Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz, muldjord, deva

Post Reply
tavasti
Established Member
Posts: 2047
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 6:56 am
Location: Kangasala, Finland
Has thanked: 369 times
Been thanked: 208 times
Contact:

Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by tavasti »

Hi folks!

I am novice musician / producer, and specially on drum programming, my skills aren't even mediocre.

What would be best strategy for humanization of drums for rock/blues stuff? Should I draw my midi without snap to grid enabled, and edit note velocities so that they are not constant? Or write my midi to grid with static timing and velocity, and leave all humanization to DrumGizmo?

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

User avatar
deva
Established Member
Posts: 285
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2016 10:15 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 31 times
Contact:

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by deva »

DrumGizmo was created with easy humanization in mind. So ideally you can simply plot your notes on-grid and with a constant velocity, and then let DrumGizmo handle the rest.
You can alter how tight it is and how "strong" the virtual drummer is using the knobs in the UI.
Usually this is enough, but of course you can also alter the positions and velocities by hand alongside the humanization provided by DrumGizmo.
This is what do; I go with the on-grid, same velocity approach, and then only change things by hand if I want to make single notes specially powerful or soft.
JamesPeters
Established Member
Posts: 188
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2018 6:35 pm
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 15 times

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by JamesPeters »

I prefer to accomplish this in a midi editor with the tools available there. It depends on the DAW. I use Reaper and its own tools work quite well for the job. There are also scripts and plugins (some made by others) which can make this faster depending on the kind of workflow and results you want. Reaper's quantizer in the midi editor, and a velocity randomizing script (which has upper and lower range limit you can adjust), those are my two favourite things for the job.

Sometimes you might want a particular part to be a bit looser, and in that case having specific control in the midi editor makes more sense than having some kind of humanization on all the time. I tend to want to fluctuate some aspects of imperfection over time. Also if I like a specific kind of looseness for a part, I want that to remain the next time I hit play. So I like looseness, but I want the project as a whole to be consistent and predictable.
Last edited by JamesPeters on Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tavasti
Established Member
Posts: 2047
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 6:56 am
Location: Kangasala, Finland
Has thanked: 369 times
Been thanked: 208 times
Contact:

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by tavasti »

In Mixbus/Ardour, adjusting velocity is slow: select note, and then use mouse wheel to adjust velocity.

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

JamesPeters
Established Member
Posts: 188
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2018 6:35 pm
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 15 times

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by JamesPeters »

Is there no other way? Are there no scripts or anything, no tools that let you draw velocity? I have only briefly used Ardour, quickly going back to Reaper. I mean no offense either, it's just I was so accustomed to Reaper.
chaot4
Established Member
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:59 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by chaot4 »

I agree with deva that what you should do is write the "idealized" version of what a perfect drummer would play and leave the humanization to DrumGizmo. This also separates those two things very well and you can easily change the aspects just by turning the knobs in DrumGizmo. You can also automate the parameters in DG to get different tightness etc. for different parts.

Basically, you can either do some work and manually adjust things, or just don't do anything and you will get very good humanization by DrumGizmo, better than your DAW can do because DG actually knows more context.

But also as deva said, if you want to have certain accents, then of course you want to do this manually -- but that's not really what we consider humanization.
User avatar
funkmuscle
Established Member
Posts: 2800
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:30 pm
Has thanked: 129 times
Been thanked: 31 times

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by funkmuscle »

deva wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:19 pm DrumGizmo was created with easy humanization in mind. So ideally you can simply plot your notes on-grid and with a constant velocity, and then let DrumGizmo handle the rest.
You can alter how tight it is and how "strong" the virtual drummer is using the knobs in the UI.
Usually this is enough, but of course you can also alter the positions and velocities by hand alongside the humanization provided by DrumGizmo.
This is what do; I go with the on-grid, same velocity approach, and then only change things by hand if I want to make single notes specially powerful or soft.
That's all I do.. Program the midi beats at the same velocity except say a build up snare roll or ghost notes. Everyone ask who the drummer is on the songs. I even now have drummer friends using DG because they say it's so easy and no humanizing needed as the program handles it.. Love DG!!! Thanks Deva and the gang.
User avatar
English Guy
Established Member
Posts: 525
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:28 pm
Location: England
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 7 times

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by English Guy »

tavasti wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:33 pm In Mixbus/Ardour, adjusting velocity is slow: select note, and then use mouse wheel to adjust velocity.
In Mixbus (so presumably Ardour) you can select a group of notes and randomise their velocity
Last edited by English Guy on Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nachei
Established Member
Posts: 235
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:32 am
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 27 times
Contact:

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by Nachei »

I use Reaper too, and lately I've been trying the opposite approach: as I have less and less patience to program drums (all that click click is perhaps alright for someone who does techno, but for a rock track it feels all wrong to me), now I record the drums live, doing "finger drumming", which ensures the humanization, and then rework only this or that note that stick out for being out of tempo, or other details I want to enrich.

That said, my workflow changes every day. When I use humanization, I generally use Reaper's, just for the convenience of having everything in one single screen, but I'm sure Drumgizmo's humanization is as great as its other features... I've tried other electronic drumkits and none of them give me that organic feel DG has...

Also, thanks for the tip on that velocity randomizer script, I'll look for it in the Stash, looks like a good addition to my tools...
tavasti
Established Member
Posts: 2047
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 6:56 am
Location: Kangasala, Finland
Has thanked: 369 times
Been thanked: 208 times
Contact:

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by tavasti »

Nachei wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:16 pm I use Reaper too, and lately I've been trying the opposite approach: as I have less and less patience to program drums (all that click click is perhaps alright for someone who does techno, but for a rock track it feels all wrong to me), now I record the drums live, doing "finger drumming", which ensures the humanization, and then rework only this or that note that stick out for being out of tempo, or other details I want to enrich.
Yeah, that would be great, but my finger drumming stuff is awful, so that is not an option.

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

Nachei
Established Member
Posts: 235
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:32 am
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 27 times
Contact:

Re: Make humanization of drums by hand or leave it to DrumGizmo?

Post by Nachei »

Yeah, my finger drumming isn't great either, but I really prefer to play something rather than using the midi grid. With Reaper it is crazy easy to slow down the song if you need to, and also I usually record in several passes: the first one just with keys z and x for kick and snare (maybe doing the high hat too, depending on the song), then the next one for aerials... It's simply more fun for me, because with midi I have to replay the parts a lot more times, and I end up burnt out of listening to my own song, you know, that state in which you lose all criteria of what is good and what is bad and have to go do something different to let it "cool down".

Anyways, that's just what works for me, it's not that I'm recommending it or anything, just adding it to the possible options in this thread...
Post Reply