FIXING SOLID PIANO CHORDS!

[johnlewisgrant]

FIXING Solid piano Chords!

Solid piano Chords sound FAKE, all the notes play EXACTLY the same time... with the same velocity..

HUMANIZE--as presently constituted--doesn't fix the problem.

THREE THINGS are necessary ....

1. Humanizer should leave the VELOCITY AND POSITION of the TOP note of any and every chord UNAFFECTED;

2. Humanizer should randomize (humanize) ONLY THE NOTES IN THE CHORD BELOW THE TOP NOTE

3. Those "LOWER" notes should be randomized (humanized) a) so that their POSITION IS NEVER BEFORE (TO THE LEFT OF) THE TOP NOTE and b) so that THEY ARE MUCH QUIETER (MUCH LOWER RANDOM VEL) than the top note


Call it: Piano Chord Humanizer...

the function would work on note vel. and position only, and with the following critical rules or restrictions:

1) would locate and affect solid piano chords ONLY, leaving all other SINGLE notes in a piano track UNCHANGED in velocity and position.

2) would identify the HIGHEST NOTE of any solid chords, and leave THAT "TOP" note of the solid chord unchanged IN VELOCITY AND POSITION.

3) would HUMANIZE (RANDOMIZE) ONLY the notes BELOW the top note of the chord such that.....
a)the "lower" notes of the chord are randomized in POSITION tiny amounts AFTER the top note (what piano players naturally do when playing more than one note and the same time)
b)the "lower" notes of the chord are randomized so that they are always SOFTER or QUIETER (by user defined variable %?) than the TOP note (what naturally happens at the piano)

Result: a totally NATURAL sounding piano track!

Can that be programmed?

Or is it too complicated?

[Rodal]

Please don't shout so much, I'm trying to sleep here.

Anyway, now that i'm awake, seems like a nice idea.

[donchilcott]

I went round and round with this issue. I'm not nearly as savvy as you appear so I committed to learn to play parts correctly. I am primarily a guitar player. Smartest thing I have ever done. I hear beautiful voicings and nuances in my head that take me a lot of time to execute but time spent learning keys has been far more rewarding than learning(wasting) time getting mired in more tech to get to my real goal, making music. Just my 2 cents. I also bought an 88 key midi controller with weighted keys. Good luck :-)

[johnlewisgrant]

Originally Posted by Rodal

Please don't shout so much, I'm trying to sleep here.

Anyway, now that i'm awake, seems like a nice idea.

Couldn't think of any other way of shouting... I mean .... saying it.

[johnlewisgrant]

Originally Posted by donchilcott

I went round and round with this issue. I'm not nearly as savvy as you appear so I committed to learn to play parts correctly. I am primarily a guitar player. Smartest thing I have ever done. I hear beautiful voicings and nuances in my head that take me a lot of time to execute but time spent learning keys has been far more rewarding than learning(wasting) time getting mired in more tech to get to my real goal, making music. Just my 2 cents. I also bought an 88 key midi controller with weighted keys. Good luck :-)

Not a guitar player, but I think it would be exactly the same problem. No guitar "chord" (defined as two or more notes played at the same time) is ever 100% "solid". I'll bet a sampled guitar vst would sound weird if chords were heard dead on solid. But which string tends to sound first and loudest would be something to look at.

Any live midi performance shows clearly, on the piano, that almost always two or more notes hit at the same time are NEVER 100% solid, and the note that comes first is almost always the loudest and the "highest", because that "lead" note tends to carry the melody.

The rule isn't universal. In certain material, whether jazz, rock, or classical, you might occasionally hear the melody line carried by a middle note. Or you might hear the top note AFTER the rest of the notes it's attached to. But the general rule is mostly that the top note carries the melody, and is sounded BEFORE the rest of the notes that accompany it.

Humanizing by moving notes one way or the other, slightly off the beat, randomly isn't much of an improvement over rigid quantization. I've manually applied my "rule", and it's incredibly effective. It would be nice, too, if the percentage of average random movement by chord notes away from the top note (and to the RIGHT of it, so that the top note always sounds FIRST) could be user set. In some piano material (and guitar music too, for sure) the chord is very loose; in other material it sounds more natural much tighter. So you want the ability to set the degree of "randomness" to the right of the top or "lead" note.

Believe me, if this sort of thing could be programmed, it would be the best thing ever for all those midi files that end up sounding like jackhammers.

[Fergler]

The TOP note? You mean the bottom note, surely.

But then, I understand that each player has a different playing style. And from that you can see why this idea needs a lot of revision.

Given a bit more thought, one could simply put a 'weight' slider into the current humanize function, giving weight towards the top or bottom portion of polyphonic material.

So slooooow down there hoss

[tricky2k]

Originally Posted by Fergler

The TOP note? You mean the bottom note, surely.

Ny thoughts, exactly. Like the down strum in a guitar, from lowest to highest note with the right hand.

[Sibben]

I simply move the note events slightly with the mouse...compared to a function like here describe that's positively medieval.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by tricky2k

Ny thoughts, exactly. Like the down strum in a guitar, from lowest to highest note with the right hand.

Or up and down then up, up, down in some type of strumming pattern. By the time we try to mechanically be this human, maybe we should just play it.

[johnlewisgrant]

Originally Posted by Sibben

I simply move the note events slightly with the mouse...compared to a function like here describe that's positively medieval.

Ah... yes... but very time-consuming.

