ace In The Hole lyrics - PAUL SIMON
"Some people say music thatās their ace in
the hole
Just your ordinary rhythm and blues
Your basic rock and roll
You can sit on the top of the beat
You can lean on the side of the beat
You can hang from the bottom of the beat
But you gotta admit that the music is sweet "
\
- Just tryinā to get a discussion going
In the UK, elevators are called āliftsā.
NorthWoodMediaWorks -
In the UK, elevators are called āliftsā
ā¦and arenāt āliftsā shoes in the US? George Bernard Shaw was right - ātwo nations divided by a common languageā
There is an example of a real drummer demonstrating the myth at 4:20 in this video ;
( Section 3 , advanced technique )
I think this drummer shows things the best.
No, heās not. Heās playing a drum excercise to a CLICK. When you play MUSIC you donāt do this ALONE. The whole band does it. āFEELā is a GROUP working together.
Donāt watch a guy playing (excellently though he does) excercises. Go see an orchestra take quite some time to work it out at rehearsals (some orchestras do allow paid audiences at rehearsals). Itās nothing that you can do in 5 minutes on a computer.
Iāve played drums a Loooooong time. I know what Iām on about. I can get a good feel even using Cubase but it takes time to do but I donāt have to jump thru those āpush the beat pull the beatā nonsense hoops. Yes, the ODD beat may move but the practised musician does the right one in the right place, maybe only once in the whole song, can make it feel like all the way thru and the āmovementā if there is any is way more subtle than that video.
Accenting the right places is easier and much more effective and you donāt have to move any beats around the time.
THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZHWMD6N3k&feature=related is āfeelā. Enjoy.
Aloha and right on Conman.
I totally agree.
And IMHO this is true for all styles music.
{ā-ā}
Anyway if you do end up pushing and pulling the beat around someone like me will come along and straighten it all out anyway
But of course if recording a band from the ground up, then over dubbing is best achieved with an in time drum track.
Iām talking real drums by the way, which even with the best efforts of modern production will always contain some slack between the components.
On the other hand if recording a band performance as a āunitā then the ātightnessā or otherwise between the musicians is of major importance and a drift of a few BPM can be tolerated as long as everyone is together.
At the end of the day itās the listener/audience that decides whether they like it or not!
Humanizing is achieved through practicing and rehearsal? 
Yep!
re: The last four posts or so. About right. You can do the āfeelā job in Cubase and it can take a lot of time and knowhow while some jobs take minimal adjustment. Sometimes that depends on the skill of the arrangement. I know from my own composing that the feel of the whole song can depends on the positioning of one chord and / or itās variation.
Too much Q and you can sound too mechanical and too much pushing and pulling can lead to too many lumps in the mash. What I mean is donāt get too precious and āscientificā about it pulling stuff around. Try it on just the problem sections. If it sounds like the whole song is too mechanical then maybe you need to look at the song.
Also, another point. Itās much easier to move the guitars or keys around the drums as they are much more forgiving of movement than drums which canāt slide around too easily. So a small guitar time-stretch at the drumfills can do wonders for the feel. Donāt forget to correct your timing back to the basic bpm just after.
I always say, once the drums and Bass are solid then the guitarists can w _ _ _ (wibble) all over them and itāll still sound good.
Yep. Always put the carpet down BEFORE the furniture.
This can happen with āliveā loops as well. Even with a live drummer you need the right performance. Sometimes a midi loop even can be the right performance for the material or even certain material on a certain day. There are days when the rulebook goes right out of the window and even the best performers and stars just donāt know and couldnāt predict what is right and what is wrong.
Humanising the groove takes deep knowledge of whatever material you work with whether machine or live players. On a live gig you can have, and Iāve tried it, the drummer play that ābehind the beatā style and some players love it and some just āYeugh! Whatās that?ā You do have to play the song, which is the point here deep down, I think.
Itās a long discussion among drummers about using technique because you can (to entertain basically) or play to enhance the song. Thereās purists for both approaches. The end point for longevity of recorded material is that it has to serve the song. Because when you commit that song to posterity you have to listen to it for life and if one thing is wrong youāll wince every time you hear it. Doesnāt matter if you programmed a machine or played it.
Saying that thereās a lot of stuff in between both camps from machined dance grooves to early rough Atlantic and Motown productions which, though full of imperfections, still make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.
And that pushing and pulling the beat. You have to know when to do it not just how which is another art.