[shooly]

Not sure if that's news, Audio Modeling[1] has been doing that for quite a long time now. The big plus of physical modeling instead of sampling is disk size - instead of tens of GB of samples, you get a 15MB plugin.

It's much more difficult to use, though - you have to control lots of aspects of the simulation (using automation in DAW or MIDI controllers) to make it sound actually realistic.

OK I guess it seems like this is more of a tool for luthiers than for composers or music producers.

[1] https://audiomodeling.com/

[vintermann]

The first version of Pianoteq came back in 2006. There are apparently some exotic mid-90s synths with claims of being physically modeled too, don't know how accurate that is.

I currently use a raspberry pi with Pianoteq as sound output for my digital piano. It got a reluctant stamp of approval from my pianist son, although of course he prefers the physical response of even a poor acoustic piano.

[seedlessmike]

Pianoteq is amazing with a good controller like a big Kawai VPC1 or the fanciest Fatar action in the Studiologic "GT" models. It is very responsive. I've been using it for over a decade and the sound keeps improving.

The combination of pianoteq and a sample based piano is pretty nice too, though tough to do on a Pi.

Good speakers improve the experience because you get your room resonance etc.

The coolest thing - you can change temperament. So if you are playing music from before equal temperament, you can hear what different keys used to sound like! Very interesting especially with Bach.

I agree with your son, there is nothing like a real piano. There are interesting attempts at combining the digital and mechanical with soundboard transducers from Kawai and Yamaha, I haven't used them but I would like to.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Pianoteq is more like spectral modelling. The sound lacks some of the movement and bloom of a real piano.

90s physical modelling was a very simplified modular kind of modelling. Instead of analogue oscillators and filters you had "string" models, "pipe" models, various resonators, and so on.

The models were interesting, but still quite crude and basic.

This project is the most physical kind of physical modelling. It's an unsimplified brute-force model of the entire instrument body and string system, in full.

It doesn't try to "model a resonator", it models blocks of wood with various holes, and calculates how they distort and radiate as sound passes through them.

It's ridiculously expensive computationally, but it's also the only way to get all of the nuances of the sound.

I expect they're already working on a stick-slip model for bowing.

Theoretically you could use the same technique to model a piano or guitar, and you would get something indistinguishable from a real instrument.

You'd likely need a supercomputer to run the model in anything approaching real time.

But the advantage is that once you've got it you can do insane things like replace the strings with wood instead of metal, or use different metals, or "build" nonphysical pianos that are fifty feet long and have linear overtones all the way down to the bass.

[vintermann]

Pianoteq was quite heavy computationally when it came, it still is, arguably. It was a challenge to get it to run on a raspberry pi 4 in real time.

I can tell the difference between Pianoteq and a real piano, but I can't in general tell the difference between Pianoteq and a recording of a piano. Maybe there's some insane level of hi-fi gear which would let me, idk? But in general, when it's good enough for Steinway, Petrof and my conservatory student son to give their stamp of approval, I think it's good enough for me as well :) quite a few of those insane things you mention you can already do with pianoteq's physical model (i.e. emulating a 20m grand), and I suspect they keep a few knobs to themselves to sell virtual instruments.

[iainmerrick]

I can tell the difference between Pianoteq and a real piano, but I can't in general tell the difference between Pianoteq and a recording of a piano.

That's a great way to put it. There's no way to fully reproduce that live sound, but compared to anything played through speakers, Pianoteq is indistinguishable from a real piano.

Out of the box it sounds a little too perfect, but just setting the Condition to the midway point (1.0) fixes that.

[cwillu]

Do you have an analog sustain pedal? The fine control with partial pedaling made some difference for me re: pianoteq's feel.

[vintermann]

I don't know how many levels it has, but it's definitively more than 2 :) I am a lousy pianist anyway, it's my son who's serious.