# Workflow question from score to mockup



## MarcusMaximus (Oct 5, 2017)

I am aware this has been discussed before and have trawled through any old threads I could find through searching. (No doubt I will have missed some good and relevant ones along the way.) I'm still left with a question though due to my particular circumstances/limitations.

I don't compose for a living so I don't have to work under time pressure. Therefore my preferred method, and the one that I was schooled in, is to compose on an instrument - usually guitar or piano - then do a short score where I work out most of the arrangement and the orchestration, then a full score in Sibelius where I develop and finalise the orchestration, and then the mockup in Logic using my sample libraries. I find this works well as a way to really develop a piece. Also it gives me a chance to try out the orchestration before taking on the mockup. I find if it sounds good in Note Performer then it will sound good in my mockup, if I can do the latter well enough.

All good so far, although it is very time consuming as I'm not particularly fast at any of this. Following the usual advice I do the mockup by playing in every part from scratch, adding CC's etc. as appropriate. The problem is this takes me absolutely ages to do, partly because I'm not a very good keyboard player and partly because it takes me an inordinate amount of time to do all the tweaking necessary to get my less-than perfect performance to sound adequate. Of course I don't quantize anything but I find that nearly all my performances are a little late because I have semi-weighted keys which means that my key-strikes take a bit too long to hit home, especially at lower velocities, given I am not a 'proper pianist'. So I usually end up dragging all the notes I've played in a little forward in the piano roll in order to compensate. Not right to the grid but just a little closer. Beyond that I leave the performance alone apart from CC's etc., once it is good enough.

Anyway, to my question. I know this is supposed to be the right way to do things in order to make the mockup sound more human etc. but given my playing is less than ideal and given the embarrassingly long time it takes to mockup particularly a full, complex orchestration, I am wondering if there is a better way for me to do this. Given I have already put so much work and time into the score which contains all the 'performances' already, is it possible with sufficient humanising and CC tweaking etc. to make a decent mockup by importing the midi into Logic rather than playing it all in? I know there is still a lot of work to do after importing but can it ever sound as good as a fully played-in version, with enough tweaking? Obviously everything would have to be de-quantized etc..

Does anyone work this way around and if so, is it an 'acceptable' way to do things, in terms of achieving something non-mechanical sounding with enough adjustments? I really need to find an alternative to how I am presently doing this because at this rate I will be 102 years old before I complete any sort of 'body of work'!

One more thing. If this is an option, could anyone suggest what sort of settings to use in Logic's Humanize function to get the best results? I know this is subjective but I've always found that the default settings (for note position, length and velocity) are too low to get any noticeable results, however I am wary of going too far. Just a rough ballpark will do to give me some sort of guideline if possible. Thanks.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Oct 5, 2017)

There is no right way to do things and there's nothing wrong with importing the midi. I personally think that that's the wrong way and things should be "written" in the DAW as it's so much faster and offers much more flexibility than working as a score. My experiences in studying in a traditional composition program have supported this with everyone there taking eons to get anything done while when working in the other way you might be writing more than 5 minutes of music per day. Editing becomes much more of a mess and you end up having to start a lot of things from scratch. I don't think any score should be involved until the very end and only as a tool for musicians to play it.

I suggest deleting everything in the midi other than the notes. Most things generated by notation programs will just cause a mess. I have a shortcut that does this. After that just learn the shortcuts you need to manipulate the midi and make it however you'd like.


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## muk (Oct 5, 2017)

It depends, and it is a personal thing. Now that you have tried playing everything in without any quantizing and are not totally happy with it, try different approaches. Import the midi from your notation software and tweak from there. Then you'll know how you like that. After you have tried many different approaches you'll start to feel which one you like best. Just go from there. You'll discover little tricks to speed up your personal workflow over time, and before you know it you'll feel comfortable and happy with the workflow you have developed.

That being said, I write faster at the DAW, but I write better (better structure, avoiding common patterns, more interesting orchestrations instead of the few same old evergreen patches etc) with paper & pencil or at the piano. If something is important to me I take the time to work it out on paper before going to the DAW. But that's a personal thing and not quite what you asked I reckon?

