Arché : Physical Modelling String Synthesizer

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

The vibrato is why I'm hoping this supports MPE. Love doing string vibrato on the Roli.

[wagtunes]

In short, they sound dreadful.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Really bad? Granted, I only listened to the YouTube video on my iPad and thought even there they sounded a bit synthetic, but I was still impressed. Didn't delve deep into articulations/keyswitching or features yet but that will come in due time. Anyway, I wouldn't describe that as very bad or any kind of bad personally. Then again, I'm not a string player nor do I use them very often so I may not have the highest standards, but I was impressed at the quality to price ratio. Seemed like a great product for someone like me.

Oh i mean the string sounds itself are really nice but in terms of expressive playing and real-time morphing, i expect from a physical modeling tool, seems not there. Maybe even not possible? It sounds and looks more like kind of keyswitching. But for that i have much better sounding sample libraries.
I want to change pressure for bow and distance from the bridge and morph smoothly from a sul pont tremolo to a flautando sustain or so. Then change it just to a staccato into a sul pont spiccatissimo and whatver. I also like to use these tools for FX where i really can slowly move the bow and slightly add pressure to get really slow into a wonderful scratchy sound. What about portamento and so on? That is what i would use a physical modeling tool for. But maybe it is possible and the demos are just a little tiny teaser.
But from the manual i do not see it really happen.

Ok, I get what you're saying. Wouldn't be surprised if a "Pro" version was in the roadmap, with these acting as low-cost teasers. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to buy all the SWAM instruments, but just can't do the $1,200 for instruments I'd hardly use and wouldn't do a great job playing or programing. That's why the propect of a $40 [each] violin/viola/cello PM plugin with good sound and good expression is so appealing. The vibrato/LFO thing is a bummer in these days of MPE, and I'm not sure what articulations are offered, but if the basics were covered it still might meet my basic needs at a resasonable cost.

[Cinebient]

Really bad? Granted, I only listened to the YouTube video on my iPad and thought even there they sounded a bit synthetic, but I was still impressed. Didn't delve deep into articulations/keyswitching or features yet but that will come in due time. Anyway, I wouldn't describe that as very bad or any kind of bad personally. Then again, I'm not a string player nor do I use them very often so I may not have the highest standards, but I was impressed at the quality to price ratio. Seemed like a great product for someone like me.

Oh i mean the string sounds itself are really nice but in terms of expressive playing and real-time morphing, i expect from a physical modeling tool, seems not there. Maybe even not possible? It sounds and looks more like kind of keyswitching. But for that i have much better sounding sample libraries.
I want to change pressure for bow and distance from the bridge and morph smoothly from a sul pont tremolo to a flautando sustain or so. Then change it just to a staccato into a sul pont spiccatissimo and whatver. I also like to use these tools for FX where i really can slowly move the bow and slightly add pressure to get really slow into a wonderful scratchy sound. What about portamento and so on? That is what i would use a physical modeling tool for. But maybe it is possible and the demos are just a little tiny teaser.
But from the manual i do not see it really happen.

Ok, I get what you're saying. Wouldn't be surprised if a "Pro" version was in the roadmap, with these acting as low-cost teasers. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to buy all the SWAM instruments, but just can't do the $1,200 for instruments I'd hardly use and wouldn't do a great job playing or programing. That's why the propect of a $40 [each] violin/viola/cello PM plugin with good sound and good expression is so appealing. The vibrato/LFO thing is a bummer in these days of MPE, and I'm not sure what articulations are offered, but if the basics were covered it still might meet my basic needs at a resasonable cost.

I understand. In my case i have free tools at hand with better options.
And SWAM might be expensive but i think much much more versatile. (But indeed is the tiny little app Finger Fiddle my favorite, but you need to play it almost like a real violin and so i suck playing it....but still fun that it also sounds bad as i would play a real violin, cello, viola or bass wrong. But it even does some things better than the SWAM).
But you can see the manual where it seems indeed very limited in terms of possible articulations. I find 40 even much if that is all they can do.
Sorry, i just got excited and then got a bit underwhelmed after seeing the demos and the manual. So i´m out here.
If it is what you want. Why not. As long as it does what you need.

[twitewhite]

Really bad? Granted, I only listened to the YouTube video on my iPad and thought even there they sounded a bit synthetic, but I was still impressed. Didn't delve deep into articulations/keyswitching or features yet but that will come in due time. Anyway, I wouldn't describe that as very bad or any kind of bad personally. Then again, I'm not a string player nor do I use them very often so I may not have the highest standards, but I was impressed at the quality to price ratio. Seemed like a great product for someone like me.

