MOTM

I'm in the middle of my so called Violin Project, which is to study in detail 
the timbre of the violin and cello for synthesized recreations so real you'd 
never know you're listening to a synth. Some of this involves the MOTM, but the 
uploaded ViolinCompare.mp3 in the files section doesn't. But if you want to 
hear a patch so complex that it uses the 105 (equal to about 138 regular 
modules) modules on the Nord Modular and needs to span 3 voices in parallel 
just to generate a single note with all the microscopic detail, animation, 
noise, randomness, and woodyness of a real violin, then give it a listen.  It 
plays two notes, the first tone is the first 18 harmonics of a real violin 
note, the second is a Nord Modular patch emulating that note.  Virtually dead 
on if you ask me.

Now back to work to try to process the motm to sound similar.

-Elhardt

>with all the microscopic detail, animation,
> noise, randomness, and woodyness of a real violin

Yes, but the question is does it have the playing dynamics a real string
instrument has? Would be interesting to hear a small "ensemble" so to
speak...

Jay

Yes, I have to say, that it's very easy to catch all the harmonics of 
a sound, I can do that by ::gasp:: sampling the sound, or using my PC 
to figure out the harmonics from a recording and plug them into my 
additive synthesizer (Kawaii K5000s, digital, circa 1997)

The real trick is in getting the expressive nature of the sound.  It 
can be done, of course, with an additive synth by mapping your 
velocity and aftertouch and whatnot to your various harmonics, and on 
a modular synth like you're describing by mapping that to your 
various section's VCAs, filters, etc.  Also, throw some vibrato in 
there for good measure...  and remember, when playing a violin, 
there's definitly more to it than one short sound clip.

(Oh, and upgrade your MOTM setup so you can REALLY construct this 
patch!  Digital Modular?  Blasphemy!)

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, SynthBaron <synthbaron@d...> wrote:
> >with all the microscopic detail, animation,
> > noise, randomness, and woodyness of a real violin
> 
> Yes, but the question is does it have the playing dynamics a real 
string
> instrument has? Would be interesting to hear a small "ensemble" so 
to

> speak...
> 
> Jay

Jay writes:
>>Yes, but the question is does it have the playing dynamics a real string
instrument has? Would be interesting to hear a small "ensemble" so to
speak...<<

sucrosemusic writes:
>>Yes, I have to say, that it's very easy to catch all the harmonics of 
a sound, I can do that by ::gasp:: sampling the sound, or using my PC 
to figure out the harmonics from a recording and plug them into my 
additive synthesizer (Kawaii K5000s, digital, circa 1997)...
The real trick is in getting the expressive nature of the sound.  It 
can be done, of course, with an additive synth by mapping your 
velocity and aftertouch and whatnot to your various harmonics, and on 
a modular synth like you're describing by mapping that to your 
various section's VCAs, filters, etc.  Also, throw some vibrato in 
there for good measure...  and remember, when playing a violin, 
there's definitly more to it than one short sound clip.<<

The point of my MP3 was only to show a near dead on timbre match of a real 
violin's complex and moving harmonic structure, nothing more. I almost was 
about to splice it into the middle of the real violin mp3 to see if anybody 
could notice the change. Expressive playing dynamics will not be a problem 
later on, in fact I have a violin patch on my MOTM right now where I can vary 
the depth and speed of vibrato/tremelo with a breath controller, vary the 
loudness and brightness with one pedal, and vary the portamento with another 
pedal. It sounds very beautiful and expressive, but I'm still working on a 
really complex filter bank to process the sound in a more convincing way. This 
Nord Mod sound was done only as a proof of concept for a possible software 
synth I've been thinking of writing. I can't even find a decent synthesized 
violin from the latest research from any university. They're using waveguides 
and all the latest stuff but it sounds lousy. Haven't heard any decent 
violin/cello coming from any physical modeling synth either. That's why I'm 
thinking it's up to me to tackle the problem once and for all.

The fact is that you CAN'T just capture the harmonics from a real sound and 
plug them into a K5000 and expect to get a decent violin. That's probably why 
nobody has done it. And I've heard endless complaints about people trying to do 
just that same thing with other less complex instruments but only failed. Each 
harmonic has slow random changes over time plus fast noise-like jitter and is 
way more complex than the K5000 will handle with its envelopes. Not to mention 
that as soon as you play another note, the harmonic structure needs to 
drastically change. That's why the K5000 has a formant filter, but then you 
don't want the captured harmonics if you're going to use that, you need 
something like a sawtooth wave as input. But that formant filter isn't as 
effective as it should be (I've tried entering in the plot of a violin body 
with nothing convincing coming from it), and it's applied at the wrong time, 
before vibrato and pitch slides and therefore doesn't keep the formants fixed 
in those situations. And to add more complexity, it appears that those body 
resonances don't stay the same for every note either. It's a mess, but if I can 
get a string synth engine written, it will handle all of this with no problem.

