Favorite Physical Modeling VSTi in 2021... and Beyond!

[AnhrithmonGelasma]

As concerns pitch jumps on the Seabord: In the Marco Parisi examples above he does not, however, use pitch variation to introduce vibrato, but rather varies the attack or loudness by digging in to the key, right? I think that makes a big difference.

No, Parisi is using pitchbend (Glide). He teaches his techniques (and settings) for various VI in his online Patreon course, which I'm taking. (At this point it's just a series of prerecorded videos, 1 / month, from before the Rise 2 was released, though he told me they plan on restarting the Discord in the future.)

As I mentioned the main issue with the vibrato pitch in the video Lychee posted is that the Glide value is set much too low for pitchbend vibrato, and that's probably what's creating audible jumps. When icons are visible above the sliders that means they're set to control Glide, Slide, and Pressure instead of acting as midi cc sliders (in the latter case there are no icons above the sliders).

 

[muratkayi]

Ah thanks! I see, or rather I didn't, because it looked to me as if he went up and down vertically.

In general, though, what strikes me about Marco Parisi is not the perceived realism, but the massive musicality and immense flow of expressiveness. And as the Osmose has been juxtaposed to the Seabord before, I would like to post my favourite Osmose video (and one of my all time favourite music videos, I come back to it so often it is worrying) - hope I hadn't posted it here before. If so, follow my bad example and just watch it again.
The sheer top notch excellence of both the J3PO and the Parisi videos suggests that the decisive factor is the player...... dammit. Always a catch somewhere.

 

[AnhrithmonGelasma]

If you're not doing a live performance, another solution for the "unwanted tremolo from pressure variation when doing pitchbend vibrato" issue (on Seaboard / Continuum / Linnstrument) is to record the midi and edit the Pressure curve. But if your technique and settings are good enough it's usually not much of an issue IMO, as I think you can hear in the examples I posted.

 

[lychee]

The sheer top notch excellence of both the J3PO and the Parisi videos suggests that the decisive factor is the player...... dammit. Always a catch somewhere.

Yes of course, the dexterity and inventiveness of the player is the most important element (as in all instruments).
But for the case of PM, for certain instruments we also need the appropriate tool, and Seaboard and co comes close.
For instruments as complex as strings, I even wonder if the MPE keyboard should not be coupled with a wind controller or something else.

 

[AnhrithmonGelasma]

Yes of course, the dexterity and inventiveness of the player is the most important element (as in all instruments).
But for the case of PM, for certain instruments we also need the appropriate tool, and Seaboard and co comes close.
For instruments as complex as strings, I even wonder if the MPE keyboard should not be coupled with a wind controller or something else.

If you want to mimic the way that violin vibrato is played with one hand while the other hand controls dynamics independently, for monophonic sounds perhaps one could set it up in their DAW so that a Seaboard Block controls Pressure and Slide by sending midi cc while a Seaboard Rise 2 controls glide (and note value, but with Press and Slide either turned off or set to only alter parameters when above a particular value).

 

[gamma-ut]

The sheer top notch excellence of both the J3PO and the Parisi videos suggests that the decisive factor is the player...... dammit. Always a catch somewhere.

The different surfaces let you do different things – or at least more easily than others – and players adapt to that. It's a bit tricky to tell how J3PO is doing the bends on the first patch as the camera pans away but he's taking advantage of some things the Osmose supports and I guess he would approach a Seaboard performance in a different way. On the second analogue-synth patch, it looks as though he's making a lot of use of the two-key portamento to do the bends where he's not shredding rather than the sideways key wobble, which works very nicely with a patch like that where you'd have a simple fixed portamento on a regular analogue synth as you can play that really fast.

I think he's also doing a sideswipe gesture to get some pitch slides. If you strike the keys at an angle it works well on scales as it blends the intermediate notes. One thing that surprised me about the Osmose is how well the pitchbend slider at the left works (J3PO is playing one handed so doesn't bother with this in the video), but it's very good for doing guitar-like string bends as with a bit of practice, it's easier to get the bend going as you're striking the key. With the sideswipe technique you can get some neat mordents going.

Another one that the Osmose excels at is a kind of hinged bend. Because it takes a bit more force to get a pitchbend going on the key itself, with a thumb and finger on the keyboard playing a dyad (or possible within a full chord), you can bend the top and bottom notes apart really easily as you can apply more force more easily between the thumb and other finger. Or bend them in parallel using the wrist. Or a bit of a mixture between the two.

