Thanks a lot for your comments guys! 

Hey John, about your high strings problems, in the Perform you have Exp-Filter, play with that, I find filtering here and there with the right dosage makes a nice difference. Harshness also comes from when notes are too well tuned, especially with accents, but you probably already know that, and an important rule of thumb, never make 2 notes start at the same time. Be carefull that your string dynamics don't all peak exactly at the same point, you'll get undesired frequencies, when dealing with high strings. etc. 

I just learned a few new things... Why should we not make two notes start at the same time? My notes tend to be 100% quantized, and I use the huminization feature (at max) for any delays and the humanized factor.

Very simple, because as crazy as it may sound, imperfections are a huge part of the beauty in music.

 Thank you Guy! Made a note on that. [:)]

@nektarios said:

I just learned a few new things... Why should we not make two notes start at the same time? My notes tend to be 100% quantized, and I use the huminization feature (at max) for any delays and the humanized factor.

I couldn't work with maxed out humanizations scalers. It really sounds out of whack that way. The tuning is way off, like a student band, and a maxed out delay scaler just makes the timing of the attacks very unpredictable and sloppy-sounding. That's not the kind of humanisation one should be after, IMO.

I like to offset the starting points of notes and the dynamic curves purposefully - for example when I'm trying to give a passage of short notes a "behind" or "ahead" of the beat type of feel.  Sometimes, I want single notes of different instruments to be completely locked-in and "dead on" - on other notes or accents, I might want a little more rubbing. You can't rely on randomized attack delay to achieve that, and I certainly can't let humanization get in the way of how I intend things to sound.

In fact, one of the reasons I tend to use VSL stuff as the backbone of everything I do is the fact that the programming and editing has been done in such a way that the samples do what I want, how I want it, most of the time. Cranking the delay humanisation would kind of defeat the purpose. Not all sampled instruments are that reliable. A lot of them sound gorgeous, but  some of them are all over the place, timing- and dynamics-wise. I hate that, and I find it annoying having to work around erratic attack and buildup times of the samples, especially with short notes.

I love the humanization features of VI Pro, but I tend to dial them in moderately, just for some variation of performance.

hmm maybe I'll dial the huminization down a bit. Because I don't play any instrument and don't compose with a keyboard, I literally write my melodies directly on the midi editor note by note. It would slow me down tremendously if I had to add the human delay in all notes. Maybe use a midi plugin to add some "swing" automatically? Wondering if this is an ok approach.

It is a ridiculously time-consuming process. My life would be so much easier if I didn't have to spend countless hours on editing the living hell out of every single piece I write. :) Proficient keyboard players definitely have a huge advantage. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, as I come from the guitar. I do try and play some parts on the keyboard, but my very limited playing ability obviously forces me to klick in notes in the piano editor most of the time.

I work in Cubase and the MIDI editor in there does have some really nice randomization and "swing" options, but again, it's a random thing, and while it can be useful in some situations, it's not the right solution for passages where one has a specific kind of "imperfection" in mind.

Sometimes, I stop and think about this whole "music with samples" thing we're doing and it's really shocking - such an absurdly nerdy, crazily obsessive way to spend our time. :)

I am one of those 'good' keyboard players. However, whenever I play in my melodies into the MIDI editor I am finding that most of the notes' velocities have to be (sometimes drastically) recalibrated. It's a fact of life, so lately I am playing things in more sparingly. True, dynamics and other automation can apparently be more realistic in this manner. However, personally, based on experience, I record automation after editing velocities and positioning of notes on tracks.

Guy, thanks for the input. I'll try to do more of what you're proposing. If it works for you, it should for me too.

Cheers, John.

I hear you! I also use Cubase. Will try the swing feature. I play no instrument at all... Actually, my ear can't even pick of if something is out of tune or other things that experienced Orchestral musicians pick up (so the tuning humanization is hard for me to judge), so I have to rely on others opinion on this. Since I am visual artist more by nature (I also oil paint), the midi editor was truly liberating for me as I can visualize melodies in what seems more natural to me.

Yeap it's shocking, and strangely enough it's what makes me happy for the day! [:D]

I've used different methods to humanize, that doesn't matter, but what's important is dosing it just right. You put too much salt in the salad, it's not good anymore.

Had some requests for this, although it's nothing complex, I'd thought I'd share the score.

Thank you for sharing the score!