How can I get horn parts from a .mid file to sound more human? All of the horns starting and stopping exactly together, with no change in dynamics, etc., makes them sound like a keyboard part. Surely there is a way to randomize the enterances and exits by a few midi clicks from each other, and set a decrescendo/crescendo to work on long notes to sound like a section.

Oh, abso-frikkin'-lutely it can do this!

The breadth of sophisticated options you have in this regard are dizzying. Check out the section titled something like "Intelligent Humanize of Melody/Soloist Track" under Chapter 10 (Working with MIDI).

Take a look at pages 97 through 101 of the 2019 RealBand User Manual for a very good overview of RealBand's MIDI editing tools with descriptions about how to use each one.

Except I'm not trying to humanize the melody in BIAB, I'm trying to humanize horn parts in a midi file in RealBand. I'm not seeing anything that's helpful in this regard.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing the same thing you are. I don't see anything that is helpful at all in this regard. One problem is the horns are all on the same track. I don't know if they can be randomized in contrast to each other unless they're on different tracks. The manual is no help with this stuff.

Here are a few suggestions:

1-have each horn on a separate track

2-nunge each track either slightly forward or backward. Do not move them so much that they are not in sync. Make them sound more like a chorusing effect.

3-for woodwinds add a little up pitch bend at the start of a few notes. Start the pitch bends a little lower and then bring them to pitch. Vary the depth and ending points of each woodwind track. Occasionally do the same for the horns.

4-add a little vibrato to some tracks. You can do this via the pitch wheel but some sound sources allow you to do this with the mod wheel.

5-add some volume changes to each track. Add crescendos and decrescendos where appropriate.

Some sound sources have individual horn/woodwind nuances assigned to specific notes.

Also how are you inputting these tracks? If by keyboard a breath controller is perfect for adding volume changes. I use an Akai EWI-USB wind controller. This way I can control the volume and pitch bends simultaneously.

I will gladly help you in any way that I can. Just PM me as I rarely view the threads here.

Huh?

Maybe we need to revisit your original question The tools to edit MIDI tracks are described on pages 96 to 101 in the 2019 RealBand user manual.

While RealBand does have a MIDI event list editor (see screen shot) it is limited as compared to the MIDI event list editor in Band-in-a-Box. In BiaB you can filter by channel and then copy and paste each channel to an unused track in RealBand.

If your horn parts are just a stacked chord on the same MIDI channel on the same track assigned to some brass instrument patch, then yes, you are going to have a lot of difficulty getting it to sound good.

As already stated, you need to separate out each of the parts into their own tracks and using separate MIDI channels (at least for synths that respond to specific channels).

Then you can start making changes on an instrument-by-instrument basis.

One thing you can try is to save the chorded horn part out to a MIDI file, then bring that file into a notation program that supports splitting out the parts from a chord. As I recall, Finale does this (but it's very expensive); however, I think I saw that MuseScore might do this as well (but have never tried it - a Google search seemed to say that it could). That way, you can get the parts separated into different tracks/channels. Bring it back into RealBand, assign your instruments, and make the changes as suggested here. It takes a lot of work, but the result should be worth it.

I don't use RB so I have to ask this question.
Does RB allow you to separate a MIDI track by notes? If so he then can assemble a track with what he thinks are the trumpet notes, sax notes, trumpet #2 notes etc. This technique is one that I use to separate drum kits.

I don't see anything on p. 96-101 that talks about changing the attack of notes, nor changing the dynamics, especially in parallel with other notes.

One way dynamics can be (crudely) limited is using the Data Filter.
You can set a MIN/MAX setting for the velocity of a MIDI track based on a given channel and note range.

The Data Filter is powerful if you can use it.
Most Edit windows offer the option to enable the Data Filter using a check box .. and a secondary one if needed.

I have Finale. I've got the woodwinds separated into separate tracks into RealBand. There must be some way to randomize the attacks of each instrument, no? And apply a template type of dynamic change to long notes played by the horn section?

These were entered from a .mid file that I didn't initiate.

This may or may not work. You could load each MIDI track into BIAB (instead of RealBand), and then use the embellisher feature to humanize each one, save it back to MIDI (use a different file name so you don't lose your original source in case you have to do it again), and then bring it back into RealBand. A little extra work, but it might do what you are looking for.

Other than that, you'll just need to probably bring up the piano roll editor on each track and slightly offset start/stop times for notes, as well as adjust velocity and/or volume accordingly.

For what it's worth, I also made a feature request to add the embellisher feature to RealBand, but I suspect it will be quite a while before we would see it.

Funkifized your problem is you have a bad midi file. You're trying to put gold sparkled lipstick on that pig. Go to any one of the good commercial midi file sites and buy a proper file for five or six bucks. It's all about how the file was created. Good ones have all that built in.

If you insist on trying to fix it then RB is the wrong DAW for this. Other DAW's do have a built in humanizing utility with presets. RB will allow you to do it but it'a all manual labor done track by track and note by note.

Bob

Well, the idea was to do my own file in RB, not have to buy .mid files from others.

And I'm not even seeing any way of doing this note-by-note. How does one edit .mid information in RB?

Aren't we supposed to be able to create and/or edit midi files in Real Band? It's a sequencer, no?

I'm not seeing any such overview of midi editing tools.

Check the piano roll view (PRV), notation and/or the event list. All three will let you edit MIDI.

PS - I do not use RB so others will have to help you further. I know in my DAW, Studio One Pro 4, I use the PRV for virtually all of my MIDI editing. YMMV

You can edit in Notation or Piano Roll.

A few notes of caution about this.

1. Be absolutely sure you have all the chords, part markers and bar settings the way you want them before you start editing. Also, tempo and number of measures. In Song Settings, uncheck the box Create 2 Bar Ending. If you change any of these, your edits are gone.

2. Be sure you unfreeze the track you want to edit.

3. Freeze that track after you edit.

4. Keep all other tracks frozen.

5. Save the file. OFTEN.

I learned this the hard way, so take it from a fool who knows.

If you do these things, it isn't hard. Good luck.

2b

If you want old school MIDI event editing, indeed use the Event List.
If you want finer control over what you are editing, enable the Data Filter when doing MIDI edits.

As mentioned the Notation and Piano Roll windows also offer editing options.
Yes, RB is a sequencer.
As such, even Audio tracks appear to be initially triggered by MIDI events in the Event List.

That's one reason I often suggest setting the Resolution as high as your system can handle reliably; more accurate Audio editing by virtue of smaller slices allowed in the Selection/Edit/Move options.

For some this may be no big deal, but here it is well worth taking advantage of when working with Audio .. with MIDI maybe not so much, but still technically allows more accurate edits. You can trigger a MIDI event with 1/3480 accuracy per beat as opposed to the 1/120 accuracy RB defaults to (and I think BiaB forces you to use).

Event List for Audio track and MIDI track shown below.

Just back from vacation and reading through this quickly, I don't see any mention of the RANDOMIZE feature.

Highlight the track or tracks, go to EDIT - MIDI - RANDOMIZE.

Use the default settings, or experiment to get the effect you want.

ROG.