# Just Found The Best Humanizing Plugin So Far!  **Channel:** Ozgun | Lunatik Rave **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1XtJ9lqets **Date processed:** 2026-03-04 --- ## Summary Ozgun from Lunatik Rave reviews the "Human" plugins by Mixed In Key, a suite designed to add humanization to electronic music productions with minimal effort. The video walks through building a complete EDM drop from scratch in FL Studio, then demonstrates how the Human plugins transform the robotic, grid-locked sound into something organic and alive using a single knob. The tutorial covers two workflows: inserting the Human plugin as an audio effect on mixer channels (processing generated sound), and using the Human Midi plugin to humanize MIDI data before it reaches the synthesizer, which produces cleaner results with zero artifacts. Ozgun demonstrates the effect on hi-hats, claps, arps, and lead channels, noting that kick drums should generally be left unhuman­ized in EDM to maintain their punch. The video concludes with an A/B comparison of the full drop with and without humanization, showing a significant improvement in organic feel without any audible processing artifacts. --- ## Key Points - The Human plugins by Mixed In Key humanize tracks using a single knob, saving significant time over manual velocity and timing adjustments - Layering acoustic samples (kicks, hi-hats) with electronic ones is a complementary technique for adding organic texture - The humanization sweet spot is in the first five or six positions on the dial; maxing it out creates a mess in tight EDM tracks - All instances of the Human plugin are linked: changing the groove on one updates all, maintaining coherent feel across channels - Kick drums should typically not be humanized in EDM, as consistent hits are essential to the genre's feel - The Human Midi variant routes humanized MIDI to a synth (via MIDI port routing), producing cleaner results than processing audio - When using Human Midi, you must manually compensate for latency (check ms in the plugin, add to the synth's latency offset) - ADSR settings on drum samples should be checked to prevent overlapping hits, keeping drums tight --- ## Detailed Notes ### Building the Drop Idea [0:36 - 7:54] Ozgun builds a drop from scratch to create a test bed for the Human plugins: - Kick drum: layered with an acoustic kick sample (Kashmir Acoustic Kick), using only the tail for organic texture, low-cut filtered - Hi-hats: acoustic hi-hats layered in, shortened for texture; two hi-hat channels with different rhythmic patterns - Emphasis on checking ADSR settings to prevent sample overlap - Rolling bassline with subtle saturation - Arpeggiator pattern: simple repeating phrase with variation at the end to avoid repetition (some notes shifted an octave up) - Lead melody written on top At this point, all MIDI is quantized perfectly to the grid, sounding robotic. ### Human Plugin on Drums [8:31 - 10:52] - Human plugin applied to hi-hat channels first, where the effect is most audible - Uses LFOtool to visually monitor changes in timing and velocity - At max humanization, it creates chaos; the sweet spot is in the lower range ("organic feel" or "warm human touch" presets) - Each hit becomes slightly different in timing and velocity without breaking the groove - All Human plugin instances are linked, so groove changes propagate across channels - Applied to claps as well with excellent results - Not recommended for kick drums in EDM: kicks need to hit consistently on the grid ### Human Plugin on Synths [11:12 - 12:26] - Arp and lead channels set to "synth" mode in the plugin - "Live session" preset made the arp too sloppy; "warm human touch" and "organic feel" work well - The change is subtle but psychologically noticeable: the track feels less robotic ### Human Midi Workflow [12:34 - 15:07] - Alternative to processing audio: the Human Midi plugin humanizes MIDI data before it reaches the synth - Setup: set Human Midi output to a MIDI port (e.g., port 5), set the synth input to the same port, move MIDI clips to the Human Midi channel - Produces higher quality results with zero artifacts since the synth receives already-humanized MIDI - Latency compensation required: check the Human Midi latency (e.g., 50ms), add that plus the synth's own latency to the synth's offset - More work to set up but cleaner output ### A/B Comparison [17:47 - 