Anyway, here is what works well for me: for orchestral pieces I play a piano reduction of the piece and use that as my guide track. As you wrote that you are not a proficient pianist, you could play just the melody line for example. The important thing is that you perform at least one line of your track in a musical manner. Your DAW can then create a tempo map from that single line for you. This tempo map will represent a musical interpretation instead of just a mechanical steady click. The tempo will flow naturally, with accurate phrasing, rubati, and breathing spaces because you performed it.
Now you can record the other tracks one by one following that guide track. It doesn't matter too much if you don't play too precisely. Because as you have a naturally sounding tempo map, you can now quantize to the grid and it will follow this timing map. Try quantizing partly, meaning that you move the notes as you played them 60% closer to the grid than they currently are, for example. That way you preserve some timing differences between the instruments, but you can reduce them as much or as little as you like. It'll reduce the need for tweaking a lot, because most notes should be fine now and you'll only have to correct the worst timing glitches in your playing manually.

If that still doesn't work for you/doesn't suit your workflow you can try it the other way around. Play everything to a straight mechanical click. Quantize every instrument as much as you see fit. After everything is played in, create a tempo map with your mouse, trying to mimick the subtle swells and ebbs of natural performances. Now make all tracks follow the tempo map.

The more precisely you are able to play, the less need to quantize. But if your playing isn't as precise as you'd wish in places, don't be afraid to quantize a bit. Experiment with it until you find a way to cut down the sloppy timing and still preserving the natural variance.


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## Replicant (Oct 5, 2017)

I write music, of a higher quality than what I can do with just a DAW, in a whole lot less time, with notation programs and my guitar. That being said, pieces that are mostly ambient or chordal in nature are quicker to do in a DAW, but that's because of how utterly simplistic it is.

*The truth is*: The "right way" to do something is whatever makes you most efficient. I know there is a whole "anti-midi import and tweak" crowd, but I've personally not seen any played in, MIDI keyboard performance that could not be sufficiently replicated via importing the MIDI and screwing with it. If the instrument is a hinderance to you, it _will_ hold back your music from its full potential.

The only thing of significance that a MIDI "performance" captures is timing offsets; be they note on/off or CC envelopes. Again, I remain unconvinced that capturing these details "live" is anywhere near the same as capturing a live, acoustic instrument and therefore inherently superior to the mouse method — it's just computer information.

One of the best EWQLSO demos is that "Viridian Clocks" one, and if you go on YouTube, the dude who did it literally draws in EVERYTHING.

_All but the best of the best pianists_, and I'm sure even then, still do plenty of tweaking and quantizing after the fact.

So I say go for it.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 5, 2017)

Many thanks for the replies. Plenty to think about there. I probably gave the impression that I'm more of a beginner at this than I am but despite having completed quite a few projects and mockups, I still haven't found an efficient/time-effective working method. I've been writing music for many years but have only delved into orchestral music relatively recently and completed 4 years of 1-1 composition and orchestration studies just over a year ago.

I see your point Gerhard but I like to complete the score first because as Replicant says, I find I get a higher quality and less generic result that way. Also what muk says about 'taking time to work things out' on paper. Writing straight into the DAW may well be faster but for me I know I'm much more likely to default to old habits that way and am less likely to break new ground. But each to his own. Also, I do hold out the hope that perhaps some day I may get a real orchestra to play or record my music so I want to have scores available for that purpose. One piece I wrote 'straight to DAW' (well, after doing a rough short score) a few years ago I really like but I have no score for and doing it long after the fact would be too hard so it will probably never have that possibility. I have actually done the import thing a few times (should have mentioned that) but found the result did sound mechanical. I put that down to insufficient tweaking and too low Humanize settings. And yes, I only use the notes, along with the tempo map.

I think the final result of my playing in is ok, once I've adjusted the timing as I described. It's more the time it takes to do it. What you say about working methods muk - very interesting and definitely worth exploring. The music I write tends to be quite rhythmic (my old rock and jazz backgrounds coming through!) so having a steady tempo that I play over might make more sense to me. However I will think about all that, as well as allowing myself to do some more partial quantisation. Especially perhaps for percussion parts.

