Physical Modelling Realm Recommendations

[flampton]

Hi all I have fallen for the PM. It was the Plasmonic that did it. Now I am looking at the entire field and want opinions. I also see this thread in helping others make PM decisions if they decide to enter the field.

So Plasmonic is obviously great if you like your PM mixed with subtraction. GUI is terrible, and I would love to skin it because the colors don't work for my eyes well but the sound is awesome. It is a fantastic synth.

I also have the AAS Chromaphone3 which is pretty intuitive and I enjoy the GUI idea where you mod real world type attributes like the resonators material, size, and allow for coupling etc.

I have NI Prism which has a GUI that I just hate and so have back benched it in favor of the above two. Also I know there are a few others in Reaktor like pipe organ. I tend to stay with the above two right now though.

I switched to Logic a few months ago, I opened Sculpture once and it's gui seemed worse somehow then Prism. I immediately closed the app. Probably should try it again sometime. Yet not sure how it can do better than the above two.

IK multimedia makes a few
I have Modo Drum, which I'm using in my all PM project. However can't use the cymbals, plus in my hands it is a pain compared to SD3. I tend not to write much in my all PM project because of the lack of decent hats/cymbals/tambourines and other percussion.

Modo Bass 2 is the only bass I use. I like it and it is so easy to get it to fit mixes considering I can change basses, playing styles and tone with just a few clicks.

The problem with both IK products is that they design it so you can't make unreal sounds. They seem to be overly protective of it sounding 'real' by not allowing unrealistic changes such as over or undersized drums, strange head materials, have the Bass be able to perform unrealistic bends and slides, etc... If it is fake let it be fake because there is definitely new interesting and fun sounds hidden in those engines. IK should put in cheat codes that allow me to break the engines rules. Allow me to change things stupidly. They would both be a better products if the real world limitations where not so heavily enforced.

Now the others on the market that I know of. Please add more below and talk about their pros and cons. And obviously weigh in on the above as well.

AAS has many modelled instruments. Those below I think are PM
Strum GS-2 - very interested in this for my all PM project. I don't want perfect guitar I want the almost guitar. I tried this a few years ago so I can't demo it again. There is a lite version too but not sure how good.

the others that look fun from them is
String studio VS-3 for string parts, need to try this but getting decent string sound from chromaphone 3. Is this truly better or different enough?
Lounge Lizard EP-4 a fun electric piano, but don't use electric piano much.

Arturia
Piano 3, Wurli and stage 73-V . For whatever reason I just don't fit with Arturia. Though I heard the Piano 3 is supposed to be much better than Piano 2.

Madrona
Kaivo - PM with Granular. Haven't played it yet and not sure if it adds much.

Xhun
Resonheart - A novel aerophone type instrument. Looks promising but not heard much about it.

Modartt - Pianoteq and Organteq. Lots to choose from but expensive. Confusing website with maybe too many models? Also Arturia Piano 3 maybe a Pianoteq model in disguise?

And finally if anyone knows a decent cymbal/hat generator? For the PM project I don't require it to be real time. e.g. recording a PM synth and then layering the sounds to create a complex cymbal hit would be okay. I would imagine it would need at least a few varying samples for each hit to sound even somewhat close (and a lot of work.) This is the sticking point for the PM project. That kilohertz energy really drives the excitement. Yet when using synthetic cymbal-like hits it sounds so weak and one dimensional next to the PM drums.

Also if there is anything noteworthy about the above, e.g. good on CPU, bad on CPU, not stable etc please add it here. I usually am running many PM instances at once and I do have audio issues occasionally. I will say that some of that is that I still run Rosetta to support a bunch of plugins that have not been transitioned yet.

[aMUSEd]

Respiro is a good complement for Plasmonic - also MPE enabled but covers realistic blown instruments instruments better than Plasmonic (which I find better for plucked, struck and experimental)

[martiu]

You already have the best in my opinion (Plasmonic, Chromaphone and Prism), i can recommend getting Kaivo only if you are into sound design, it is very good for drones and textured soundscapes but i think you have to be into experimental music for that one to truly appreciate it (it is very good for dark ambient stuff).

