Audialab Releases Humanize Alpha (WINNER ANNOUNCED)

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Audialab has just released Humanize Alpha, a plugin employing the company’s AI-powered Deep Sampling technology to humanize drum samples. We’re taking a closer look at Humanize and giving away a FREE copy to one lucky BPB reader.

Previously, Audialab has brought us Emergent Drums, a groundbreaking application to generate infinite, royalty-free drum samples using AI.

The Humanize plugin shares the same engine to do what you’d expect by its name: humanizing drum samples.

However, let’s contextualize this phenomenon before moving on.

Our brain needs to hear variations over time, even if imperceptible, to keep it interested in what it listens to. Drummers in the real world never hit the snare, for instance, the same every time.

Instead, there will be micro-variations in pitch, timing, dynamics, and timbre. And that’s why we feel real drums are more natural than beats made with electronic drum machines.

During music production contexts, I’d usually make automation over some parameters like volume, pitch, and some effects to make sure my drum samples keep varying over time.

Alternatively, I would create a drum rack (I’m an Ableton user) with multiple variations of the same sample loaded and employ some randomization MIDI processes to trigger them casually to create a round-robin sample playback.

In either case, it’s quite a tedious process, honestly, and that’s where a plugin like Humanize may come to help us.

I tried Audialab Humanize on a set of sampled drum machine sounds and was pleased by its simplicity and effectiveness.

The workflow is straightforward. You just need to drag a drum sample into the plugin window to get started.

Then you have two options: Humanize & Superhuman.

The first creates realistic variations over the sample loaded, while the latter increases the variance for more unpredictability.

After clicking on one of the two options, you have to wait a bit (around 30 seconds) so that it can generate variations of the loaded sample (note that you need to have an internet connection for the plugin to work).

Once the process is completed, click on the sample display or trigger the device via MIDI, and you have a round-robin effect!

Audialab Humanize generated around 8-9 variations during my tests, enough to do the trick. It created subtle modifications over the initial sample’s timbre; typically, one or more variations had an added reverse noise tail at the end.

If you want to avoid the machine-gun effect of robotic drums that sound always the same, then this is a plugin you want to check out. Although the software can improve, it is still pretty good!

Early adopters can access the private Discord server to get direct support from the developer team, which is great for exchanging feedback.

More info: Humanize Alpha

The Giveaway

Audialab kindly offers one FREE copy of Humanize to one lucky BPB reader.

To enter the giveaway, please answer the following question in the comments section below: What would be an ideal AI-powered VST plugin?

We will randomly pick the winning comment on October 25, 2023.

Good luck, everyone, and thank you for reading BPB!

The winner is: frank reitz

Congratulations, Frank (we are reaching out via email)! :)

Everyone else, thank you for joining, and better luck next time!

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About Author

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Fabio is a sound designer, sound engineer, and electronic music producer from Italy. His works can be found under the name HydraTek.

239 Comments

  1. My “ideal” AI plugin would actually probably be something a lot like this! Not always easy to add some real variation to repeating sounds like drums.

    • Richard Kennedy

      on

      AI tool to create drum track to match time and time changes in custom guitar recording or possibly live playing.

  2. would be sick to have the AI recognize sample types in a loop then be able to provide polyrhythmic variations that make musical sense & provide rolls, fills & buildups that a human drummer might play or program to aid with transitions & different movements

  3. Actually this Plugin sounds like a pretty perfect AI-powered plugin to me! Generating natural sounding drum patterns with some variation in it is great for improving songs.

  4. Prismatic Brain

    on

    AI additive harmonic VST. It would look at the incoming signal and give options for adding even, odd, or both kinds of harmonics. It would be able to be sidechained to the master or stereo bus so that the AI could determine how much of the harmoincs to add to make the signal more audible, with a final option to adjust the recommended harmonics to taste. It would not add any distortion whatsoever, only give harmonics to help individual tracks poke out of the mix. There would also be a final stage where an AI guided EQ curve is applied to the added harmonics only, not the full signal, because maybe there are spots in the frequency spectrum that added harmonics would be overbearing while others underwhelming. This EQ curve could be manually adjusted as well.

  5. My ideal AI-powered vst would be one that would allow you to combine different musicians from all time into one song. Or even a musical hit as it would sound if performed by another group. Maybe what I’m suggesting already exists?

  6. An ideal AI-powered plugin would make terrible music, so when I quit using it in frustration, I’d feel better about the music I do produce.

  7. Maybe AI could generate a random melody based on contents of entire master bus. Like figuring out tempo, key, rhythm, then generating a melody, possibly to midi. Thanks!

