i understand humanization, but you lost me after that, what do u mean by "ticks"?
ticks or ppq. How the quarter note beat is sub-divided.
i.e. most sequencers use 480ppq, some you can set to any value, reason is set at 960ppq, Cubase can be set at 15360 ppq in some setups or at 1536 in others. I've also seen 720ppq. The smallest has been 24ppq (the recommended minimum in the MIDI file standard). C-Lab's Logic (yes I have been using this stuff for quite some time: since 1986) and
Pro24 on the Atari both used 384 ppq. My original humanisation ideas and parameters were developed in these two programs.
At 480ppq the numbers I mentioned +/-10 / +15/-5 work well in providing that random scatter necessary to humanise a beat.
Musicians have three phrases that describe their concept of playing in time, for the most part self-explanatory:
- ahead of the beat
- on the beat
- behind the beat
When trying to reproduce this kind of interpretation of time or feel, you need to adjust your humanisation parameters to reflect your concept of time.
Swing is then achieved by looking at how much shuffle - i.e. playing the second note in a 8th note pair behind the half-beat - you want.
Traditional swing theory says it is achieved by interpreting the 8th note pair as a 4tr-8th triplet.
Later swing theory says it is somewhere between the two (the off-beat and the late 8th triplet) and may even shift within the range of them, particularly when syncopation and anticipation come into play.
As with everything, swing is a feel, not a formula. However you choose to implement your swing you need to add some human looseness to that implementation.