19:05] - Rendered two versions: humanized and non-humanized - The humanized version sounds noticeably more organic with no audible artifacts - The non-humanized version sounds robotic with everything locked to the grid - Ozgun strongly prefers the humanized version --- ## Connections *Links to related vault notes will be added here* --- ## My Notes *Space for your own thoughts, reactions, and connections after watching* --- ## Full Transcript <details> <summary>Click to expand transcript</summary> [0:00] Hello everyone, it is Ozgun here. In this tutorial, we will make a first look of [0:05] the "Human" plugins by MIXED IN KEY. [0:07] When we are making music we always avoid to sound robotic, and we always [0:12] say like, we gotta sound more "humanized" and "Human" plugins by MIXED IN KEY, [0:17] claim that they can give you the one of the best humanizing options [0:21] with only using just one knob. And today I like to create a drop idea [0:25] and then going to test the human plugins and [0:28] if it's making my music more humanized instead of sounding more robotic. [0:32] And if you are ready let's get into that tutorial. [0:36] So first, I like to create a drop idea as I said. And for that, I'm going to start [0:41] putting my kick drum. Let's lower the volume just a little bit for the kick. [0:47] So we got some headroom. [0:50] We can always layer some acoustic samples with our real drum kits. If you do that [0:56] your track is going to start sounding more organic than robotic. [1:00] For that, I can just grab this Kashmir Acoustic Kick for example. [1:06] But I can just layer it with my original kick. [1:09] But we already have the click and the punch of our kick. [1:13] We just need tail of it to just get the organic humanized vibe of it. [1:18] I'm going to just do it like that. We can just use the tail of the acoustic sample. [1:24] Like that. Even we can send this one to here. [1:28] And in here we can just quickly low-cut. [1:34] And just layer with the main kick. [1:43] And also we can layer some hi-hats. I mean the acoustic hi-hats. [1:47] So my sample pack on Clapwork has the acoustic hi-hats. [1:51] I'm going to grab one of them. [1:55] You can just choose any of you like. [2:03] Even we can lower it more. [2:11] And let's shorten it because we just need the texture of it. [2:22] Now we'll give our kick drum more life, more human touch. [2:26] Okay this is going to be the kick. [2:29] And probably if I route this hi-hat to here... [2:33] So we can just group the kick in one channel. [2:36] And it's time to just write some fast bassline. [2:40] I'm going to go over there rollin bassline to be fast. [2:43] Let's put it like that. [2:45] And let's don't forget to send it to it's own channel. [2:48] For just side chaining purposes. [2:57] I'd like to give just a little bit saturation to the bass. [3:06] Okay this is a good level to stay. [3:08] And I'm going to create a hat-group. [3:18] Maybe we can use one of the hi-hats like that. [3:22] It can just count the BPM. [3:28] Let's send it to here. [3:30] Call it Hat 1. [3:32] Let's get another hi-hat and this time we can just place it to the off beats. [3:37] Maybe I can just do it on a separate channel. So, let's call it Hat 1. [3:41] Let's put it like that as Hat 2. [3:47] We gotta always just take a look of the ADSR settings when we're programming drums. [3:53] Make sure your drums, hi-hats, samples are not overlapping to the next part. [3:57] So, if you do that with ADSR settings in here [4:01] You can make your drums sound more tight. [4:13] Let's take a look of the other hi-hat. [4:20] Yeah, let's shorten it up a little bit. [4:22] Or maybe we can just change the rhythm of it. Maybe this fits better. [4:42] We can do it like that. [4:45] So I wanna do like that. [4:47] In here we got the open hats [4:49] What if I just lower the velocity a little bit then we can just [4:54] get some space for the open-hat as well. [5:01] And I like to give some kick start to the rollin hi-hat, the hi-hat 1. [5:09] And lastly I'd like to put some claps. [5:11] Just like that. [5:31] Next thing is definitely going to be the arp. [5:35] In this kind of drops, we always use arpeggiators. [5:39] So let's put it in here, call it arp. [5:43] And I'm going to write a very simple pattern. [5:52] Just like that. [6:08] So, we can loop this phrase once more. [6:11] And maybe we can put the E and F notes one octave