In Search of the Perfect Acoustic Emulation

Posted by: AlenK

In Search of the Perfect Acoustic Emulation - 05/19/16 12:32 PM

Synthesizer/synthesis purists will argue that you shouldn't try to emulate acoustic (and lets throw into that electromechanical) instruments with synthesizers. But such purists aren't keeping the profits coming for the manufacturers of electronic keyboards (synths don't have to have keyboards or be controlled by them but the vast majority do or are). So what the purists say doesn't have much impact on what commercially-available synthesizers can do, indeed have been doing since the first models, with varying degrees of success.

Sampling, of course, was a huge step forward. But it was also a huge step backward in that the subtle control of a sound and the connection between notes that were the hallmarks of many acoustic sounds were also lost. We've seen many technologies attempting to get those things back; huge key-switched sample libraries, Synful Orchestra, Super Articulation (1 and 2), Articulative Phrase Synthesis and SuperNATURAL Acoustic to name some.

But can any technology actually get us all the way to essentially "perfect" emulation of acoustic instruments, especially as controlled by a keyboard? For some of the less challenging I think we are already there but for some instruments - the solo violin comes to mind - I think it might be just about impossible (except in certain controlled musical passages).
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: In Search of the Perfect Acoustic Emulation - 05/20/16 02:35 PM

That's well said, you nailed the pros and cons of sample technology. Like violin, especially saxophone is another very problematic example. The sound is so much influenced by the player's flow of breath, lip movements etc. and changes throughout one note, so many ways to bind two notes, these things will probably always sound too static when played with a keyboard. Maybe a very advanced physical modeling would be able to come close in combination with the use of a very sophisticated kind of midi breath controller.

Roland's attempts to gain back the subtle control by implementing SuperNatural behaviour modeling sounds have not been too convincing IMO. Instead, regarding some sounds they have even lost some realism previously achieved with some of the SRX expansions. Behavior modeling is only convincing if the "model" used is much more complex and realistic than what Roland has developed so far; I guess they should go back and implement better samples and work them into the modeling technology (advanced sample switching etc).
Posted by: AlenK

Re: In Search of the Perfect Acoustic Emulation - 06/02/16 12:15 PM

Just listening to YouTube demos it sounds like Yamaha's SA2 may be the closest yet, at least for certain instruments.

Since 80% of the posts in the last two month to this particular forum are about the Montage I might as well ask: Does the Montage implement anything like SA2 (or even SA)?
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: In Search of the Perfect Acoustic Emulation - 06/02/16 06:48 PM

That's one of the reasons why there is quite a lot of dissatisfaction about the Montage in the German forum. The Montage neither has SA2-type voices nor the Tyros ensemble feature.