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I mean, you are already "performing"; it's not as if it is computer-generated (or drawn with the mouse), so it should already be "humanized." I believe the real issue lies with subpar MIDI keyboards that lack sufficient responsiveness. This is rarely a problem for me with guitars, where I can always dial in velocities with exactly the precision I have in mind (and I'm an amateur).

FYI Another way MIDI is humanized in DAWs is in the temporal domain (i.e., rhythm/timing). This was popularized by Ableton's Groove Pool [1].

[1] https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/using-grooves/

4 comments

Why couldn’t you use this on drawn in midi data? I figured that was the point.

That's what I assumed this was for as well. Take a composition from something like Hookpad and run it through this before importing into a DAW.

Yes, that is indeed the main use case.

> This was popularized by Ableton's Groove Pool

This was a feature in Cubase on Atari years before Ableton even existed. Most likely also in Logic Pro’s precursor Notator.

Also 'groove pool' as a term comes from acid pro, which predates ableton (and has always been able to extract groove timing from audio as well as midi)

In Logic Pro it's called Humanize.

It’s a lot easier for me to play with proper dynamics on an actual piano versus a keyboard. Maybe if it’s an extremely fancy weighted one, it’d be okay, but I generally don’t have access to one of those.

Groove is such an amazing feature in Ableton. It's so surprising how much just slight adjustments to the rhythm can make something feel laid back.