higher. [6:25] Yeah and I'm changing the ending so we are not making it too repetitive. [6:29] And let's place the arp like that. [6:55] And lastly I like to create a lead, just a melody pattern. [6:59] Let's figure those. [7:00] Something like that. [7:46] Yeah, it sounds nice. [7:48] I'm gonna place it here, call it lead. [7:51] And I think that's all for the drop idea. [7:54] As you see I haven't done anything on the humanization yet. [7:59] When you check the midi, everything just hits to the grid perfectly, causing [8:04] our track to sound like a little bit robotic. [8:06] And if you are especially making this kind of music, you gotta humanize your sounds. [8:11] Even with other genres, you always gotta humanize the leads, drums, most of the [8:17] time you gotta humanize your drums. You can always do that by manually, by hand. [8:22] But it's going to take too much time you know because they are in the end. [8:26] In the full track, there will be tons of tracks. [8:29] And the solution comes from here. [8:31] I find these human plugins. [8:33] And it works perfectly in these kind of situations. [8:36] And it's saving so much time. We will try the human plugin on... [8:41] all of the channels but let's start with the hi-hats. [8:44] Maybe yeah, let's start with the hi-hats because [8:47] in the hi-hats you will see it very clearly. [8:50] I'm going to put the human plugins to the hi-hat channel. [8:53] And we can just LFOtool to monitor how it works. [8:56] And when it's off, there won't be any change. [9:03] And look what happens when I give humanization. [9:21] Yeah, you're probably won't going to use the humanize max. [9:24] Because it's going to create a mess in especially these kind of tracks. [9:28] But I think like, those first five or six, [9:33] portion of the plugin is the sweet spot of it. [9:36] So, probably I would go for organic feel. [9:42] As you see and hear, every hit is slightly different than the other. [9:47] But it's not breaking the overall groove and the vibe of the track. [9:51] So we'll leave it in here, and I'm going to put [9:54] the human to do next hi-hat as well. [9:58] By the way, they are as you see [10:00] connected to each other if you change the groove, it's going to change the groove to [10:04] do all of the human plugins. So you don't need to do it manually. [10:08] And this is hi-hat 2. [10:17] You see like it's changing the position, changing the velocity and it's changing [10:22] something I don't know. But it sounds like a real human. [10:26] A real drummer just playing the track. [10:28] Okay let's try it on the claps as well. [10:40] It's perfect. [10:41] I don't need to do it, you know. [10:43] If I need to do it, I need to go to every clap and change it's position manually. [10:48] Change it's velocity manually. [10:50] This plugin saves me tons of time. [10:52] And we can also use it on the kick and the bass. [10:57] I don't recommend it to use it on the kick drum, especially. [11:01] Because in a EDM's, in these kind of tracks, we want to hit the kick always the same [11:06] So, we don't want to humanize our kick drum. [11:10] But the rest should be humanized. [11:12] Let's take a look to arp and the lead channels. [11:16] Let me separate them before we take a look. [11:18] So for arp, we will put it to synth mode. [11:40] So I think we put to live session, the arp kind of go too sloppy. [11:45] But I think, warm human touch or organic feel, both of them sounds very good. [11:50] I'm going to put it to do, let's put it on warm human touch. [11:53] To clearly see what the plugin does in the end. [11:59] And let's apply this to the lead as well again I'm just going to save it. [12:04] Because this is also the synth. [12:19] I mean it's so subtle change, but like psychologically, I know this one sounds [12:25] more human and less robotic. [12:26] And I think we gotta hear, everything, how it sounds. [12:30] Before we listen to full track and compare with human plugins and without, [12:34] I like to show just a quick tip, on human plugins, how you can also work on them. [12:39] So as you see now we are putting the human plugins to the mixer. [12:42] and then it's just processing the sound after the plugin, after, for example serum [12:48] generates the sounds, the human plugins are just processing the generated sounds. [12:52] But, if you wanna keep it even more clean there is one more human