Very encouraging all you say about midi performance vs. importing Replicant. I will definitely check out that demo.

Thanks again guys for your really helpful posts.

Hmm.. had a look on YouTube and although I found the actual demo I can find nothing about the making of it. Do you have a link perhaps?


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## Paul T McGraw (Oct 5, 2017)

@NoamL has a different way of doing things that might appeal to the OP. And he gets excellent results. Take a look at this thread. NoamL talks about some of his methods later in the thread and even posts a video.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/css-williams-magic.64674/


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## Rodney Money (Oct 5, 2017)

I am enjoying the conversation, and on that note here is a little snippet of a flute first played by messing with midi and then playing it in live:https://app.box.com/s/8mxufvyw0czgyqgsshwlne55fhpwto08
Here's you one that I would be interested in seeing someone render by drawing the midi:


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## Replicant (Oct 5, 2017)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Many thanks for the replies. Plenty to think about there. I probably gave the impression that I'm more of a beginner at this than I am but despite having completed quite a few projects and mockups, I still haven't found an efficient/time-effective working method. I've been writing music for many years but have only delved into orchestral music relatively recently and completed 4 years of 1-1 composition and orchestration studies just over a year ago.
> 
> I see your point Gerhard but I like to complete the score first because as Replicant says, I find I get a higher quality and less generic result that way. Also what muk says about 'taking time to work things out' on paper. Writing straight into the DAW may well be faster but for me I know I'm much more likely to default to old habits that way and am less likely to break new ground. But each to his own. Also, I do hold out the hope that perhaps some day I may get a real orchestra to play or record my music so I want to have scores available for that purpose. One piece I wrote 'straight to DAW' (well, after doing a rough short score) a few years ago I really like but I have no score for and doing it long after the fact would be too hard so it will probably never have that possibility. I have actually done the import thing a few times (should have mentioned that) but found the result did sound mechanical. I put that down to insufficient tweaking and too low Humanize settings. And yes, I only use the notes, along with the tempo map.
> 
> ...



As well, a tip from the other side of the coin that may help with writing straight into the DAW, is to just play with staccato articulations on the first pass. Just to get the rhythm and pitches that you want in. Next, record the keyswitches for the articulation changes, and then one last pass of CC data.

The three-step technique of breaking the melody down to its rhythm, then articulation, then dynamics can be handy.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 6, 2017)

Replicant said:


> The three-step technique of breaking the melody down to its rhythm, then articulation, then dynamics can be handy.



Great tip. I usually do play the lines with only one articulation and then map them out as you suggest but I never thought of using a stacc. patch first. Could help to get things in more accurately. Sometimes I ride the mod wheel while playing in and sometimes I write it in later - depends on the patch.

That's a really interesting thread you linked to Paul. Excellent result indeed. The video is equally impressive but what he does is beyond my capabilities at this stage I think. Also, surely if you humanise the click track, or derive it from a rubato/click-less performance as in Christian's video and then quantise all your performances to that, you'll still end up with all the parts playing uniformly just this time they'll be playing along to the looser tempo. This would not in my mind mirror what a real orchestra does because even though they're all following the conductor there are still going to be many individual variations. I think Noam explains this by suggesting that they will all be playing close enough to the conductor-tempo etc. but I'm not convinced that would necessarily translate to a sampled orchestra without the latter sounding still mechanically in-time, just looser. Or maybe I've misunderstood - clearly whatever he does works fantastically in his mockup! And none of it was played in live.. Perhaps the overall effect conveys enough of a sense of playing together but with human timing that the brain doesn't really notice the actual uniformity/quantisation of the performances. Anyway, I always have a mixed reaction when I watch or listen to someone that expert. On the one hand it is instructive and inspiring but on the other it can be disheartening, i.e. how the hell am I ever going to achieve something that good?! Fascinating and thought-provoking nonetheless.

Having written all that I realise this is basically the same as the method muk was describing above, which is clearer to me now having read through that thread. For future reference this might well be the way to go, especially with the use of partial quantisation.

