Buggy Whips [was]Re: [sdiy] Should I repair my Fostex, or should I go HD recording?

[Kenneth Elhardt]

Richard Wentk writes:
>>I take it you're not overly familiar with the physics of pianos, pipe
organs or orchestras. ;-)
Simple experiment: 'play' middle C and the C above it so softly they don't
sound. Give the C below middle C a staccato thwack.
Can you hear anything?
Try the same on a sampled piano. Tell me what you hear.<<

I can't think of a circumtance where during a performance a person would do
what you say above and this sounds a bit like nit-picking over unimportant
details that will not be heard in a performance where you'll also have some
kind of room reverb added.  In addition, the sampled pianos I own also
include samples with the sustain pedal down so they will cause other
vibrating sounds or strings.  That's how a real piano would be used, with a
sustain pedal.  That's also why sympathetic resonance is something often
mentioned in sampled pianos these days.

>>You get the same effect in a real orchestra, although it tends to be more
subtle. It's more subtle still for pipe organs where the resonance happens
in the reverberant space the organ lives in.<<

As somebody who has broken down a violin into individual harmonics and
resynthesized it, there was no perceivable audible contribution of
surrounding strings to the sound.  Sometimes people put theories above
observation.  If anything gives a sample away from the real thing it's the
lack of realistic legato phrasing or dynamic control of the sample (and I'm
working on a product now that will end that problem).  There are currently
quality samples of most instruments that can easy pass off as real in a
recording.

>>No sampler models this acoustic coupling between resonant and reverberant
elements,<<

As per above, some piano samples do, and that's really the only instrument
that is kind of like a big reverb chamber to any degree.  With this world
filled with millions of reverb units, there's nothing to hinder somebody
from adding reverberant elements.  Do to lack of interest in synthesis these
days, it hasn't been worth my time to put together a demo of what can be
done with unorthadox use of reverb.  But richness and depth are easily had.

-Elhardt