Screen 1: The MIDI Transform menu offers a range of treatments for your MIDI data.
Add a human touch to your MIDI parts with Logic’s MIDI Transform.
Logic Pro seems to acquire amazing new features in every update, and its bundled plug‑ins have been thoroughly modernised. However, there is one feature that has remained untouched for over a decade, and that is MIDI Transform. Yes, its user interface is rudimentary at best and, yes, the workflow if encapsulates is dated, but if you do a lot of work with MIDI, it can still prove an indispensible feature.
Transformers
The aims of MIDI Transform are twofold. First, it offers a much faster way to edit MIDI data than manually altering each note, and second, it allows us to bring randomisation, or more importantly humanisation, into our often rigid productions.
Let’s start by taking any MIDI region and double‑clicking it so the piano roll pops up. As seen in Screen 1 above, there is a menu to the left‑hand side called Functions that leads to a drop‑down list with the item MIDI Transform on it. As you hover over, you can see that there are various things we can do to Transform our MIDI.
Here, we will look into the Humanize function, as shown in Screen 2. This is a particularly exciting one for composers because, as it says on the tin, it introduces randomisation to your MIDI data to bring about a more ‘human’ feel. This can be crucial to creating parts that sound realistic.
Screen 2: The Humanize window lets you apply randomisation to your notes’ onsets, durations and velocities.
More Than Meets The Eye
Before we dive into the technicalities... Why is it we love musicians? Well, it’s their feel, it’s their timing, it’s the emotion they impart on each moment — and, for better or worse, when we make music inside a computer, this feeling is easily lost. For example, an orchestra of human musicians would never all land on the beat within a millisecond of each other, nor play the notes for exactly the same length and at the same velocity. And we wouldn’t want them to, because those differences are what create the depth and dynamics we love. When it comes to computer‑based music, we have to break down exactly those qualities of a human performance into MIDI information.
Now, let’s now go back to our Humanize function. You will see a series of Events that we can manipulate. As we are in the Humanize preset, only certain parameters are available to us; primarily Position (where the start of the note sits), Velocity (how hard the note is played) and Length (duration of note). Underneath, you will see what Operations we can do to each of these parameters. Logic has already selected ‘+‑Rand’, which will randomise values above and below their current value. Underneath that is a series of numbers that will dictate the range within which we wish to randomise, based on a standard position clock.
In the middle of the page, you will see three blue lines with dots on them. These allow you redirect or swap certain parameters with others. These won’t be used in our example, but they show that you can affect almost any parameter using this plug‑in.
At the bottom of the page we have a visual representation of the operation we are performing, based on the 0‑127 range that MIDI allows us, followed by execution buttons reading Select Only, Operate Only and Select and Operate. Select Only simply selects all the MIDI notes that are in view in the piano roll. You can also select from the main environment window with the plug‑in open, which makes sense of the other two options: if you wanted to transform only certain notes that you have already selected, you would just choose Operate Only, for example.
Humanize
In Screen 2, from a piece I’m working on, I’ve selected all the violins that are playing short plucks at the same time, and opened up the Humanize preset. I’m going to modify note positions by keeping the preset on +‑Rand, but reducing the range from 10 to 6 (10 always feels a little too much to me). Then, I’ll put Velocity to zero (we will come back to this later) and Length also to 6. Clicking Select and Operate makes the relevant parameters for the visible notes move randomly, between the ranges I set. Important note: we want the first note of every MIDI Region to be in time lest it not play, so we must select all the first notes played and quantise them to the beat.
Next, I’ll open the Random Velocity preset. This preset gives you greater control over the range of velocities because you now have two numbers to adjust: an upper and a lower value. The best settings will depend on the material, but for violin libraries (as in my example) anything from 0‑60 tends to be very quiet, and as this is a loud part of my track, placing the range at 80‑127 is a better starting point.
Simply, this is the fastest way to make your parts sound individually played in, which creates that much needed sense of depth and dynamics in a song...
Robots In Disguise
And that’s it! You will have to go in and individually adjust some of the changes that have been made to better suit your material, but this should have greatly increased the realism already. I personally do this with almost all my sampled instruments, from drums to synths. As producers we often copy and paste parts, over‑quantise performances, use the same sounds and phrases twice or even draw parts in with a mouse. Simply, this is the fastest way to make your parts sound individually played in, which creates that much needed sense of depth and dynamics in a song to keep listeners believing until the end.
The MIDI Transform function is a very useful option with all sorts of roles to play in music creation. Further to the above, I often use the Fixed Note Length preset for those awkward synth parts that sometimes don’t trigger as expected if the notes overlap. Presets such as Crescendo also have an obvious application (as long as you humanise them afterward!). Now, it’s up to you to go and experiment.