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Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

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Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#41

Post by jerf »

zebproj wrote: post #11

The article makes it sound like this is a very a new idea, but physical models of music instruments, including violin, has been around for over 40 years. Daisy Bell, the first piece of computer music and performed by their model, utilized a physical model of the human singing voice based on measurements of human vocal tract, and that was done in 1962. Julius Smith wrote pretty comprehensive textbook on the subject of…

I recall in the late 1990s that physical synthesis was thought to possibly be the next big thing, that it might take over synthesis of musical instruments entirely from the options of wavetables and FM synth at the time. It didn't, but my point here is that is where it was, a prominent alternative that everyone in the relevant fields was aware of and many people tried to make work, not a recent invention and not just an obscure academic pursuit.

Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#42

Post by xphos »

xphos wrote: post #23

As someone who plays the violin very poorly I don't think this sounds like violin at all. It is very folksy synthetic sounding. They are clearly plucking but it sounds similar to if you were bowing its really strange. I definitely could replicate that quality of model but I think I have heard much better models elsewhere

I was rude here I meant to say I couldn't produce that model. I see the other comments but just vibes here. It sounds strange, I read some of the comments and the article again and I just think what makes the violin juicy is the dynamic instability of everything. The best violinist in the world would struggle to play a song the same exact way every single time. Not that they would be making mistakes but the slightest varriation of bow pressure or starting position echos through a piece. Perhaps the simulation of just one pluck is why it feels so synthetic

Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#43

Post by shiandow »

pierrec wrote: post #39

In this area of research, there's this classic trap that many fall into (including myself, many times). You focus on modeling things like the vibrating string, the resonant body, etc. to perfection. But it still sounds, uh, not great, because the more important and difficult part is modeling detailed control and the human/instrument interface. Air fluctuations around the violin sound like a fun experiment, but I don'…

Put differently, it takes years of practice to get a decent sound out of a real violin.

If your model doesn't sound like someone's strangling a cat then it's probably not realistic.

Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#47

Post by vunderba »

BJones12 wrote: post #40
zebproj wrote: post #11

The article makes it sound like this is a very a new idea, but physical models of music instruments, including violin, has been around for over 40 years. Daisy Bell, the first piece of computer music and performed by their model, utilized a physical model of the human singing voice based on measurements of human vocal tract, and that was done in 1962. Julius Smith wrote pretty comprehensive textbook on the subject of…

> physical models of music instruments... has been around for over 40 years And in consumer products for 20+. Pianoteq [0], which is awesome, was first released in 2006. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianoteq

Pianoteq has mostly replaced my old Kontakt libraries in my DAW outside of course, miking my actual piano.

Also Audio Modeling has been in the business of creating physically modeled virtual instruments, including the violin (under the SWAM series), for a while now as well. You can do pretty fun things like map a USB breath controller to bow pressure, etc.

https://audiomodeling.com/products/swam-violin

Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#49

Post by Fraterkes »

pierrec wrote: post #39

In this area of research, there's this classic trap that many fall into (including myself, many times). You focus on modeling things like the vibrating string, the resonant body, etc. to perfection. But it still sounds, uh, not great, because the more important and difficult part is modeling detailed control and the human/instrument interface. Air fluctuations around the violin sound like a fun experiment, but I don'…

The point of this research doesn't seem to be to generate a nice sounding digital instrument, but to give violin makers a rough idea of what the instrument will sound like for different shapes / materials. This is useful for comparing designs, even if you don't simulate a human performance with complete fidelity.

So I don't know if your criticism makes much sense.

Re: Virtual violin produces realistic sounds

#50

Post by traderj0e »

Fraterkes wrote: post #49
pierrec wrote: post #39

In this area of research, there's this classic trap that many fall into (including myself, many times). You focus on modeling things like the vibrating string, the resonant body, etc. to perfection. But it still sounds, uh, not great, because the more important and difficult part is modeling detailed control and the human/instrument interface. Air fluctuations around the violin sound like a fun experiment, but I don'…

The point of this research doesn't seem to be to generate a nice sounding digital instrument, but to give violin makers a rough idea of what the instrument will sound like for different shapes / materials. This is useful for comparing designs, even if you don't simulate a human performance with complete fidelity. So I don't know if your criticism makes much sense.

Either way, the demo doesn't sound like a violin yet. It's really cool that they got it from just a CT scan, and I get the usefulness if they're able to fill in the gaps.
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