Rodney, clearly your played-in version of the flute piece sounds more real and human than the 'messing with midi' one but the latter still sounds great to my ears. Perhaps with some more tweaking and humanising it could come even closer but no, played live will no doubt always sound more fluid, especially if it's played in so skilfully (back to my piano technique!). The cello piece, yes that would be very hard to render properly. As I said my music tends to be quite rhythmic so it might lend itself to the midi-import method more than music that is more expressive and loose in terms of the tempo. Noam says he transcribed that Williams piece rather than playing it and that works very well but then it too is very steady rhythmically, in an overall sense.

Fantastic stuff folks. Thanks again! In terms of my present project I'm of the mind that for now I will persist with playing in the parts as I'm some of the way through it and to dump all that work and start from scratch by importing the midi from the Sibelius score might be too much of a waste at this stage. Or maybe I can try importing from the point I've reached but that will probably end up sounding inconsistent with the rest of it.. I'll have to try out some different things I think and find some way to incorporate what I'm learning here. Now to it!


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 6, 2017)

Here is a link to the Sibelius/Note Performer version of the piece I'm mocking up. It might be helpful to be able to reference that in terms of the scale, style etc. of the project concerned while discussing these various methods and approaches. (I do introduce some changes to what's in the original score as I do the mockup - all part of evolving the piece.)


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## trumpoz (Oct 6, 2017)

There is nothing wrong with playing in the parts and editing them.

I listen to Mike Verta's productions and the thing that stands out is the performance - he was able to play everything at once. 

I generally play the parts in with a breath controller. I then edit note position and CCs until it sounds the way I want. If it was a bad performance then I will re-record it. One of these days I will learn the left hand EVI fingering on my EWI so I can do it more naturally.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 6, 2017)

Hi trumpoz. No, I am absolutely assuming that playing in is the best way to do things, some editing after the fact being inevitable. My question is more whether one can achieve as good a result by importing the midi directly from a Sibelius score and then editing that to sound more 'human'. If so that would be a huge time-saver for me. I spent two hours today playing in and adjusting two bars of staccato violins, violas, oboes and clarinets. I have about a million more of those kind of recordings to do before I even get to the mixing stage with this piece. It just takes me too damn long. I only have about two hours each day to spend at this because I earn my living at something else so I need to find a way to work faster.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 7, 2017)

Yeah ok, a possibility for sure. However I am interested in doing it and enjoy the process. Also I like to make use of the software I own. I wouldn't be looking for alternative approaches if it didn't take me so long. I like to do as much of my own work as possible at all stages, being a bit of a stubborn DIY'er as I find it all to be very creative and satisfying, bringing something to life like this. But I can see your point. Similar to what my composition teacher advised which is to get one of the more affordable orchestras to record the music. Still, it's a heck of a lot of money to shell out plus I seem to be addicted to doing it the hard way! It's a similar argument around mixing - it would probably be a good idea to get someone else to do that but again, I like to try and do it myself. I will consider this possibility though, certainly if I get fed up pouring too much of my precious time into it and cannot find some way to speed up.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 8, 2017)

Many thanks man and you're not being arrogant at all, just offering another valuable perspective. Music is more than a hobby to me and I am fortunate to work for myself (for the most part) so I can structure in quite a lot of time to spend on it. Not enough time (is it ever enough?) but more than a lot of people would ever get, unless music _is_ their job as it is for a lot of people here. I know well the frustrations of setting up websites and trying to sell CD's and promote your music as an independent - been there before. I'll attempt to cross that rubicon again in some shape or form down the line a bit but for now I'm content to keep doing my best to keep learning and creating.

I appreciate your kind wishes. All the best to you also in your musical endeavours, whatever they may be.


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## MarcusMaximus (Oct 15, 2018)

Coming back to this a year later! 

For my current project I am going to import the midi from Sibelius into Logic and hopefully tweak it into sounding more natural. For that I will be using the Humanize function in Logic. Does anyone have any advice on what sort of settings to use (mainly for note position) in order to get good results? I find the default setting to be too low to be noticeable but don't want to go too far either..


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## marclawsonmusic (Dec 27, 2018)

Hi Marcus (my name too, by the way), any updates? I am interested in your progress and any things you might have learned along the way.


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