Feel free to view the animated harmonic spectrum of the MP3 in something like 
Cool Edit Pro. You'll see that the real and fake timbre are virtually 
indistinguishable in every way. (except that my 2nd harmonic is slightly lower)

-Elhardt

> Expressive playing dynamics will not be a problem
> later on, in fact I have a violin patch on my MOTM right now where I can vary
> the depth and speed of vibrato/tremelo with a breath controller, vary the
> loudness and brightness with one pedal, and vary the portamento with another
> pedal. It sounds very beautiful and expressive

Ok, I'm not trying to spoil your cheese here...but it gets to the point
where trying to articulate and synthesize an acoustic instrument is more
complicated then playing the real thing. While It would be neat to have a
real hardware synth that could accurately model whatever "analog" instrument
you please,  coordinating both arms, feet, and breath controller can get a
little awkward.

Jay

> Ok, I'm not trying to spoil your cheese here...but it gets to the point
> where trying to articulate and synthesize an acoustic instrument is more
> complicated then playing the real thing.

hello all,
you know in this day and age, i think actually using a modular synthesiser
to 'synthesise' says more about the journey than the actual result - i mean,
why attempt to synthesise a violin, when you can just get a sample of one,
why wander into the hills with a canvas & watercolours when you can just
take a photo, in fact why bother to get off your arse when you can buy the
guide book from amazon..?
there's definately great joy in synthesis with a gigantic lump of wood,
metal & electronics - compared to the arbitary creation of noise with a
small plastic thing with a usb logo on it
yes iknow - preaching to the converted...

cheers
paul b
sheffield
uk

On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, SynthBaron wrote:

> Ok, I'm not trying to spoil your cheese here...but it gets to the point
> where trying to articulate and synthesize an acoustic instrument is more
> complicated then playing the real thing.

Sounds like you've never played a violin.  Elhardt could spend YEARS
pursuing his synthesized violin sound, and still come up with a better
sound than if he took violin lessons during that time.  He'll also be able
to apply the techniques he learns to other synthesized sounds.  Violin
playing skills don't translate very well to other instruments (even a
viola requires changes in playing style due to its larger size, and
learning to read music in the alto clef).

I'm not a big fan of emulating acoustic instruments, but there IS a lot
that can be learned from the process that can be applied to synthesizing
"real" or "synthetic" sounds.  Hats off to Elhardt for sharing his
discoveries.

JDM

Been a bit busy to get back to this but,

SynthBaron writes:
>>Ok, I'm not trying to spoil your cheese here...but it gets to the point
where trying to articulate and synthesize an acoustic instrument is more
complicated then playing the real thing. While It would be neat to have a
real hardware synth that could accurately model whatever "analog" instrument
you please,  coordinating both arms, feet, and breath controller can get a
little awkward.<<

The point of my efforts is to come up with the violin/viola/cello/bass 
equivilent of what Yamaha's VL series of physical modeling synths does for 
other instruments such as woodwind and brass. I want to write a synth that can 
produce near perfect string sounds polyphonically, and will morph smoothly 
between any loudness of notes, slide smoothly in pitch without chipmunking, 
handle vibrato and protamento correctly and so on.  There is no currently 
shipping synth that can do this.

As for controlling the instrument, I was refering to a different set up 
involving my motm.  If I had keyboard pressure and velocity hooked up, I could 
take away some of the other controllers. And learning a to play the whole 
family of string instruments would not be easier, nor can they be played like 
an ensemble in realtime. That's why samplers and romplers are so popular these 
days.

Sikosky writes:
>>you know in this day and age, i think actually using a modular synthesiser
to 'synthesise' says more about the journey than the actual result - i mean,
why attempt to synthesise a violin, when you can just get a sample of one,
why wander into the hills with a canvas & watercolours when you can just
take a photo...<<

Exactly, sort of. I want to synthesize to get rid of some of the rigid 
limitations of samples though, so it's more than just an excercise in synthesis.

J. D. McEachin writes:
>>Elhardt could spend YEARS pursuing his synthesized violin sound, and still 
come up with a better sound than if he took violin lessons during that time.  
He'll also be able to apply the techniques he learns to other synthesized 
sounds.<<

Correct. I've already learned quite a bit about what needs to be done to get a 
near perfect sustained acoustic timbre to match the real thing. I'll be able to 
use some of that knowledge elsewhere. As synthesists, that's the instrument we 
want to use. Who has the massive amount of time and dedication to try to master 
a bunch of new instruments.

-Elhardt