Fake real instrument sounds

[Drew Stephenson]

The oxymoron in the title is deliberate. After reading the review in this month's magazine of the Expressive E Imagine VST (https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ex ... -e-imagine) I went onto their website to have a listen and was very tempted by the 'organic' nature of the sounds (as highlighted in the review).

My question to the assembled experts is whether there is anything else that I should be considering instead?
To be clear, it's that ability to have a sound that almost sounds like a recorded, acoustic instrument, just one that hasn't been invented yet.
Any thoughts?

[Martin Walker]

Wow - just listened to those sounds myself, and I see what you mean!

I've used plenty of the AAS Instruments (and created preset banks for them), but Expressive E Imagine truly lives up to its name, particularly with the repeated/strum styles.

I suspect you could create similar sounds with existing AAS instruments (after all, it's AAS physical modeling expertise that creates these sounds), but they would be significantly more difficult to make as expressive without a fair amount of MIDI controller activity/mapping.

Martin

[The Elf]

Maybe this kind of processing will appear in the upcoming Osmose.

[Folderol]

It's a very capable synth, and those are nice sounds, but I wonder how much work was needed to set it up for each variation.

[BJG145]

I've used plenty of the AAS Instruments (and created preset banks for them)

Tassman was great wasn't it. Will have to check this out.

Maybe this kind of processing will appear in the upcoming Osmose.

EagenMatrix includes physical modelling among other things; probably not on this level though.

[RichardT]

Pianoteq is supposed to be able to generate new modelled instruments, but I’ve not tried it.

[Martin Walker]

It's a very capable synth, and those are nice sounds, but I wonder how much work was needed to set it up for each variation.

A very good question Will - in my experience, physical modeling synths tend to be divided into:

1. Those that can create sounds that sound remarkably similar to some acoustic sounds, but have their parameters carefully restricted to avoid any possibility of unexpected loud sounds, breakup or continuous feedback.

2. Those that can create genuinely new sounds with no real limitation on parameter values, but at the expense of sometimes becoming unstable with more extreme parameter values. In other words, caveat emptor!

Without using Expressive E Imagine myself I don't know which category it falls into, although given the huge breadth and impressiveness of its sound palette I suspect that a huge amount of work has gone into its presets, which are indeed most expressive and impressive.

Martin

[ManFromGlass]

I got excited for second and then realised my 2010 Mac tower probably couldn’t even run the plug in “eco” mode.
Yes saving up for the replacement computer as the article suggests.

[Drew Stephenson]

Thanks for the thoughts so far, I'm thinking this might be this year's bonus-money present to myself so there's plenty of time for other suggestions.
And there's always the possibility of no bonus so that would leave even more time!

[IAA]

It does sound impressive and expressive. Sculpture in Logic

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... -sculpture

is a modelling synth, I’ve (embarrassed shuffle )not really used it although I recall it is better at percussive and glassy timbres when I did. Maybe I might look again.

[Rich Hanson]

I might have to look into this. My current philosophy is that if I'm using an electronic or software instrument then I am not allowed to use samples, but I can use realistic sounding physical models, so this might very well fit into that.

[Drew Stephenson]

Anyone tried Audiomodern's Atom?