  8. Calix Lewis Reneau

    on

    Intuitive jam-along – like the old Band-in-a-Box but more immediately intuitive, directable, and interactive.

  9. For me the “ideal” AI plugin will make something like that… you have some lyrics in your head and maybe some tune for the melody to start so you sing the lyrics and the AI transforms the part of the tune and the singing in to your unique tune for at least one vst instrument. From then you go again and again and again till you make every part of the project.

  10. Aaron Vaders-Collins

    on

    An AI-powered VST plugin that generates a synth timbre that fills a sonic void in the music to help with tonal balance and fullness.

  11. AI male to female / female to male VST plugin. So we can have back singers and stuff without of hassle. You know you can’t hassle the… :)

  12. A plugin that intelligently presented options for various stereo results, from simple stereo separation, to 5.1, surround sound, ATMOS, and so on. You might have a set of parameters (say drums, bass, strings, synths, lower notes, higher notes, major and minor keys, the entire recording, etc), where you would use a slider to decrease or increase the effect. The AI would work on the piece of music supplied and remix it to the set requirements.

    The idea is that you can experiment with the sound, choose the one that works the best and then apply the effects on separate channels so you can edit the suggestions individually until you have the perfect mix.

    • Please delete this entry. I forgot to add the question and resubmitted it with the correct details. There’s no way I can see to edit it delete this myself

  13. What would be an ideal AI-powered VST plugin?

    A plugin that intelligently presented options for various stereo results, from simple stereo separation, to 5.1, surround sound, ATMOS, and so on. You might have a set of parameters (say drums, bass, strings, synths, lower notes, higher notes, major and minor keys, the entire recording, etc), where you would use a slider to decrease or increase the effect. The AI would work on the piece of music supplied and remix it to the set requirements.

    The idea is that you can experiment with the sound, choose the one that works the best and then apply the effects on separate channels so you can edit the suggestions individually until you have the perfect mix.

  14. I think a cool AI plugin would be one that could come up with some cool effects automation based on a prompt, such as stutter that gradually slows, or drop bar transition or something cool like that.

  15. An AI built into your DAW that can detect the bpm of an audio track and write a correct bpm map with tempo changes, so that you can record stuff in changing tempos and still slap on some midi stuff on top and have it be in the right tempo. would make life more enjoyable

  16. an AI that learns your particular idiosyncrasies and taste when it comes to what plugins you use and how you tend to set them and gradually learns to recall and anticipate decisions in advance.

    For example, on a bass DI track, naming the track certain key terms would trigger the AI. By naming a track “metal bass DI” and adding certain descriptive terms like “clanky, scooped” along with whatever effects you associate with the qualities listed, you’re slowly giving the AI more specific data about your preferences.

    The AI would begin to anticipate what plugins you will use, the settings on the plugins, and offer up a sort of generated preset but rather than a preset being contained to a plugin, it is more of a snapshot of multiple plugins and other aspects of the DAW. The goal would be that the AI is gradually learning your own semantic associations with certain plugins and adjustments, the user and AI could develop a shorthand that would result in a streamlining of the recording/mixing/creative process

  17. An ideal AI powered VST plugin would be one to automatically limit and mix audio tracks to put them all at the same and equally listenable volume.

  18. The ideal AI VST plugin would be one that evaluates the SFX is a scene and then creates options for ambient music that would natural compliment scene by scene with equalization and balance in mind.

  19. I have quite a few AI plugins and the ones that are the most helpful are the type that analyze some mix aspect and give you suggested parameters…just off the top of my head,Bassroom by Mastering the Mix is an example of one I think is excellent for ex.,….a few months back I was among the lucky BPB readership that scored the Focusrite FAST bundle which is really something,probably as fine an example of state-of-the-art AI technology as exists…of course Izotope’s Neutron/Ozone are among my go-to’s for this kind of thing…like this plugin being given away as coincidentally I’m involved in drum track production w/samples currently so it would definitely come in handy….

  20. an AI plugin that gives you a choice on how to sound, therefore selects the sounds and mixing choices.

    imagine an AI tool where you can prompt something like this:

    I want my song to sound like “Disclosure – You & Me (Flume Remix)” but if the drums were produced by Skrillex, the synths were made by Swedish House Mafia and the vocals were made by Adele.

    This would be an amazing AI tool

  21. My ideal Ai plugin would be one that could listen to
    Incoming audio and analyze it and create realistic dum fills and effects for transitions.