[whiteaxxxe]

I think best way to achieve humanization is to let a human being play the piano.

randomization wont cut it. have a listen to piano-players: they dont do that stuff randomly, there is a sense behind it. and they change their behaviour according to the song and where they are in the song.

to have such things automated, you must have a million of templates and you would have to know how and where to use which template.

as said, its the same reason why guitars out of samplers dont work. there is always an important factor missing: the human being.

or go and make EDM ... there it doesnt matter. but thats not what you want I think. an EDMler wouldnt have had such an idea. or he would simply have sampled Keith Jarret or Lang Lang.

[johnlewisgrant]

Originally Posted by whiteaxxxe

I think best way to achieve humanization is to let a human being play the piano.

randomization wont cut it. have a listen to piano-players: they dont do that stuff randomly, there is a sense behind it. and they change their behaviour according to the song and where they are in the song.

But as long as we have randomization, might as well get it to do useful things. What I'm suggesting will not replace a live recording, but it will be a big improvement over absolute randomization, for want of a better term.

[morgon]

On the Reaper homepage theres a graphic showing a bunch of selected MIDI notes [eighths I think] all on the same beat [=chord] being expanded first quantitatively then exponentially, or thats how it appears to me, can someone tell how to do that? Thanks in advance.

[Lawrence]

https://www.image-line.com/support/F...roll_strum.htm

[tricky2k]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

https://www.image-line.com/support/F...roll_strum.htm

FLS strummer is just perfect. My previous DAW was FLS and that feature is the only one I really miss in Reaper. Well, that and its randomizer, way better than Reaper's one.

[Lawrence]

FLS has a ton of those little types of midi processing tools. Maybe someone can create something similar with JS or Lua.

[tricky2k]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Maybe someone can create something similar with JS or Lua.

Ooh I'd love that. There's this action "Stretch note positions ingnoring snap (arpeggiate)", which does half the job. And a file in the stash, GuitarChorder, but you need to install Python and the information available is closer to none, I couldn't even find a discussion thread about it, and damn if I know the first word in Python.

Edit: "... damn if I know the first word in Python..." I was saying, but it's more than that. 4 versions, 4, 4 different versions of python installed so far. 3.43 installs the wrong dll (the one for x86, I'm running x64). 3.32 from Activestate, as recommended in some thread, doesn't show any python dll at all. 3.41 from AS finally seems to show the dll, but then Reaper crashes because some problem with a Visual C++ file. After uninstall each and every Visual C++ library and reinstall fresh ones (and there's an awful lot of them), the crash still happens, so let's try with another Python version then. How about 3.30? Again, no dll whatsoever.

This is freaking ridiculous.

[FnA]

Sometimes you have to look here for python dll.
C:\Windows\system32
I think there's some Reaper forum threads from a year or so ago about finding it and forcing Reaper to use it.

Piz has a strum plugin. I don't have experience using it.

"Stretch note positions ingnoring snap (arpeggiate)", which does half the job" Humanize is the other half?

[tricky2k]

Originally Posted by FnA

Sometimes you have to look here for python dll.
C:\Windows\system32
I think there's some Reaper forum threads from a year or so ago about finding it and forcing Reaper to use it.

Nope, I've looked for it already in system32 and in syswow64. I've searched the whole C: drive and nothing, no show.

Piz has a strum plugin. I don't have experience using it

I do, not bad, but still much more complicated than the FLS one.

"Stretch note positions ingnoring snap (arpeggiate)", which does half the job" Humanize is the other half?

The other half will be alternate between "columns" of notes or chords, as you can see in the link that Lawrence posted before. The "stretch note..." action acts only in selected notes and in the same way. If you want to alternate down and up strums you have to do it manually all the time. The FLS strummer does it all at once. Then a bit of humanizing and that's it, cool guitar strums.

[donchilcott]

I posted earlier. Looks like lots of folks making my point re: getting mired in tech... I know, I'm old school. On that note I'm going to go practice. I do have a diploma. From a music school. Never saw a "randomization" class in the curriculum :-)

I didn't mean to sound snotty. I appreciate all the new tech and of course it can help (old school)musicians. If I devoted a bit too much time fiddling, buying and studying new technology it's my fault. And just to be fair... that Music school now offers lots of classes for recording etc. Cheers

[tricky2k]

Originally Posted by donchilcott

I posted earlier. Looks like lots of folks making my point re: getting mired in tech... I know, I'm old school. On that note I'm going to go practice. I do have a diploma. From a music school. Never saw a "randomization" class in the curriculum :-)

And 30 years ago there wasn't, probably, a single computer in that school, not to mention a digital tuner. Nowadays, there is. Tools, means for an end. I sing, that's what I do, and for that you don't need anything. I can't play an instrument anyway. Tried piano, guitar, drums, even bass, to no avail. I'm either too lazy or too clumsy or both

[johnlewisgrant]

Originally Posted by tricky2k

And 30 years ago there wasn't, probably, a single computer in that school, not to mention a digital tuner. Nowadays, there is. Tools, means for an end. I sing, that's what I do, and for that you don't need anything. I can't play an instrument anyway. Tried piano, guitar, drums, even bass, to no avail. I'm either too lazy or too clumsy or both

Barcelona: one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And a fabulous football club. Anyhow... I play a REAL piano, and have done so for 55 years. But I have been addicted to technology since the days of Atari ST. It's helped me at the piano, not hindered me.