Humanizing MIDI timing

In the past, there were questions on the board about how to humanize the timing for MIDI tracks. It’s not easy without a plugin. However, there is a way to do it using the MIDI Transform tool. The trick is to scale the values before adjusting it, then return the adjusted value to the original scale. If you use the lines like this:

  • Set “start time” to “this note’s” “start time”
  • " * " “exactly” 64
  • " - " “exactly” 5
  • " + " “a random number from” 1 to 9
  • " / " “exactly”" 64

You’ll get a variation in your notes timing ranging from -4 to +4 64ths of a beat. You can vary it by up to 127ths of a beat using just these 5 lines. If you want finer grain control in the variations, you’ll have to use 2 or more " * " and " / " lines. Always remember to undo with " / " what you did with " * " and there shouldn’t be a problem. The " - " is only necessary if you want some notes to either remain untouched or possibly be a bit early.

11 Likes

Interesting. Is there some way to save those steps, so that they would be available without entering those manually again to dialog?

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.