Programmed MIDI drums tend to sound fake - lacking human element. We can easily fix that, today I will share with you a quick example on how we can make them sound more human-like.

Example

Let's take this short drum clip as an example:

It sounds too perfect. Here's what we can do to make it sound less perfect and in turn more human-like:

1. Randomize MIDI note velocities
2. Randomize MIDI note positions

I'm using Cubase so I've used "MIDI Modifiers" option on the left of the track:

Here's the result with the settings shown above:

Other digital audio workstations have a similar feature called "MIDI transform" etc.