Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
I'm just saying an electric piano doesn't sound like a real one -
anymore than an electric guitar sounds like an acoustic one, or a drum
generator sound like a drum kit. However much place they may have in
modern music. I'm not even saying I don't like them.


Actually they can do,

No they can't. Nothing coming out of a loudspeaker - or even pair - can
match the interaction between soundboard, hammers/strings etc and the
acoustics of the room.

actually, that can all be synthesised: nobody can be bothered.

All the above are simple resontaors - a lot of them to be sure, but
nothing a good bit of software and a few DSPS couldn't handle.



but its a bit of a waste of time to make them that
way, since the acoustic stuff already exists, works well, and does the
same job.

Anyone who has ever worked in a recording studio would be delighted to be
able to get shot of the real piano. They take up a lot of room and cost a
deal to tune and maintain. But like all instruments they will never be
replaced by a synthesizer or sampler - except where the type of music
calls for that specific sound. Ie, the cheap to make sort.


Exactly; wehn it comes to duplicating te soumd of a bity opf cast iron
and some felt and bits of wood and teh a;bert hall, its cheaper to hire
a sodding grand and an engineer and the albert hall than spend a year
working out te major resonances in t above and duplicating them.

Nevertheless, it can be done. I made a remarkably good 'Leslie' speaker
out of an all pass phase shifter and a delay line once..enough to show
me that a DSP approached based on the above could certainly simulate a
variety of rooms and musical instrument soundboxes. Rooms are not that
hard to do either with various reverberators, but nothing on the market
I have heard is actually that good.

I even worked out te way to do it. Take your piano, hit it sharply with
a hammer, and do a time domain analysis, and approximate with N delay
lines and phase shifters, and you have a reverberant structure that is
essentially your piano. Do it with soft and loud pedals on and of, and
you have the response you want. Do it in a room and you have the
response of the piano in the room. Now add some basic string tone, and
the piano now starts to sound like a proper piano.

Give me 1/4 million and five years, and I'll do it for you..



Ultimately the problems of doing accurate SYNTHESIS were overcome by the
art of sampling. Rather like the original ..bugger I forget the name -
you know with a million lops of tape running inside it. Think Moody Blues..