@Dietz said:

....The better the "model" gets (read: the more it is able to mimic a real instrument), the more you have to be able to _master_ this very instrument with all its specific idiosyncrasies. 

Well said Dietz - this just about sums it up. The challenge to play such a virtual instrument becomes as great as the challenge of playing the instrument itself - so you may as well learn trumpet, oboe, contrabassoon, cello etc etc. That's a lot more labor-intensive than using the Vienna Instruments! [^o)]

Jack, those are all valid points.  But I don't see why any of those issues are things that can't be addressed as the modeling and the computers themselves continue to improve.  You're right, it's not totally there yet, but in the future it seems inevitable that eventually it will make libraries with a million individual samples taking gigs of space obsolete.  It will be interesting to see if companies like Vienna and some of the others that rely on exhaustive recordings will add this approach or not.

Dietz, I don't know that I agree that as the more modeling oriented instruments get better, they'll get harder to play.  Generally, I'd say those instruments I've tried have been much easier to get a good performance out of than purely sample based ones.  The one major change is just having to add breath control or another controller (or trigger via wind controller, which often works fantastic for real time performance on those instruments).

Even without changes in performance, it seems that the quality of transitions between dynamic layers could be greatly improved and the samples required cut way down by using interpolation instead of having so many layers as is often required with pure samples.

I am not so sure I agree it is more labor intensive.  I use both types of instruments and in the first initial passes I can easily get a more realistic experience with a model than with samples.  Because the samples require you to go back and edit them (in the VI), smooth them out between transitions, lower dynamic levels so they sound like the same instrument, choosing the best sample etc.  There are tons and tons of things you have to do with samples to get them right and to sound as good as they can.  With a model sampler, once you get it down pat, you can just play in your parts and it is almost completely done on the first pass (minus any wrong notes you hit).

There are arguments to both sides but I've worked with both and it is definitely much faster to get a finished recording with a model than it is with samples (if you are doing any type of advanced techniques especially).  Because I don't have to sift through 10 thousand samples trying to find the one that fits the passage/note.  For instance it may sound absolutely brilliant to use a 4 second crescendo patch for a note that is only .5 seconds long (because it has the speed, atk and growth I am looking for on that note).  As where with a model, I could have played that in perfectly in one pass and not spent 3 days looking for the perfect patch to fit that note.

The downside would be, there isn't a model out there that sounds as good as the finished sampled product so it's a catch at this point.  My opinion is your best bet at this point is still to setup extremely elaborate presets with all your patches perfectly smoothed out for one another etc to at least save you as much editing time as possible.  Possibly created your own speed controller presets.  It really depends on the stlye of music and the amount of dynamic changes you take in your passages.  I welcome modeling when it comes.  I know I will move to that when it becomes available and good enough sound quality wise.

Maestro2be

I also must say, I disagree with these technologies being more difficult to play. On the contrary: with those sample modeling instruments I get an immediate and very versatile playing experience, that is impossible with normal samples an a lot of key switches. The only drawbacks at the moment are indeed the CPU usage, the lack of strings, generally the lack of available good quality instruments.

Those pure PM instruments, like Wallander for example are in my opinion sonically not up to the point. This becomes obvious, when you wish to use them rather dry ... in that Sample modeling is the first and only competitor, offering great orchestral instruments. There are great saxes, a trumpet (which also works great in orchestral style in my opinion) and and upcoming trombone and solo strings. The company is rather small though, so development is slow - enough time for VSL to catch up! :-)

I really believe that this is the future. Some years in the future a software based pure sample playback won't stand a chance - especially with those rather high prices! We have to remember, when VSL came out it did already break some limitations of sampling: First the interval legato and repetitions, which has become standard nowadays, then the Vienna Instrument software with speed detection etc. and finally MIR. The next step MUST be a new Vienna Instruments software with the next revolution: Transitions between samples (take the AET in Kontakt 4 for example, even if the sample modelling technology is far better!), playable and realistic pitchbend-, vibrato and speed (e.g. tremolo or legato transitions - only sample modelling offers that sounding like the real thing),  Mircro tuning, etc.

I know, that is gonna be a hell of a lot of work on so many samples and many sample in the library (e.g. crescndos) might become almost obslolete. But if VSL wants to keep the pole position, it will be necessary. Finally, all of us want to do music and have a great time doing that. And what playable instruments have is simply so much fun playing! Almost no editing, no constructing ... This is almost the most important factor for me, because i spend a lot of my time doing it and wanna have fun!!!:-)

I just heard a demo of the upcoming SM trombone doing a Jabba excerpt from star wars and it sounds absolutely flawless to me.  I'd be shocked if a purely sample based instrument could come even close.  It will be interesting to see if Vienna gets into this sort of technology in the future.

www.robertosoggetti.com/jabba.mp3

Certainly a very flexible instrument.