  22. My ideal AI-powered pluguin would be AI-reverb, the one that will help you to place sound into space (front, back, left, rigth, etc)

  23. Ideally AI should be used to help humans to learn and improve their skills.

    An AI instrument that shows you what it’s doing and why, giving you as an artist an opportunity to learn from the machine’s learning would be ideal, IMO.

  24. Nicolby Newman

    on

    A good idea for an A.I. VST would be a VST that could analyze your final mix or master and find related chart toping songs or just songs in general that have the same or share the same sonic characteristics. so basically an A.I. Reference Track Finder

  25. AI voice to match a song you currently working on. Either AI voice creation, or AI sample matching to the track I am working on. It would help eliminate writers block and save time, and the ability to swap through samples quickly would be life-changing.

  26. I would also like an AI plugin that would organize all of my plugins automatically and drag and drop into fl studio. I have too many, and it’s hard to get what I need, when I need it. An AI mix guider that won’t mix for me, but can tell me some basics on what to do would also be very cool.

  27. An AI plugin that looks at a midi or audio melody and can generate variations on that melody to use in other verses or add some flourishes.

  28. A vst plugin that automatically levels and corrective Eqs, so you can focus on the creative stuff. Or a plugin that mixes for you based on ideas. and provides you different sonic profiles based on what youre looking for. basically MixGPT

  29. IA poderia criar um afinador de voz automático, e também uma segunda voz e uma terceira voz, com varias maneiras de fazer, para combinar com a primeira voz.

  30. Emiliano Lopez

    on

    An IR based simulator of spaces + sound systems + number of people to figure out how a mix could sounds in several reproduction ambiences (room, smartphone, dance club, tv screen, autoestereo, cinema, stadium, bar etc. You propmt the space. shape and dimensions, the P.A. and speakers ubication, his dimension, and how many people inside, so the plug simulates the sound map and diagnoses the phase issues and his suggestions to fix it.

  31. An AI plugin that can understand how much I appreciate what it does for me, even if I’m bad at expressing that appreciation.

  32. An ideal AI-powered VST plugin would have several key characteristics and features to enhance music production and sound design like: Sound Enhancement and Processing, Musical Composition and Arrangement, Sound Design and Synthesis…

  33. The perfect AI tool for drums would be a simple and effective drummer replacement, which reads the song and generates beats and fills on the fly.
    Literally a virtual drummer. That would be awesome.

  34. An ideal AI-powered VST plugin would “hear” and suggest complementary music: either a melody to go along with existing chords/music, or a counterpoint melody/harmony to go along with an existing melody, etc.

  35. AI distortion could be interesting. A reactive distortion that increases/decreases with the intensity of the music.

  36. A artificial intelligence,, VST’a is to manipulate, sounds and samples from all the other audio Library in this world 😎👍

  37. Creo que un asistente que busque informacion atraves de internet como lo hace ChatGPT etc, pero lo haga cada vez que insertamos algun complemento y nos de una breve explicacion y algunas sugerencias de para que los usan constantemente y tal vez posibles tecnicas, lo hiciera en texto o en voz y se aprenderia aun mas cada dia de lo que ya usamos y creiamos dominar.

  38. Thee ideal VST plugin would let us tap into a niche trendy topic we could write on and only share that one topic per click to one user and not all

  39. An Ai processor that helps you achieve loudness as transparently as possible. Perhaps some device where you type in the LUFS value you would like to get your song to, which you put on all your tracks that uses whatever tools needed to achieve that LUFS goal with the least amount of distortion..
    Going through the tracks just to reduce peaks after you’ve gotten everything balanced and perfect sounding is something I find pretty tedious and time consuming.
    Another cool thing would be some kind of peakreducer to lower the peaks on the premaster track by lowering the volume on the highest peaks automatically, instead of manually having to do it. also as transparent as possible of course :)

  40. Something like a learning model, able to work with any VST to tweak on any of my plugin parameters so that it matches reference. This can be either a synthesizer patch (like Synplant does) or sound processing and mixing plugins

  41. A reinvention of magenta studio with all the benefits of today’s AI and an interface that allows real-time block arranging would be fantastic. With advanced velocity and randomization controls it would be very useful and a real time “save what you listen” button would be exceptional.
    Cheers!

  42. I think AI in this days can do almost anything, but there´s identity and I think it can be worked out on that, so an ideal AI is one that can help me in anything about the song, but can´t read me and put my identity on the records or production, so yeah an AI like that is something missing, but in the same time our salvation.

  43. Jeffrey Rijnsburger

    on

    An AI plugin that would stir your own creativity, like synthesis based on image recognition and facial recognition, and association of colors and facial expressions reflected in the sounds it generates. It then has a HOLD button so you can release your grumpy face and play around with the synthesizer sound it generated.

