Today I bring something very interesting for all pianists, keyboard players, producers and musical technology enthusiasts. These are the most realistic virtual instruments you can find today:
The Samplemodeling instruments. They allow total control over the instrument expression and timbre in real time and are often very difficult to differentiate from the real instrument. This is because they work with a new technology that has been developed by Samplemodeling. It is called "Acoustical Sample Modeling"
Historically there have been two main branches in virtual instruments: Samplers and Synthesizers.
Samplers incorporate real instruments recorded in a studio note by note, Which is then programmed to reproduce these recordings when we play each key. This technology fits perfectly for instruments like the piano, that basically only require two parameters per note. The pitch (key) and the initial velocity (how hard we press the key). Once we press a key on the piano, we cannot change the dynamics and timbre. It is a limitation of the actual instrument itself.
The problem with Samplers occurs when we need to play instruments that require change in the dynamics and timbre after the onset of the note played. For example, wind instruments or bowed strings, where one note can say a lot. In these cases, the samplers provide realism, but we find a lack of control. Each note we play reproduces only the expression provided by the original musician. We do not have 100% control of the instrument.
On the other hand we have Synthesizers. Their sounds are artificially created, based on oscillators and mathematical calculations.This gives us greater control over all parameters of the instrument but at the expense of the realism in the sound.
We have two extremes: Sampling, which is realistic but static, or Synthesizers, with more control but less realism.
Looking to combine these technologies, Giorgio Tommasini and Peter Siedlaczek (Samplemodeling founders) created a hybrid technology which they called "Acoustical Sample Modeling". They were based on sampling; recording the instrument note by note in a professional studio and then creating an "adaptive model", based on the physical properties of the instrument. They use sophisticated technologies, including proprietary "harmonic alignment", de/reconvolution with modal resonances, artificial intelligence and many more.
The result of this work yields easy to play virtual instruments, that respond in full dynamic range, allowing real time articulations with expression controllers that really sound amazing!
In the following video I use two Samplemodeling instruments, The Flutes and The Trumpet...