However this example doesn't seeem representative of what I'd use orchestral trombones for.

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@Jack Weaver said:

Certainly a very flexible instrument.

However this example doesn't seeem representative of what I'd use orchestral trombones for.

Well, the trombone is not out yet ... but tell me about the Trumpet: What can't you do with it, you can do with samples ... this is just one example of what you can do with the trombone, as any VSL Demo also is one ...

I don't own The Trumpet. I don't own it because I haven't heard a single demo doing orchestral music that I think works.

However, I may well purchase it in the near future for more pop-oriented music. I certainly respect Samplemodeling for what they've been able to achieve. My casual observation from a distance is that the instrumentalists they've chosen to sample, the marketing approach and software techniques, and the specific sound  they want to achieve is for pop music. There are a lot more people trying to do that as opposed to people who are doing orchestral work.

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Well, I think they specialized on things that have never been in a proper way: The Trumpet was kind of their field test, and i don't know of any other trumpet of that quality, especially for jazz or pop. I have it for a few days now, so I haven't tried it on orchestral music, yet. I have played around with it and I'm quite confident that you can achieve a rather classical sound with it. 

After the trumpet those saxes where a logical choice, because almost all sampled saxes suck as hell! The VSL Saxes are quite good, but sound a little to tame and classical to me (one of the few VSL packeges, I don't have ...).

After the trombone they will do strings. I don't believe those strings will be jazz oriented ... to me the hottest company right now! Sorry to say so, but they announce the only products where I can't wait for the release ... 

I  don't understand  this stuff about samples being easy but physical modeling is hard.

So, The Rite of Spring was easy.  Jay, did you realize that?  It was actually EASY what you did.  Any moron with samples could do that.  But if you had done it with Physical Modeling it would have been HARD. 

I have now been laboring for more than a year on the VSL sample performance of a symphony that took five years to write and now is taking more than a year to program with samples.  I should have realized it was easy and everyone who shells out some money and installs a sample library can do the same thing in a matter of minutes.

There are literally thousands of choices that can be made with VSL sample library combined with complex MIDI sequencing using all possible controllable parameters concerning ANY SINGLE NOTE PERFORMANCE.   And yet someone who performs (or conducts) a mediocre performance on an acoustic instrument is superior?  I don't think so.  Because I have played in mediocre orchestras and the musicians are usually doing near-comatose recitations.   I find it very strange that here - at the website of the best sample library - MIDI performance on samples would not be understood to be a complex musical performance capable of the highest musical standards.  Whereas someone noodling with physical modeling that he had to learn over a course of a a few months is doing something great?  It took me as long to learn to use VSL and sample performance in general as to learn to play professional french horn in symphony orchestras.

I think that a lot of us forget that most sample use is technically physical modelling. For example, unless you play each articulation at exactly the dynamic that it was recorded, you are already modelling.

In my limited experience instruments like Samplemodeling's The Trumpet work very well for very dynamic music with lots of subtitles of articulation. However when you the put the legato up against the Vienna Trumpet legato, it is not in the same league.

DG

@DG said:

I think that a lot of us forget that most sample use is technically physical modelling.

Well, no. 😊 Physical Modeling is by definition not based on samples. It is based on a programmed model simulating the sonic events of an instrument by digitally recreating the physics. Actually, Wallander (sythesis) and Sample Modeling do both use no PM. For example Arturia Brass does. But I am not interested in how to achieve it, rather the result of it.

As I said earlier: VSL already broke some limitations of regular sampling and others followed that approach. Before that Gary Garritan was ahead of his time with his Orchestral Strings and the Maestro tool. It will always be like that! Others will come, invent something new and make older stuff look old. 😊 One must be naive to believe, that the Vienna Instrument in its present form will be up to it's time in 2-3 years from now. But the samples must not necessarily be outdated until then. I am pretty sure, that in the near future musicians are going to wish for more realtime playability with natural expression and that is something Wallander and Sample Modeling have achieved better. Has nothing to do with me not liking VSL anymore. On the contrary: I made substantial investment in it by owning almost every collection by now. I just hope they will see the signs of the time (that is a german term - I don't know if it translates literally) and apply some new technology to their products. Let's wait for the already announced Vienna Instrument v2 ...

And one comment on the Jazz versus Classic thing: up to now there was simply a lack of usable jazz samples, so developers tried to fill that gap. Maybe the Sample Modeling instruments are better for Jazz. That is certainly the main focus. But the same technology can be applied to a more classical style as well. Why shouldn't it?