Oh i mean the string sounds itself are really nice but in terms of expressive playing and real-time morphing, i expect from a physical modeling tool, seems not there. Maybe even not possible? It sounds and looks more like kind of keyswitching. But for that i have much better sounding sample libraries.
I want to change pressure for bow and distance from the bridge and morph smoothly from a sul pont tremolo to a flautando sustain or so. Then change it just to a staccato into a sul pont spiccatissimo and whatver. I also like to use these tools for FX where i really can slowly move the bow and slightly add pressure to get really slow into a wonderful scratchy sound. What about portamento and so on? That is what i would use a physical modeling tool for. But maybe it is possible and the demos are just a little tiny teaser.
But from the manual i do not see it really happen.

Yes, I agree with this. The sound is great, and hopefully this is just the start. Start off with a great sound and then add other features as time goes on.

For me though, I'll stick with the Audiomodeling stuff for now, but I've also heard Samplemodeling is coming out with strings as well sometime soon, so of course I will be checking those out too. Always been a fan of physical modeling, so hopefully this year is the year physical modeling generates realistic models of many more instruments (guitar especially!) so that I can ditch huge sample libraries for good.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I don't see what people are complaining about with regards to the vibrato. Of course vibrato is going to be fake with a physically modeled instrument, the whole instrument is "fake". But obviously you don't have to use the vibrato if you are using a roli or mpe device or the touche, since you can do your own vibrato using pitch bend.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Really bad? Granted, I only listened to the YouTube video on my iPad and thought even there they sounded a bit synthetic, but I was still impressed. Didn't delve deep into articulations/keyswitching or features yet but that will come in due time. Anyway, I wouldn't describe that as very bad or any kind of bad personally. Then again, I'm not a string player nor do I use them very often so I may not have the highest standards, but I was impressed at the quality to price ratio. Seemed like a great product for someone like me.

Oh i mean the string sounds itself are really nice but in terms of expressive playing and real-time morphing, i expect from a physical modeling tool, seems not there. Maybe even not possible? It sounds and looks more like kind of keyswitching. But for that i have much better sounding sample libraries.
I want to change pressure for bow and distance from the bridge and morph smoothly from a sul pont tremolo to a flautando sustain or so. Then change it just to a staccato into a sul pont spiccatissimo and whatver. I also like to use these tools for FX where i really can slowly move the bow and slightly add pressure to get really slow into a wonderful scratchy sound. What about portamento and so on? That is what i would use a physical modeling tool for. But maybe it is possible and the demos are just a little tiny teaser.
But from the manual i do not see it really happen.

Yes, I agree with this. The sound is great, and hopefully this is just the start. Start off with a great sound and then add other features as time goes on.

For me though, I'll stick with the Audiomodeling stuff for now, but I've also heard Samplemodeling is coming out with strings as well sometime soon, so of course I will be checking those out too. Always been a fan of physical modeling, so hopefully this year is the year physical modeling generates realistic models of many more instruments (guitar especially!) so that I can ditch huge sample libraries for good.

Interesting to hear that sample modeling is doing strings, I love their brass. Where did you hear that?

Edit: Just checked the Sample Modeling page and indeed they've announced that strings are coming soon...

[TIMT]

The general timbre sounds decent enough(doesn't have that all too common generic physical modelling tone to it)but the modulation sounds like a bit of a joke.the tremolo and vibrato in those demos just sounds like an LFO attached to volume and pitch.there are better physmod synths in Reaktor,like the stuff by Chet Singer.Tassman though a bitch to setup(and now abandonware)sounds a lot better than this too and provides the oppurtunity for more realistic articulations

[Ou_Tis]

I was excited about this until I heard the demos of the strings... frequently sounds much worse than SWAM, would never mistake this for actual strings... yet somehow they won "SonicState's NAMM SHOW 2019 Best Plug-in Award"? Huh?

Also, apparently not MPE compatible?...

[Ou_Tis]

That's pretty damn impressive sounding and great price too! Hopefully it pairs up great with MPE controllers.

If it's made for Touché it's got to - looks amazing - I know there's also the SWAM stuff but tbh they have priced themselves beyond my reach

From their website:

"Do Touché or Touché SE support MPE?
Touche and Touche SE don't support MPE. MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) is a standard that allows you to modulate the timbre and pitch separately for every single note within a polyphonic performance. Since there is no possible way for our device to differentiate which note of your real-time performance or a pre-rec...

Touché 30-Jan-2019 46
Is Arché supporting MPE?
Arche is not supporting MPE functionality for the time being. The instruments of the Arche Collection, just like a real violin, viola, and cello, are mainly monophonic instruments. On top of that, they feature a duophonic mode, that allows you to play so-called double-strokes on the instrument. You can however not mod...

Arché 29-Jan-2019 36
Can I play Arché with my ROLI Seaboard?
You can play Arche with your Seaboard in Single-Channel-Mode, but you will not really be able to take advantage of much of the Seaboard's special features."

https://expressivee.happyfox.com/kb/search/?q=mpe