| Most instruments can make a wide range of different sounds, and players can move smoothly between the different sounds by playing the instrument in different ways. This is really a kind of morphing. You can capture examples of each kind of sound with sampling, but you can't capture the performance morphing. Even if you could, there's no good way to perform the morphing with a typical synth keyboard, which only allows for velocity and maybe aftertouch - possibly poly AT for a handful of models. So these huge sample sets have started using rule-based systems to try to add the morphing, or at least to make sample choices, in a context-sensitive way. This kind of works, up to a point, but it's not as good as the real thing. As a side effect, sampling has driven jobbing composers, especially in Hollywood, towards an industry standard mechanical and repetitive orchestral sound. It sounds orchestra-like, but it's a narrow and compressed version of all the colours an orchestra is capable of. If you compare it to the work of master orchestrators - Ravel, Stravinsky, Puccini - it's not hard hear just how flat and colourless these scores are. A good ML model of an orchestral instrument would be a very useful thing, because it would make it possible to think about breaking out of the sampling box. But there aren't enough people with enough of a background in both ML and music to make this likely. Sadly, I think it's more likely we'll get even more compressed and narrow representations, with even more of the subtlety and expressive range removed. |
1) Performance morphing. We have moved from straightforward sampling to hybrid sampled/synthesized approaches. It will never be as good as the real thing, but it already allows for richer performances than what a boring player would do. Here is an example of a virtual clarinet (Sample Modeling Clarinet). I sequenced many variables separately to demonstrate: vibrato depth, vibrato speed, legato and portamento speed, growl, pressure and accent on the attack.
http://007ee821dfb24ea1133d-f5304285da51469c5fdbbb05c1bdfa60...
2) Extended techniques. Competition has encouraged virtual instrument publishers to go for the unusual stuff, and fill whatever niche hasn't been filled yet. For example I recently acquired a library specialized in extended cello technique (Jeremiah Pena Mystic). I used it in the soundtrack of a no-budget short film, here's an excerpt of the cello part:
http://007ee821dfb24ea1133d-f5304285da51469c5fdbbb05c1bdfa60...
Anyways, I agree that Hollywood soundtracks have been converging to standardized styles, and sampling may be to blame historically, but it is hardly a limiting factor anymore. If anything, it should now encourage creativity as it partly removes the fear of wasting massive resources when your experimental score ends up sounding like crap at the recording session.