Yes, physical modeling is actually TAMPERING with the basic acoustic nature of a sound, by altering the waveform.  Layering dynamics is not the same thing.  You are still hearing mainly a recording of a performance, not a newly created tonality.

VSL, unless I am mistaken, is fundamentally opposed to the alteration of waveforms that is seen with modeling.  Because at least up till now,  their philosophy has been similar to that of classical record companies - to represent as pristinely as possible the original sound created by extremely good orchestral musicians, and under no circumstances mess with its basic timbre.  Of course legato or alternation instruments dissect the performances, but they are still heard purely though in a new time frame. 

One thing that is good about this is it preserves the original musicianship of the players.  What happens with some poor sap who plays an instrument that is then altered by ripping it to shreds and then reconstructing it with physical modeling?  He is a non-entity, that is what happens, at lest in reference to his musical performance.  But the VSL musicians are highly recognizable - for example the solo trumpet, flute, even the ensembles have very distinctive characters.   

Not that I am opposed to physical modeling.  It will probably become normal in the future but right now it has a very artificial sound compared to highly detailed sampling.

One other thing is how no one seems to understand that using samples in a serious MIDI performance is an art form unto itself.  it is often actually MORE artistic than acoustic performances, even though that may seem heresy to the knee-jerk mentality which usually condemns MIDI. 

It is not just a cheap substitute for orchestras  in film scoring.  If you listen to the Bacal Rite of Spring, or any number of Guy Bacos pieces, you will hear a true mastery that goes far beyond what is normally thought of as MIDI.  It can be a powerful expressive medium for personal artistiic work. Jay Bacal stated that he derived a true musical pleasure from doing these performances, just (I might add) as a pianist or other soloist might,  and Guy obviously has created original musical expressions of real beauty.  I recently read an obnoxiously irritating book by Gerard Lanier, who thinks he is a big guru of Silicon Valley, and in this book he reduced MIDI to cell phone ring tones and "Up" and "Down" notes on the keyboard, stating that the original MIDI programming language is an example of old, outdated code that is simplistic and reduces the infinite possibilites of acoustic music to simple "On" and "Off"  values.  This assinine, incredibly stupid attitude is common among people who do not understand just how much can be done with this medium.  It is a rare example of  a programming language that is essentially infinite in its possibilities.  VSL is a major part of that hugely expressive potential.

@William said:

[...] I recently read an obnoxiously irritating book by Gerard Lanier, who thinks he is a big guru of Silicon Valley, and in this book he reduced MIDI to cell phone ring tones and "Up" and "Down" notes on the keyboard, stating that the original MIDI programming language is an example of old, outdated code that is simplistic and reduces the infinite possibilites of acoustic music to simple "On" and "Off"  value. [...]

Oh boy, did the guy really write this? [:^)] That would show about as much insight as I have in horse riding.

@Another User said:

Yes, physical modeling is actually TAMPERING with the basic acoustic nature of a sound, by altering the waveform.  Layering dynamics is not the same thing.  You are still hearing mainly a recording of a performance, not a newly created tonality.

You make that sound like it has to be a bad thing.  Samples are inherently limited to a number of velocities, while more advanced technologies can use fewer and interpolate between them, giving a continuum of sound.  I'd argue that the PM approach has the potential to recreate the original sound more accurately than crossfading dynamic layers.

@mike connelly said:

 

You don't need me to put anything together. Just try it for yourself. The "problem" with the sample modelled trmpet legato is that it pre-supposes that a sort of slide/portamento is what a trumpet legato sounds like, when actually with the real thing (and VSL) you can clearly hear the skipping across the harmonic series. I have a suspicion that the sample modelled trumpet could do this, with improved scripting though. It's just that right now it can't.

I also think that the trombone will be more successful, because trombone legato is a sliding legato.

DG

Maybe I just haven't heard the right demos, I have listened to them and the legatos in the modeled version sound as good if not better to me.

And unless it's a specific situation where the player is trying to do more of a rip or other effect, legato trumpet shouldn't have audible in between notes, if the player is doing that he's flubbing the part.  I would hope that the VSL brass legatos don't have "skipping" during the interval transitions.

No, he is talking about the harmonic series being faintly audible in a legato transition in brass.  It is.  And it is NOT the same thing as an electronic portamento and if you don't know that try  to use a pitch bend wheel to simulate a horn or trumpet legato.  It doesn't work.  A brass instrument does NOT slide perfectly smoothly between notes, except in the case of the trombone actually using a slide glissando.  So physical modeling would have to emulate (fake, as opposed to sampling it) this lack of perfect smoothness.