The biggest disappointment in 20 years of using plugins

[v1o]

Reason has Friktion String machine as well as some physically modelled drum modules.

[BazJacuzzi]

There's plenty of PM of electronics across those substractive synthesis instruments.

Doesn't physical modelling imply simulating a physical source of sound? Ah, do you mean component modelling, so modelling of capacitors/inductors/resistors etc.

[DaveClark]

Hi all,

As many of you know, there are various definitions of “physical modelling (modeling).” Some folks would describe an oscillator and a filter as physical modelling. For those of us who have spent many years solving differential equations, this is somewhere between amusing and irritating. Some knowledgeable folks insist that any system that has the same solution as a system of differential equations but does not really attempt to physically follow all of the details is physical modelling. This is frustrating because in what I would call a “true” physical model, it’s possible to change parameters, such as a material density, very directly, whereas in (say) a waveguide model, one cannot be sure how to change this parameter.

Historically, what were called “physical models” were exactly the same thing in relevant details as what one wanted to study, but reduced in size such that one can ignore, for example, the size of molecules of gas. If this plus the importance of being able to directly change relevant parameters directly are taken into account, then the term “physical modelling” would refer to models which, although expressed in mathematics, would be very recognizable as representing the actual physical structures and processes involved.

Given that this type of physical model usually requires solution of differential equations, there is an obvious impediment to creating real-time software that does this, namely the CPU usually required for such solutions. Take a transistor, for example. There exists software to solve nonlinear systems of differential equations in three dimensions that follows carrier concentrations and so on throughout an entire transistor at the microscopic level. Imagine doing this level of simulation for a piece of electronic gear which has merely (say) two dozen discrete transistors --- in real time. We don’t even need to consider hundreds of millions or even billions of transistors in large-scale circuits to already have a serious problem.

The reason that such tools as this are not used in the audio industry doesn’t have anything to do with laziness or stupidity. It has to do with the fact that users wouldn’t tolerate this kind of modelling tool. They have tasks to accomplish within a reasonable time frame. Given that there are shortcuts to approximate solutions, these shortcuts are the paths that both users and developers follow.

Hence, relatively few “true” physical modelling programs.

[foosnark]

The biggest disappointment in 20 years of using plugins is that no Physical Modeling plugins ever came out except Chromaphone and PianoTeq and maybe the old Kaivo and barely anything else.

There are several more, going way back.

Steampipe and other Reaktor ensembles
String Theory and other SynthEdit creations (generally using Karplus-Strong)
AAS Tassman
NUSofting Modelonia
Physical Audio Derailer
Expressive E Noisy

And though I've paid no attention to them, aren't there lots of virtual pianos that use physical modeling to some extent?

[Tj Shredder]

Reasonheart also comes to mind.
And as DaveClark already mentioned, its important to get into varying physical parameters to make it interesting. For my replicating a piano in synthesis is just a proof for the power of a synthesis method. Having a bunch of sound sets to replicate a specific model of a piano is just not interesting at all. Luckily Pianoteq models can be modified, they should just get rid of their sampled parts. Same with Swam. I got the Arché collection, which also is three plugins for one kind of model, and they are not really great. But Reasonstudios Friktion is great. I get more realistic strings out of it and can tweak parameters into the unknown territories…
Chromaphone is also made with that mindset. A lot of physical model plugins are based on the same code base. Arturias Piano V is a Pianoteq model. Expressiveé models are based on Chromaphone as well as those built into Live. Only occasionally the code base is enhanced compared to the original like in Respiro which is coded by Modelonias creator. Unfortunately I missed their intro by a day and since then the price went constantly up and out of reach…
Last century already Perry Cook had made a collection of Max externals. I wonder how much of this code is still recycled in VSTs…

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

.useles post by me. Deleted..

[Dencheg]

No reason to be disappointed when you can have Plasmonic

[SebAV]

I thought the biggest désappointement is the ridiculous amount of _physical_ control we have on the software !