Question about duplicating and humanising MIDI parts

[DavidPardy]

Hi all, I'm still fumbling my way through getting to grips with Waveform and MIDI editing, as well as the built-in plugins, etc., so please bear with me if these questions have already been answered

So what I'm trying to achieve is write realistic sounding orchestral tracks, with multiple instruments per part e.g., I write one 'first violin' part, but it's played by 10x violins. What I want to do is cleanly and easily duplicate that part (without re-writing it) and then humanise each of the 10 duplications individually so that together it sounds a bit more realistic.

What have I experimented with? Linked clips, patch bays, a couple of ReaJS MIDI humanisation plugins (I'm not sure if they worked as I forgot to bring my headphones and only had my awful laptop speakers), groove templates, as well as manually duplicating and 'tweaking' MIDI parts.

I'm just wondering if there is an easy, straightforward, and neat and tidy way to do what I'm trying to achieve? Again I'm still very much learning my way around Waveform so apologies if this has already been answered before and I just haven't looked in the right place for the answer I did find a couple of pieces of advice but they were a few years old

[spoontechnique]

One thing you can do is use the randomize velocity function (not sure what it's bound to by default, but mine is alt+v) which lets you randomize velocities within a range (say 80-100).

Another thing you can try is putting a random modulator or LFO on the frequency EQ with a boost or cut of 1-2db. Not necessarily enough to be clearly audible, just enough to give the performance some slight variation.

You could also apply slightly different processing to each violin track. A different compressor or saturator plugin or settings could make the parts feel different.

[DavidPardy]

Yeah, the randomise velocity is fine but I'm actually trying to randomise the timing slightly as well - as in, I want the notes to start randomly a bit earlier or later than on the beat so that it sounds more natural. But thanks for the tip!

[SoundPorn]

Best tool for this that I've come across isn't even a midi plugin but Melda's M-Unison plugin. You can probably just emulate it with delay plugins, put them 100% wet and randomize the delay by milliseconds

[mikoatkvr]

I would try rendering some/most of the MIDI clips out to audio, then use the 'warp' function which can be accessed through the header of the audio clip itself in fx section. Try shifting some parts at the micro level ( zoom in a lot ) and you might want to have timestretch switched on if you don't want to affect the pitch.
You could also use some groove of different variations on some of the MIDI clips ( can be accesses through the properties panel )

[DavidPardy]

Hmm, in the absence of an actual 'humanisation' feature it seems like just adding a 100% wet delay to each track is the least fiddly way to do it. Thanks for the tips!

[DavidPardy]

Actually I just found a hot tip - the ReaJS MIDI humanizer JS script I was using needs to be put BEFORE the VST Instrument. Works perfectly now!

[Stuttaton]

What's also important is that not all violins play the same patch/sample. They will need to sound slightly different on their own.

[DavidPardy]

Yep, I've got a few to choose from. My biggest issue was altering the note timings but it's all sorted now