[Erik_Lucas]

Check out Physical Audio: https://physicalaudio.co.uk/

[Unaspected]

Been tempted to pick up Chromaphone. Didn't gel with Prism - might need to dig it out again - but I did enjoy using Sculpture when I was using Logic.

Check out Physical Audio: https://physicalaudio.co.uk/

Ah yes! I completely forgot about this! It was on sale a short while back but I didn't acquire it - though I think it sounds wonderful.

[Whywhy]

You should add too your list Msound Factory( the unison and modal module are fun and easy for metallic sounds ) and Zebra2 ( comb and resonator).

[zerocrossing]

Definitely look at the SWAM instruments. They’re expensive, but very good. So far i only have their Cello, but I really love it. Maybe I’ll pick up a few more this Christmas.

[pdxindy]

Sculpture is excellent...

For plucked string sounds, Hive is a favorite of mine... using wavetables as exciters for the comb filters.

Zebra is also good for modeling sounds.

String Studio is different enough from Chromaphone to be worth having.

[jamcat]

Modartt - Pianoteq and Organteq. Lots to choose from but expensive. Confusing website with maybe too many models? Also Arturia Piano 3 maybe a Pianoteq model in disguise?

Yes. As waltercruz found, There are Pianoteq references inside the Arturia Piano V binary.

Well, although Pianoteq is way better than Arturia Piano V2... I checked some things with an hex editor myself and thereis really a lot of Pianoteq mentions on binary code in the Arturia instrument, in case, found most of it on file /Library/Arturia/Piano V2/resources/libmdengine.dylib (i'm on Mac, obviously) .

I was skeptical about it and now i'm quite surprised.

So Arturia Piano V is built on Painoteq code, though which version it is isn't clear.

The thing is, Pianoteq covers so many different instruments, you're going to want everything in it, so get the full Studio version. If you're taking any kind of classes at all, you can get 40% off with an academic purchase.

You also need Audio Modeling SWAM.

[jules99]

The instruments from Expressive-E come to mind, especially "imagine".

https://www.expressivee.com/cat/5-instruments

[WasteLand]

Arturia Piano V3 is based on Pianoteq 6.0.3 (simple use an hex editor..), of course there are great differences, but still the same basic engine, i assume.

and MSoundFactory is very capable for PM, very.. and Kaivo, certainly, more experimental (which i like) and will be extended at some point.

[Klinke]

I recommend also to take a look at Friktion from Reason Studios.

[Tj Shredder]

The instruments from Expressive-E come to mind, especially "imagine".
https://www.expressivee.com/cat/5-instruments

Its made by AAS, so I suspect the same engine as Chromaphone. Though the company has expressive in its name, the lack of MPE is strange. Its mainly aimed at Touché I guess…

[Download SOphist]

Yes. As waltercruz found, There are Pianoteq references inside the Arturia Piano V binary.

Well, although Pianoteq is way better than Arturia Piano V2... I checked some things with an hex editor myself and thereis really a lot of Pianoteq mentions on binary code in the Arturia instrument, in case, found most of it on file /Library/Arturia/Piano V2/resources/libmdengine.dylib (i'm on Mac, obviously) .

I was skeptical about it and now i'm quite surprised.

So Arturia Piano V is built on Painoteq code, though which version it is isn't clear.

Arturia Piano V3 is based on Pianoteq 6.0.3 (simple use an hex editor..), of course there are great differences, but still the same basic engine, i assume.

wow, this is news to me. kind of surprised, as I thought Modartt was quite secretive and protective of their algos. I know Arturia outsources some (many?) of its stuff but still surprised at this. now I feel like giving another shot at piano V.
I did a quick search in the Modartt forums and didn't find anything about it. Quite the inquiring mindset with waltercruz.

anyway, thanks for the info. food for thought.

[Download SOphist]

in the piano front there's this: https://www.uaudio.com/luna/instruments ... ravel.html

you do need a Mad and UAD Apollo (or Spark sub).