Those small details can make a huge difference in making digital sounds feel more organic, especially when I’m using both VSTs and live instruments in a horn section for example. I really used to over-quantise everything too, and learned the hard way on that – it always sounds so much better to only quantise if necessary in my opinion.
And I sometimes try to inject a bit of randomness or weird glitchy errors where it feels right. Since the digital tools are so easy to use, it’s sometimes tempting to just record them and leave them – but if you treat them with the same scrutiny as you would with a live instrument, I feel like that’s a better approach.
That’s why I usually bounce all my MIDI out to audio as soon as I’m happy with the source sound.
Pro tip from corto.alto: Saturate your sounds! I love saturation and I use it everywhere. I overdo it sometimes. However, it’s a great effect to add character to otherwise boring sounds.
