Hi Scott,

On the first issue there can be a couple of reasons. One is that the notes were "pre quantized" or laid out so that they stuck tightly to a grid, sometimes to the closest 8th or 16th note division. If they were step recorded, it's also likely that all the velocities ( note strike pressure ) are identical. Or they may have been recorded live and then were quantized. Another problem can be that they are recorded in sequencers with low resolution.. .ie 96 ppq for example. Any of these things will definitely contribute toward that "mechanical" sound that we don't want. Some sequencers have "humanization" functions, that will allow the user to randomly move the notes slightly and / or change the velocity. These work to varying degrees.

Usually when tweaking voices, I focus on changing the actual voice itself, then the reverb and chorus effects. Some instrument sounds will need more than that.. overdrive guitars for example, usually sound flat or "synthlike" without some overdrive effect applied.

If I am tweaking a midifile for use in a hardware board, I probably use the board's sequencer more than a software sequencer. The exception being when I want to edit notes to get rid of the stiff sound or quantize effect. I don't generally care for the humanization features that much on my sequencers, and find it a lot easier to edit note times and velocities on a piano roll grd. Occasionally some of the cal scripts I've used in Sonar work out ok as some of these can also automate random properties.

As far as normalizing the volumes, like everything else in the midi realm, I find that the midi "standard" isn't so standard after all. That's why, for example, reverb level 40 on a drum track in my MZ2000 might be just the right amount for a certain midifile, while the same level on the same midifile played in the Motif ES might make it sound like the drummer was playing in a canyon or tunnel. Unfortunately, it works this way with just about all of the midi parameters you can think of, including volumes, velocities, etc. Noone uses quite the same samples or effects, so it really isn't surprising when you think about it that way.

We had this debate a few posts ago.. and there were those that suggested laziness on my part for not wanting to tweak all of my midifiles. In fact I've probably tweaked ( not converted ) more styles and midifiles than anyone I know of, and at this point I find it easier for me to use something like SGM180, which was made available freely by someone who was able to come up some great samples but also great compromises that make most of my unmodified midfiles sound their best.

Or to put it another way, although my Motif ES probably has the best sounds and certainly the most wav rom of my 3 boards, it is also the worst of the three for midifile playback. That isn't really even subjective, because it is so bad compared to the other two that everyone else who has heard it pretty much agreed. Yep, I can ( and have ) made some of my midifiles sound really good with it. The amount of work that was involved to do this wasn't worth the effort however, particularly when after all taht effort, something like SGM180 still sounds nearly as good right "out of the software box". The other thing is.. if I want to use midi files to do a job, and my ES suddenly goes "South", the midfiles modified for the ES won't sound any better if I need to use my MZ2000 as a tone generator, and it's likely in some cases they'll sound worse.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-04-2006).]