Soft synth that emulates acoustic instruments?

[BlackWinny]

Coming back to the topic question, one specific and little known synth which can emulate acoustic instruments is the Eagan Matrix which powers the Haken Continuum. It's an extremely deep engine, and rather difficult to comprehend. It's finely tuned to the Continuum playing surface. And of course, it's not a plugin as such, as it's tied to the Continuum.

Still, I feel it's worthwhile to make a mention and post the example below, which is simply exquisite. Hats off to Ed Eagan for the engine and the sound, probabaly the most expressive, synthesised sound ever (you need to watch the whole video to realise it):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nq3Q4tHvHY

Awesome !

It will never be said enough how much the MIDI controllers are important in the emulation of acoustic instruments.

Watch also these videos with the Haken Continuum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnBhR8RLJN8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oE2EPJxNVY

And these :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFdXXJSe5SU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OIkBDkYJEQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqhHVfNQmHg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLh6G1aLuzo

Just a quite cheap breath controller can already totally transform the expression of your music with any simple synth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm-U44kNtmI

[zzz00m]

Coming back to the topic question, one specific and little known synth which can emulate acoustic instruments is the Eagan Matrix which powers the Haken Continuum. It's an extremely deep engine, and rather difficult to comprehend. It's finely tuned to the Continuum playing surface. And of course, it's not a plugin as such, as it's tied to the Continuum.

Still, I feel it's worthwhile to make a mention and post the example below, which is simply exquisite. Hats off to Ed Eagan for the engine and the sound, probabaly the most expressive, synthesised sound ever (you need to watch the whole video to realise it):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nq3Q4tHvHY

Awesome !

It will never be said enough how much the MIDI controllers are important in the emulation of acoustic instruments.

Thank you for those links! I was unaware of the Continuum, but have been following the development of the Roli and Linnstrument, as well as the MIDI.org adoption of MPE this year. https://www.midi.org/articles-old/midi- ... ession-mpe

[BlackWinny]

Coming back to the topic question, one specific and little known synth which can emulate acoustic instruments is the Eagan Matrix which powers the Haken Continuum. It's an extremely deep engine, and rather difficult to comprehend. It's finely tuned to the Continuum playing surface. And of course, it's not a plugin as such, as it's tied to the Continuum.

Still, I feel it's worthwhile to make a mention and post the example below, which is simply exquisite. Hats off to Ed Eagan for the engine and the sound, probabaly the most expressive, synthesised sound ever (you need to watch the whole video to realise it):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nq3Q4tHvHY

Awesome !

It will never be said enough how much the MIDI controllers are important in the emulation of acoustic instruments.

Thank you for those links! I was unaware of the Continuum, but have been following the development of the Roli and Linnstrument, as well as the MIDI.org adoption of MPE this year. https://www.midi.org/articles-old/midi- ... ession-mpe

[zzz00m]

Cory Henry and Marco Parisi live at NAMM 2016: Jam no.2 @ the Roli room ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1gZAif1qg4

[aMUSEd]

Chromaphone does great strings - plucked and bowed

eg

https://soundcloud.com/kymeia/howling-wind-koto

https://soundcloud.com/kymeia/reflections-2

https://soundcloud.com/kymeia/emanations-2

https://soundcloud.com/kymeia/orchestral

[jancivil]

I have a nice alto flute going with Kontour. It's just a few tweaks from one of the presets. There's a hint of oboe mixed in there where it's in the right range.
I get pseudo-acoustic instruments all the time with what I use. I've not mastered Kontour especially, either.
Someone called one of the manifestations of a very complex Absynth design of mine 'strings' the other day.
I try to make an orchestra in a patch, and then I may want to do more with the _very realistic_ instruments. But right now the alto flute (it sounds a little thicker in the regular flute range than a C flute) is there. Well, in the bass flute range it's a bass flute. (note well the name: Kontour) This is more than I can get with a basic track with one sampled instrument and it's exactly why I chose Kontour. I will, as per usual, orchestrate but this patch is part of the orchestra. This is what I do. Don't listen to people telling you things can't be done because they can't or don't have that thrust. There can be a good Venn overlap between 'acoustic' and 'electronic' you might be missing out on. Flutter tongue, buzz, growl in wind instruments; multiphonics.

Reaktor Spark gets a really good spit/blast for brass. There is a tremendous amount of control there; yeah, the presets are pretty much synthesizer all the way, but it's designed, all the feedback loops are designed knowing what instruments do, what happens. There are a number of Reaktor ensembles which will get you going.

[omac]

The one I think that should have been considered by OP was one I can't endorse because it was discontinued and the gui was so dated as to be almost unusable, but it was exactly what I think the OP was looking for ... AAS Tassman. The examples included enough instruments that could serve as templates for a large number of acoustic instruments. The quality was great, and it was very easy to tweak the examples. I never looked into how the interface forms were stored in the executable. It would be worth it to change the forms to be able to see them. I think it still is very usable if you can adjust the gui elements somehow so you can get more size and contrast. IMO the sound engine is wonderful.

[CrystalWizard]

Yep, if you already have it Tassman is awesome for “acoustical” sounds. It’s the mama of all those great AAS synths.

OT- Tassman being discontinued and Alchemy being bought up were the two biggest dissapointments in my VST world, although i am happy that i can still use them both.

[pdxindy]

The one I think that should have been considered by OP was one I can't endorse because it was discontinued and the gui was so dated as to be almost unusable, but it was exactly what I think the OP was looking for ... AAS Tassman. The examples included enough instruments that could serve as templates for a large number of acoustic instruments. The quality was great, and it was very easy to tweak the examples. I never looked into how the interface forms were stored in the executable. It would be worth it to change the forms to be able to see them. I think it still is very usable if you can adjust the gui elements somehow so you can get more size and contrast. IMO the sound engine is wonderful.

Tassman just does not have enough modulation options... too many parameters cannot be modulated. Also, it is just too tedious not to be able to preview a sound while building it.

I so wanted a Tassman 5 that really opened things up. It had such potential!