I just wanted to clarify my use of the word 'humanize', because I think it may also refer to some particular product feature related to timing, and I am using the term more broadly here. By humanize, I meant ANYTHING that allows one to make a MIDI file sound more like it was created by a human band. Now, that could be done 'after' the creation of the MIDI file, or in real time as a particular instrument is recorded. Timing is of course a huge factor. And many of these things can be done with lots of tweaking and fiddling, but of course the goal is to have 'smart' tools that can do that 'humanizing' with less tweaking on the part of the composer.

I've mentioned a couple of things that, for me, distinguish what I hear in human band recordings that is frequently absent to a degree. They include phrasing, articulation, timing, dynamics. I think what often strikes me most as being absent are the unique instrument articulations peculiar to selected instruments (zerozero restated this more clearly when he paraphrased what I said by distinguishing these 2 differences:

Quote:


Firstly there are two entities
a] The 'articulations' that any instrument can achieve
b] the emulations that MIDI istruments can achieve




Regarding these unique articulations (or two entities), I think maybe on this particular point, my question would have been better phrased as, for different instruments, "where do those 2 entities differ most, what tweaks can currently be done to narrow the distance between those 2 entities, and what enhancements might computer music software vendors make to narrow the distance between those 2 entities.

One of Mac's smart suggestions was - if I paraphrase - where you find these 2 entities differing by a lot, do NOT try to include or emulate such aspects of an instrument performance in your MIDI file recording (or guitar synth recording to MIDI file).

PG keeps getting closer and closer to achieving this, and they of course did the very logical thing of evolving from MIDI coding (attributes about the notes) to analog recordings of the instruments themselves. So technically - 'humanizing' the recorded analog files, or generated RealTracks, is a bit of a different discussion, though the goals are the same. I haven't used RealTracks enough to even judge where the may need more 'humanizing', or whether their already as 'humanized' as the can possibly be. All I could imagine is maybe the RT users wanting to alter or enhance the articulations/dynamics/timing to more meet their visions.