Hey, everyone. I hope this is the right section for my question; thanks in advance for reading it.

I'm wondering if someone can shed some light on the notion of physical modeling. Specifically, there are some great software instruments on the market that use physical modeling (Pianoteq, Truepianos, Wivi, Ironaxe [which I'm particularly impressed with]), and what I'm wondering is if they're basically synths that have been tweaked to produced the desired sound, or if there's some other kind of 'magic' that goes into physical modeling that I'm ignorant of.

In other words, a lot of time, effort, and energy obviously goes into producing these wonderful sounds and extracting the modeling data to accurately model the instruments, etc., but at the heart of it all, is it basically a matter of getting a synth to produce 'that sound'? Is it accurate for me to think of, say, Pianoteq as essentially a software synth whose parameters are 'locked-in' and inaccessible to me?

I'm trying to learn about synthesis- concepts, theories, practices, etc., but I'm still very much a greenhorn, so I apologize if the answer to this question is obvious or basic. Thanks again!

Physical modeling is basically supposed to recreate an acoustic instrument as a physical phenomenon that includes the acoustic aspect
Many of the instrument you've listed though, are hybrid synthesis in where PH is partially involved (truepiano,wivi)

The funny thing with PH is that you can easily recreate the unwanted behaviour of the real instruments !

Applied-acoustics is a company that made virtually their entire range of instruments based on physical modelling with some of the best of the current market (Tassman, String Studio, Chromaphone...)

As a fundamental example here is a plucked-string model called Karpus-Strong synthesis :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karplus-Strong_string_synthesis

If xoxos is around there, he's THE one on this forum that can give complete explanation on the subject (and also a dev more or less specialised on physical modeling)

Thanks for the reply. It's very interesting stuff, and the discussion makes me want to keep learning more.

Pianoteq's model is locked in but you can modify a lot of parameters anyway. It can result in a subtlety customized piano sound or a wacky non-piano thing. Especially if you get the pro version (access to individual note adjustments).

If you want to do more custom work with physical modeling, check out Tassman (be forewarned that it's a bit old & the editor is clumsy, but the models of acoustic objects are easy-ish to comprehend & manipulate) or Reaktor (which will NOT help you create physical modeling objects; you'll have to do a hell of a lot more work, but, if you're able, it'll be far more flexible than Tassman).

The holy grail of physical modeling synths doesn't yet exist (drag & drop acoustic objects to assemble unique sound creation "devices" with customizability that goes beyond convenience/possibility in the real world). Tassman makes that claim but it's not really just that simple & the models are mostly fixed with a few variables you can modify (not dynamically).

I'm still waiting for this type of physical modeling synth. I've worked with Reaktor and I might as well go play in a physics/math lab for all the good it does me (though it's a fantastic tool anyway because of the vast number of ensembles, instruments & components available free online, which means you don't need to build from scratch and there are some neat physical model synths & prototypes to play with, without building your own). I've worked with Tassman & it's a frustrating tease that doesn't quite provide actual ease of use (you cannot test sounds when in the builder environment), and it still makes you deal with archaic component stuff unrelated to acoustic objects in order to get a signal or have polyphony.

String Studio is an excellent physical modeled synth. It is easier to use than Tassman and has some unique functionality. Even if you don't want to buy it, it is worth trying the demo just to learn...

An Explanation of Physical Modelling Electric Piano
http://www.applied-acoustics.com/loungelizard/tour/

And here, another one by the conceptor Pianoteq, the physicaly modelled acoustic piano (on youtube) :

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B71B0EE469EDF00

http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html#models

Man, thank you guys so much for the informative replies! The xoxos link and the Pianoteq videos are AWESOME- so great for me to feel like I'm learning something about how synthesis works in the context of trying to recreate sounds.

So, the speculative question: do any of y'all feel like it'll be possible someday for us to perfectly recreate the sound properties of an instrument? could synthesis someday replace sample libraries for those of us who want the sound of a certain instrument in an electronic format? I feel like it's really possible.

I think definitely.
It seems like if there were a lot of dev focus on this kind of stuff we would already be quickly approaching the point where the big problems are having hardware that will run it, and having enough ergonomic control to program and 'play' it.
Given both, I betcha xoxos could build a fukking dragon.

Sampling will eventually give way to all physical modeling. It's just going to take time for CPUs and programming knowledge to catch up in power & complexity & actual accessibility to user programmability (& apparently for some patents to expire that Yamaha is sitting on but not using). It should be further ahead than it is today but basic capitalism explains why it's not (easier, faster and cheaper to market sampling than to do the rather considerable research & math which won't provide a substantial marketing benefit over sampling anyway).