Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Modeling vs Sampling

Some have luck with that approach and some not. But you are right in the digital world there are quite a lot of different approaches to get the job done. I just don't like the fighting that you have to be in one camp or the other. I use what works for me at the time. After all the software is just a tool to help get the job done IMO.[/quote]

Maybe that’s the biggest thing about this. Software and digitals are tools. They can be great, but I’m not really emotionally attached. Acoustic pianos feel like they are a lot more then that. They are almost like a human being that is part of the family. At least that’s how it feels to me.

I’m quite fond of my digital piano, but I doubt I will ever have the same connection as to the two grands of my parents. (Could be just nostalgia talking, but the piano players I know feel the same)

Network upgrades will permit us access to massive centralised processing with very low latency in the coming years, beginning in the biggest cities. This could provide a big catalyst to modeled VIs. Processing costs and better physical models will be challenges.

There are gaming platforms that use this now but the infrastructure is not quite there so glitchy and laggy (and silly terms like Google's "negative latency" are hurting the cause).

It's not so silly. All you need is a *tiny* bit of time travel to accomplish this.

"negative latency" is marketing wankery imho. Possibilities of science aside.

Lol I was just joking if it wasn't clear. "Negative latency" is a silly term to promote.

Sorry that joke flew over my head! I'll say that is language barrier on my part.

At the risk of advertising that I did not RTFM (really, RTFForum), can you point me in the way of some tips for this? I really want to like Pianoteq, but the metallic sound draws me away. The idea of responsiveness and "now" simulation is appealing.


I think a more accurate comparison would be a frozen pizza, a delivered pizza, and one I made myself at home.
They all have their use cases, tastes, 'health' profiles, and budgets (in terms of both dollars and time).

I myself am guilty of overindulgence in any case, even as my use case has changed over the years.


Indeed, sir. Indeed.

Thanks Kimby now you made me hungry for a pizza. A homemade pizza. So what time is dinner?
I can bring a nice salad

I like the idea of negative latency. Will that fix my mistakes before I make them?

For what it's worth, ill add my 2 cents.

I think in the current state of both technology's modelling isn't anywhere close to sampling, and I don't see this changing anytime soon. Of course modelling has great potential, but progress is very slow.

Personally a sound like pianoteq takes the joy out of playing for me, even if the playability is great. But I think it's great that it has many fans, this way the program can evolve.

Isn't it about time for something like audio machine learning? Say an AI capable computer listens to a piano, and then creates the modelled piano by itself, to make it sound like the original. That would possibly be the end of sampling.

I think that the day https://www.bestservice.fr/try-sound.html will be playable, I will trust negative latency.

Have I got this right?

Modelled Dp - A 'real' instrument in its own right... it effectively creates (synthesises) its own sound (whether we like the sound or not is another matter). Akin to older e-pianos but the technology wasn't available to synthesise something more convincing (yet those sounds are now deemed as classic sounds... and bundled as samples or 'recordings' on modelled DPs). So we've gone full circle here... then:

Sampled DP - Plays a recording of a 'real' instrument. Whether it's a real piano... or e-piano sounds of old.

(Yes, it's an over-simplification because sampled DPs can apply some synthesis to sampled sounds for resonance etc).

Seems to me that they're both in bed with each other!

Okay I have to ask, who is on top

I'll get my coat

🤣

It's just plain incest... but if it weren't for the parents (the real instruments), sampled would just have nothing to sample in the first place. 🤓

@OscarRamsey : At the time of E-piano, the purpose was to provide a compact replacement of a piano and the e-piano was the best thing we could do.

Nowadays, we have the choice : two approches designed to imitate the piano. But when Pianoteq proposes a Petrof piano, it is expected we have something which imitates well an acoustic Petrof Piano and not an « instrument of its own right »

But I have to admit Roland’s piano doesn’t pretend to imitate a Steinway, Bösendorfer or what ever else. Even more, some V-Piano proposed silver strings which hasn’t been used on an acoustic piano !

I think when Pianoteq came out with version 6 and especially the C. Bechstein Digital Grand it really had me go wow getting closer and closer to what I want it to be. Maybe Pianoteq won't make it there in version 7 but I'm thinking it will be another tick in the right direction. So for me I keep supporting them as I like the modeling approach. We should all be happy we have the choices to choose what works for our needs.

On the vane of Roland, why don't they come out with a software version of their modeled piano?

I do love it. The gift of desperation inspiring creative solutions.

Instead of ditching pianos/pianists, the solution created a whole new type of instrument and player.

Music of that era would have been rather different without it.

A super invention which is constantly evolving. 👍


Yes...or even a midi-box for a plug-in solution (if they're worried about piracy).

The electric piano was the logical followup to the electric guitar. Which wasn't intended to replace the acoustic guitar, just allow better amplification of a rather quiet instrument. The latter was never a problem with concert grand pianos with their huge sound boards, instead they created a logistics problem.

Both didn't sound quite like their acoustic counterparts and evolved into their own instrument category.

Pianoteq is very well an instrument of its own right - when it imitates harpsichords...

There is no way that samples can sound the same as virtual analog or an actual FM synthesis. This is only applicable to acoustic instruments and emulation always sounds better than look up tables.

There are two things here:

1- Simulation: Simulation is reproducing the sound of an acoustic instrument using mathematical models of the acoustic instrument
2- Emulation: Mimicing the sound of an acoustic instrument using a combination of synthesis mothods. VSTs and almost any decent and modern sounding digital instrument uses this method to mimic the sound of acoustic instruments.

Using sample based synthesis to reproduce synth sounds is indeed very stupid and will always sound bad. Also, sample based synthesis has its own drawbacks: smooth portamento is impossible in pure sample playback. Ptich shifting cannot sound natural and more...

I'm beginning to think that Pete14 has taken on a protégé.