  44. An AI motivational speaker plugin. I need an AI plugin that cheers me up and compliments me on what I do to the track before my imposter syndrome kicks in.

  45. Beats are not my strong suit at all, so yes! Something like Humanize would be such a gift and help my workflow dramatically! Exactly the kind of AI plugin I would find useful.

  46. I find beats the hardest aspect of producing so this plugin sounds pretty special. Other than that I think ai would be good mastering

  47. For me, the ultimate AI plug-in is one where you drop two different vocal songs into it and ask it to model the voice on one and then apply it to the other in real time. If we can get to that point, them that would both great and little scary at the same time.

  48. An ideal AI-powered VST plugin would be one that analyses tracks in a production, highlights issues and makes suggestions on how to rectify/improve them. Great music comes from the heart and soul of the artist, producer and engineers. Bedroom producers can already create amazing ideas, but lack that advanced technical knowledge to achieve pro results.

  49. A.I. file compare. It will batch-process files and give you many results comparing the files. It will also offer advanced file renaming based on the results

  50. How about an AI plugin that lets you load up all your favorite plugins and auto-categorizes them and builds out mix busses based on your natural language input of what you’re going for.

    Or one that makes your Sample library completely searchable based on the vibe or flow you want to add to a track, or listens to what you’re creating and makes suggestions to make it more exciting, musical, or industry standard.

    Or an AI plugin that can randomize an 8 bar loop for a specific genre as a song starter.

  51. Milton Grimshaw

    on

    A multi-engined synth/effects VST, a bit of a mash-up of engines similar to Vital, Quanta/FMRS, DRC, with a Kilohearts Snap Heap and the rack of effects in a modular Odin 2 style of working, with Infiltrator style of controlling the modulation. It must be able to understand typed instructions on the sound flavour you want.

  52. AI that would fix the plugin ilok and download managers mess and just work on open source plugin with CLAP or something

  53. A plugin to take reference tracks and copy the EQ to new tracks without any user EQ work, just a knob to control how identical the EQ results will be

  54. An AI vst that suggests and creates reverbs to suit any selected tracks in a mix, whilst factoring in any reverbs already used on the other tracks in the mix, including any send based reverbs. Basically creating an overall reverb “sound” for the mix with wet/dry control to suit.

  55. An AI vst that runs the “flocking” algorithm from “Steering Behaviours”, widely considered to model life on Earth almost perfectly. Bonus if it runs it on a quantum computer.

  56. Well… I want a modifiable drum generator/variation of samples, and a drum sequencer/pianoroll that doesn’t suck to use…

    I mean… I can’t really afford what I am thinking of.

    Like multilayer generation for initial sound, then it bakes to the final, then varies upon that, or all layers, but I rate that would get a bit harsh…

    Then I need a sequence variator on a piano roll that doesn’t suck for making drums, which can export to midi, so that I can use it to do weird things which does suck to use for initial drums… Otherwise let me beatbox my drums with a recording, and use the samples that we “generated”. Then vary that.

    That would be the plugin win.

  57. Aleksandar Shanov

    on

    An AI that can gain-stage a channel in relation to the rest/the mix or one that can provide support in a “ChatGPT” sense.

  58. Martin Martinez

    on

    I really love what Audialab is doing with stuff like this and Deep Sampler. The ideal AI audio plugin for me would not only be able to create samples from some reference material, but be able to resynthesize them and let you have more control over their tone and parameters too.

  59. my ideal AI VST tool would be an autotune plugin. something that takes the surrounding melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic context, and uses that input data to automatically shift pitch, formants, transients, frequency filters, etc to get as clean and smooth of a tune/shift as possible. ideally, you’d also be able to make manual edits to these parameters at will after the fact, as well as have the ability to change the speed and intensity to get both basic pitch correction and heavy stylistic autotune effects. even more ideally, it could automatically automate volume levels as well, and maybe even suggest melodies to sing over compositions without vocals currently in them, and harmonies to add over the melodies.

  60. my ideal ai plugin would create endless drum sounds with the user being able to specify and tweak many of the characteristics

  61. Something useful would be an AI that can humanise (ironically) to provide subtle but impactful variety to repeated motifs such as drum parts.

  62. I honestly think this is a pretty good use case for it, but as others have said, I’d like to see(more) ai plugins that generate ideas as a starting point for a song or part of a song.