However, what you can't do is the front-to-back slide the way you can on a Seaboard or to a lesser extend on a Linnstrument. On the Osmose, slide and pressure are just two halves of a keypress, which means you generally need to reprogram any MPE patches or you wind up with the patch's response maxing out in most cases. The internal Eagenmatrix engine pulls a few tricks that makes this two-part response work a bit better.

 

[Bee_Abney]

Nick Batt reviewing Baby Audio's Atoms:

 

[PancakesBear]

Nick Batt reviewing Baby Audio's Atoms:

dang nice

 

[Bee_Abney]

dang nice

I agree. This actually made me seriously consider this synth. The sounds are really nice and they have a sort of roundness to them, rather that a super-digital crispness (which is also nice in its own way).

 

[PancakesBear]

I agree. This actually made me seriously consider this synth. The sounds are really nice and they have a sort of roundness to them, rather that a super-digital crispness (which is also nice in its own way).

i just bought it. And with MPE you can achieve trill and flutter like effects by swirling your finger on the keyboard. I'm pleased

 

[Bee_Abney]

i just bought it. And with MPE you can achieve trill and flutter like effects by swirling your finger on the keyboard. I'm pleased

That should be really good! Have fun. I might wait a while for some future sale; but I'm glad to have this synth on my 'to watch' list.

 

[PancakesBear]

That should be really good! Have fun. I might wait a while for some future sale; but I'm glad to have this synth on my 'to watch' list.

Well let me just throw this out there and you can test it for yourself if you haven't already by getting the demo. But it seems to me that the sounds from Atoms are particularly well suited for orchestral arrangements. Yes I think this synth works great with a traditional orchestra. It seems to me, that BabyAudio probably set out to make some kind of orchestral sound, realized they were 5 years and 5 million dollars away from acheiving it and then just said screw it and released Atoms instead. But in all honesty I think having an orchestral synth is a better outcome. Yes, I think Atoms is a hidden gem for those who realize how naturally it integrates into an orchestral sensibility and instruments. But don't take my word for it.

 

[Stokely]

I'm not really up on what makes something a "physically modeling" synth, but I've heard some comments over the new u-he Zebralette 3 beta that it gets into that sonic territory. I hear some similarities to the synths used on Exit by Tangerine Dream (ppg iirc?) and some FM (man the drum-ish and pluck sounds) but this thing seems impressive. Keep in mind this is no typical filter/envelope/mod matrix and only one oscillator (the "filter" is for the oscillator) from the upcoming Zebra 3. I don't think it yet has mpe also.

Excited for Zebra 3 to be sure, and of course Zebralette 3 is and will be free.

Edit: oops, Databroth has already posted this in a Z3 thread, thought I had a scoop here!

 

[Bee_Abney]

I'm not really up on what makes something a "physically modeling" synth, but I've heard some comments over the new u-he Zebralette 3 beta that it gets into that sonic territory. I hear some similarities to the synths used on Exit by Tangerine Dream (ppg iirc?) and some FM (man the drum-ish and pluck sounds) but this thing seems impressive. Keep in mind this is no typical filter/envelope/mod matrix and only one oscillator (the "filter" is for the oscillator) from the upcoming Zebra 3. I don't think it yet has mpe also.

Excited for Zebra 3 to be sure, and of course Zebralette 3 is and will be free.

I think that that sound may be more about additive synthesis than actual physical modelling. But I've only checked out a few presets from Zebralette, so I could be wrong. Mind you, what counts as physical modelling can vary from applying a comb filter to a noise oscillator up to complex models of actual physical structures and processes.

 

[Alexandre]

As I suspected, Modeler is capable of great things in the field of realistic instruments, as evidenced by my little flute test (I finally managed to make an audio):

Watch out for your ears! (overblows on first exemple)

View attachment Test Modeler 1.mp3

View attachment Test Modeler 2.mp3

I used the reed module and I did that easily, now we have to see if it is possible to create other types of sounds.

love the second theme from old spaghetti western!!

 

[lychee]

I may have misjudged Modeler's presets after seeing this video, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a good representative of physical modeling, especially when it comes to plucked strings:



In any case it seems to be a good sound designer tool, I think @Databroth should get his hands on it.