plugin. [12:58] That you can use, which is the Human Midi. [13:01] So this works like that. Let me just deactivate it from the lead to show you how it works. [13:06] I'm going to do like that. I'm going to go to the settings of the plugin. [13:10] Settings of the Human Midi. [13:11] And we will put the output port, let's say midi port five. [13:16] And I'm going to go to the serum. [13:18] And this time, we will make the input of the serum five. [13:22] And now if I just cut and copy the midi, the lead midi to the human plugins... [13:28] Now the human plugins are going to humanize the midi, [13:32] and send it to the serum. [13:33] And then you will get a better quality sounds. [13:37] Be because the previous way is processing the sound itself, it's still perfect. [13:42] But this is more than perfect. Because you are just humanizing midi inside of [13:46] another plugin and feeding the serum with already humanized midi. [13:50] Then the outcome is going to have [13:52] zero artifact, zero bad artifacts of humanizing. [14:00] But just a small reminder, when you are using human midi, you gotta calculate [14:06] the latency. Because there will be latency on the plugins, on the both of the synths. [14:11] If you just try to use it like that, you will hear it late. [14:18] To prevent that, you gotta just check the Human Midi and see how [14:22] many milliseconds latency does it give. [14:26] And so it's 50 milliseconds. You gotta go to the serum. [14:29] And it's has 0.1. So we can just write here like 51. [14:36] And then it's going to be fixed. [14:41] So, using the midi is going to give you a better sound but you gotta just [14:45] calculate the latency manually. If you know how to do it automatically, just let me [14:49] know in the comments section. And this is the solution I come up with. [14:53] And let's don't forget to EQ, and side chain the leads. [14:57] I mean just the basic low-cut. [15:07] And let me do it the same for arp. [15:09] Then we'll be able to listen how it sounds with the human plugins. [16:10] Like, it sounds perfect to me. It sounds so organic. [16:13] And as you see like, all of the channels are [16:16] doing a different type of humanizing. It not all off the [16:20] channels always same. It's just relatively calculating with each other to get this [16:25] like whole human vibe. And also I think I forget [16:28] to change the Human Midi from drums to the synth. [16:32] It already sounds good. [16:34] But let's be sure we are choosing the right option in there. [17:12] Okay, I quickly changed the ending of the lead. [17:15] Okay, let me get a render, how it sounds. [17:18] And we will get another render without human plugins. [17:21] We can just compare them. [17:30] I wish the added some global bypass to here like, shift+click, control+ click to [17:35] bypass all of two human plugins maybe in the next update. [17:39] Take and bring it here. [17:41] We will see about it. [17:43] And yeah now, we don't have human. Let's render this one as well. [17:47] Okay it's comparison time. [17:49] This top one is the human plugin on, the button one is off. [17:53] And you can tell me which one do you like. [18:48] Guys, personally, the human plugins are making a huge up it's like. [18:52] It's like more than I expected. Because I don't [18:55] hear any bad artifact. I don't hear anything about [18:57] manipulating, how the sound is manipulating I just hear it sound more organic then the [19:02] the other one. The other one sounds way more robotic. [19:05] Everything is on the grid all the time and it doesn't sound humanize. [19:09] And if I wanted to compare them, the human plugins with the [19:13] humanizing on, I think that's definitely will be my first choice. [19:17] So, currently when I check their websites, the human plugins are on 50% off. [19:22] And you have 30-day money back guarantee if you [19:25] don't like plugin, you can just give it back. [19:28] And I recommend you to just take a look of this plugin if you want. [19:32] To humanize your tracks, very fastly with just one plugin. [19:35] Without needing to work on every channel to make them humanized. [19:39] Yeah guys, today I showed you how get humanized, less [19:43] robotic more human sounds with just using only one plugin. [19:46] I hope this video gives the inspiration and teach you something. [19:50] Today that was it guys. See you on the next video. Bye-bye. </details>