I have a bunch of Jazz Standards in MGU files. I would like to use them for some woodshedding but the Melody lines are stiff as starched shirts.
Wondering if there are any tools I might use to make it sound a little more like a human was playing the head. I've got plenty of sound libraries but I need some way to modify the actual performance. Hopefully better than re-recording and/or piano roll
I'm thinking I could export the biab melody as midi to my DAW. Then apply whatever secret sauce may be available
I use Logic as my DAW.
Thanks
Last edited by mrgeeze; 12/26/2404:20 PM.
biab2025(Mac) Latest Build Mac OS (Latest) Apple Mac Mini M2 pro 32GB Ram Logic Pro (latest or pretty close) Heddon Super Spook XT (Mullet)
Programmatically speaking, Randomize is available in many DAWs (including PGProducts), kinda the opposite of quantize for MIDI. May take a little experimenting ..
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There is a lot you can do with the MIDI melody track. Personally I would export all of the MIDI tracks into Logic but if you don't want to do that I would bring in the melody track as MIDI and rest of the tracks as wavs. Note I am suggesting you do all of your work in Logic however you could just modify the MIDI track in Logic and import it back into BiaB. Your choice.
As for your magic sauce there are a number of ingredients you can use. Humanizing would help as well as adding vibrato and pitch bend. These I would start with and probably would do the trick for you. If you are still not satisfied you could add volume automation, various effects and effects' automation, effects like chorus, a touch of distortion, delay, etc.
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64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
As rharv indicates,in BIAB, it's possible to humanize a MIDI melody. The command to do this is found under the Melody menu (as shown on the attached image).
The image is taken from BIAB 2025 for Windows. I'm guessing that the Mac version of the program is similar to this.
The only recommendation I would add to these is editing MIDI Velocity values. I usually do this in the Studio One DAW though, where I can see the velocity values as an editable curve...
DC Ron BiaB Audiophile Presonus Studio One ASUS I9-12900K DAW, 32 GB RAM Presonus Faderport 16 Too many guitars (is that a thing?)
If you can get it into MIDI.....in the DAW and in the synths, there are controls that determine the tightness of the notes to the BPM. It's displayed as a percentage of faithfulness to the beat. The further you venture from the 100% machine level, the more you get hits before and after the beat, by how much that deviation is, and the randomness of said deviations.
Obviously, some will be more "human" sounding than others. Drum synths tend to have the most control over this particular area, for obvious reasons.
Also.... I heard this simple tidbit of advice many years ago. If you have a solid on the beat midi piece, and you simply add a live instrument track such as rhythm guitar, there's enough natural human deviation in that one instrument track to fool the brain into thinking all the tracks are more natural sounding.
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The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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