acoustic? ACOUSTIC???

[atonal@planet.eon.net]

> From:          Stephen Birkett <birketts@wright.aps.uoguelph.ca>
> Subject:       Re: acoustic?  ACOUSTIC???
> To:            pianotech@ptg.org
> Date:          Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:48:19 -0500 (EST)
> Reply-to:      pianotech@ptg.org

> 
> Jim:
> > 
> > Well, you might well ask, what is the problem here ?  Basically it boils
> > down to pictures,  Huh? Pictures?  Yes, pictures !  You see what the
> > electronic keyboard works with is pictures of single notes from a 'real'
> > piano.  As a result, no matter what is done to that note the sameness is
> > apparent in all of its variations and there is no depth, and this leads to a
> > "sterile" sound. (IMO)  Even a frescoe by Michaelangelo takes on a samness if
> > all you ever see of it is the same view each time, but seen through different
> > filters.
> >   Is this a strength or a weakness of digital keyboards ?.............. Yes it
> > is.  :-)
> > 
> 
> Deleting the (interesting) philosophical meandering, I'd like to comment
> on that one point above. Sampling. Yup this is, and will remain, the
> achille's heel of the digitized electronic keyboard (aka electronic
> piano). I pointed this out even two years ago when I pushed that research
> proposal. Ironically I thought at the time the potential for helping the
> rise of the electronic beasts was there...although I never pushed the idea
> with any manufacturer. Sampling is the electric typewriter of this
> era...it will be supplanted. Then we have to worry. But by what? 


(Sorry I deleted the bit on Responsive Simulation)

We're already seeing the new technologies coming down the pipe, it's 
called Physical Sound Modelling. The biggest difference from 
traditional (and not so traditional) sound sampling techniques is 
that Physical Sound Modelling uses algorhithms to create a sound 
using processor power alone, and not dependant on a sample or samples 
that are reproduced according to velocity of keystroke, etc. 
Digital pianos based on traditional sampling methods always were 
weakest in the extreme ends of the piano sound (comparing to a piano, 
 nod to Jim). I've heard new keyboards that use Physical 
Sound Modelling as their sound generation method (the Korg 
Trinity and Prophecy workstations), the results are, while not my 
favorite piano sound, overall much *cleaner* throughout (hard to give 
a subjective example here), you don't notice a change in sample sound 
throughout sections, or a difference when dynamics are rapidly 
changed.  Physical modelling is more what Stephen describes, and 
could probably explain better than my attempts here.   As computer 
processors become more powerful, generating sounds using pure 
number-crunching is becoming cheaper, and already there are some 
computer sound-cards on the market that produce wave-table synthesis 
through computer processor power, not card hardware. 

Just some thoughts, 

 

Rob Kiddell, 
Registered Piano Technician, PTG
atonal@planet.eon.net