  63. Nestor Sanchez

    on

    An AI plug-in that would be dope is one that can make melodies
    based of notes from a scale. Based on genre it would vary.
    It would also have different options and settings to best fit a track, allowing you to manipulate the sound.
    this would also be the case with it naturally changing tone and timbre since a drummer or any realistic instrument never really hits the same .

  64. AI analyzes reference synth sound (or not only synth) and then tunes all parameters of a given synth to achieve sound as close as possible.

  65. An AI plugin which analyzed your mix with respect to how it would sound in different devices/PA’s and let you know how to optimize it for your preferred playback medium…

  66. What would be nice is an AI plugin that makes slight modifications to the speed or tempo of midi tracks to make it like a live recording instead of midi. Perhaps something that can also tell when the music is ramping up (like with increased volume) and make that part a little faster, simulating a band that is getting excited and getting faster, but then slow down again after that section of the song.

  67. Jonathan Marchant

    on

    The ideal AI-powered VST plugin would be one that allows you to blend two humban voice timbres into a new, third voice.

  68. I think that ideal AI plugin is a programmable choir library, where you can write words and it will “sing” it naturally. Not as vocaloids

  69. Something that gives tipps to improve your own skills. For example in mixing or music production. But without doing it itself, but training yourself to do it a right way.

  70. An AI VST that scans your project and makes variations of what you have. For example, if you have a basic song arrangement, the plugin will scan it and give you ideas on how to restructure your song so if your first verse is too long it’ll suggest a shorter one and tell you to maybe move different sounds around in different spots. Basically it’ll create new arrangements from what you already have. I don’t it’s hard to explain but I hope I got the point across.

  71. Is I am into orchestral sample libraries, I would like to see some new tech that allows you to train AI models to realistically synthesize a performance of a real instrument with all of its nuances, like dynamics, articulation, phrasing, different playing techniques etc. Preferably midi playable, but not a must.

  72. A really good denoiser that can perfectly reproduce the sound that has been cut due to the denoise. That would give a great option to get some sounds recorded in less than perfect conditions with better quality. Probably quite niche product, but I think it may open up a lot of possibilities

  73. A virtual hybrid synth with great ideas that scans a mix and delivers the exemplar sounds to balance up the mix

  74. an ideal AI-powered VST plugin would be one of J.A.R.V.I.S. but as our personal interactive virtual mixing and mastering engineer assistant, and none of that Ozone hooey, either

  75. probably the one that can give you ideas & new techniques to add & use for your project. (before that its gonna analyze project itself I suppose)

  76. An AI plugin that can quantize and apply note parameters (pressure, velocity, etc) to my poorly played piano MIDI sections, in the same style as some of the best musicians. I know what notes to play, and I have the melody in my head – I just cant play them very well…

  77. An AI that collects information from an audio track (instrument or sample) and exports the MIDI sequence of chords or notes.

  78. Visnu Espiritu

    on

    an ia for the creation of sidechain/ducking effects that chase colliding elements in the low frequencies and alter the phase of the same to maintain power anywhere on the track

  79. Visnu Espiritu

    on

    an ia for the creation of sidechain/ducking effects that chase colliding elements in the low frequencies and alter the phase of the same to maintain power anywhere on the track.

  80. A AI vocal processor that can replicate efx chains for vocals from any reference you load up. It would also have built in efx chain references from already popular songs from different genres to different eras of music.

  81. Vinícius Lessa (LessLax)

    on

    An Auxiliary AI that compares your project with a desired sound Source as a Reference, and then give gives you tips on how to get your sound closer to the reference, being it Loudness, Compression, Equalization, Pan…

  82. Oh gosh, I wish i can think of something new but only an automatic mixing plugin like Neutron comes to mind as a breakthrough for AI to assist in these modern times.

  83. I feel like I’m not very good with ideas right now. But probably for me it will be something that allows me to completely match (and then change if desired) the sound of any audio source. Think of it as a collage technique but for the sound engineering component. For example. I liked some part of the sound (not a sample! not the sound itself, but the technical characteristics of this sound) in the Burial track. I take that sound signature and then apply it to my music in a completely different context. This can be considered a development of the idea of ​​matching EQ curves. But this applies to all components of sound. The plugin must be able to capture the entire sound signature. All processing – saturation, reverb and so on. Sorry, I feel like I explained it quite confusingly, but I hope you get the point.

  84. DJ DangerousNile

    on

    A plugin that can automatically create emotional melodies and chord progressions to preference in a key of choice or random

  85. If an AI could take my mumbled melody and create words from nonsense. A lot of artist create melodies first then write lyrics, it’d be cool if there was help with this process.

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