I think drums are a instrument that could be improved on via physical modeling, I believe a physical modeled drum kit could sound as good and have the same control and sensitivity options as the real thing.
That genius at Pianteq could do a good job.
Modeling drums is exceptionally hard, orders of magnitude harder than modeling a piano.
Sounds like IK Multimedia is releasing modelled drums soon, tho.
Drums are massively harder because you not only have tonal differences with velocity but also depending upon where the sticks strike the skins the tonality changes. Combine that with the rapid attack that drum skins and cymbals handle the computation must go through the roof if you the developer is attempting realism.
No doubt with a lot of careful refinement and powerful CPUs it will happen.
I seem to remember U-HE have played around with the concept but not released anything.
Yup.
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/mododrum/
...and yet they use samples for cymbals. Cymbals are even more complex to model than drums.
MODARTT with its Pianoteq might still beat IK Multimedia, if it in a hurry ditches Organteq for a Drumteq project that could offer much more revenue than Organteq might even wish were possible, since the customer base for edrum products is one certainly broader than any for electric organs and definitely pipe organs when even combined.
MODARTT already has a jump over IK Multimedia and right where it lacks, because expertly Pianoteq from experience accurately modelles chromatic percussion, bells and carillons. These as percussion instruments have similarities to cymbals —Turkish, Armenian, and Swiss.
However, perhaps people at MODARTT are too comfortably seated on their laurels to involve themselves or venture away into pursuits outside an already quite successful Pianoteq.
That as a virtual instrument software one considers is demonstrably praiseworthy alone.
I don't want them to ditch Organteq at all. It will be amazing, I know it.
Also, maybe you didn't notice the elephant in the room. It took IKM 11 years of working on this project before releasing it to the public. That is a whoooooole lot of R&D. No way is that worth the risk for Modartt.
Just because the pianos now sound amazing I don't think that they are anywhere near the end of the road with modelling pianos. Why do people try to push small successful companies to branch out into other areas?
Most companies are at their best when they stick to their original mission, not spreading their resources too thin, obsessing about expansion, pleasing the bean counters over the customers.
Organteq isn't such a stretch, guitars and drums are something else entirely.
Plenty of other jack of all VSTi developers out there!
I don't want them to ditch Organteq at all. It will be amazing, I know it.
Also, maybe you didn't notice the elephant in the room. It took IKM 11 years of working on this project before releasing it to the public. That is a whoooooole lot of R&D. No way is that worth the risk for Modartt.
Yet, additional IK Multimedia research and development is necessary on the part of the people at IK Multimedia to make its modeled drums compatible or even remotely playable to a drummer who plays on any of today's edrum kits marketed publicly. A set of edrums I've had nearly a period of two (2) decades, near twice as long as your referenced eleven (11) years of alledged work from IK Multimedia. Although, always I've been upgrading my edrum kit —but somewhat recently to a Roland TD-30 drum module!
Which is essentially useless with these modelled drums that fail to implement positional sensing supported by both Roland Corporation and Toontrack in its Superior Drummer (sample based) VST.
Besides, the modelled drum audio examples I've heard from IK Multimedia sound horrible to me. Anyone knows MODARTT can do a lot better than MODODRUM, for modelled instruments anyway. But clearly, IK Multimedia MODODRUM takes some inspiration from MODARTT PIANOTEQ.
It is plain for anyone to see!
Oh incidentally, I do notice, thankfully, in my room my keyboard has no ivory keys. When people have hunted elephants to near extinction, just so that what is left of the remains from animal dead carcasses appears in the form of ivory keybeds next to Imperial (text) sprawled onto piano instruments inside vicious game hunters' parlors, outside my own room, the few animal survivors remain continually objects of cognitive dissonance, EvilDragon!
Just because the pianos now sound amazing I don't think that they are anywhere near the end of the road with modelling pianos. Why do people try to push small successful companies to branch out into other areas?
Supply and demand!
Most companies are at their best when they stick to their original mission, not spreading their resources too thin, obsessing about expansion, pleasing the bean counters over the customers.
Organteq isn't such a stretch, guitars and drums are something else entirely.
A drum, like a piano, is a percussion instrument!
Plenty of other jack of all VSTi developers out there!
Actually, MODARTT virtual instrument development changed from modeled percussion, when it began to modelle a harp (string instrument) and an organ just afterwards.
A drum, like a piano, is a percussion instrument!
Except the physics of it are completely different and require a completely different (a lot more complex) model.
...
A drum, like a piano, is a percussion instrument!
With a mechanically fixed pivot point. There are far less variables to deal with - that said what actually needs to be modelled to create a convincing sound from a listeners perspective could be far less demanding than from a players perspective (what we call feel), where the lack of variation in tone would surely become more noticeable?
Plenty of other jack of all VSTi developers out there!
Actually, MODARTT virtual instrument development changed from modeled percussion, when it began to modelle a harp (string instrument) and an organ just afterwards.
Sure the pianos are percussion instruments, and the vibraphones, marimba, celeste are too, however the variability in the tonality of the sound from those instruments lends itself to the same model I would suggest. The harp being an open plucked string instrument has a relatively rigid/fixed range of tonality from each string, not too dissimilar to the piano key I suspect (the key word here is relative).
Given the alternative percussion instruments and the harp model I was initially surprised that Organteq was announced as a separate product, not simply built into the Pianoteq program.
Modartt can do what they like of course. Some companies operate on the mantra of diversify or die, but then some are ruined by mission creep.
With a mechanically fixed pivot point. There are far less variables to deal with - that said what actually needs to be modelled to create a convincing sound from a listeners perspective could be far less demanding than from a players perspective (what we call feel), where the lack of variation in tone would surely become more noticeable?
My son plays on an electronic drums.
I am not sure wether the harware, at least Roland, takes account of the position of the hit on the pads. I should verify.
Thinking about it, I don’t quite see how a drum — as an isolated sound — would be that much more difficult to model than a piano. I’m inclined to believe the opposite to be much closer to the truth.
Ignoring the complexity of cymbals and, particularly, hi-hats for a moment (the latter which, I agree, might well prove completely unmodellable), drumsounds — I’m talking about snares, kicks and toms — are basically layered bursts of noise with varying amounts of vaguely pitched but essentialy inharmonic tails. Seems to me to be much more suitable candidates for synthesis and/or modelling than a piano.
The fact that drums have already been fairly acceptably modelled and/or synthesized for years by various companies and individuals — not yet with completely believable results, true, but certainly very promising ones —, whereas with acoustic pianos, we still only have made it just past the first few hurdles, would seem to confirm that.
What I do think, though, are 2 very difficult challenges for drum modellers, and the demos of the IK MODO drums appear to prove it (in that they fail audibly on both points), is:
(1) the ‘intra-resonance’ of a drumkit: countless layers of difficult-to-control sounds in and around a drumkit which are composed of very complex combinations of sympathetic resonances, amplifications, vibrations, etc. … and which make the drumkit sound as one coherent whole rather than as a collection of disconnected percussion instruments.
(2) that a large part of a drumkit’s sound is co-defined by the room in which it is recorded: if you think you’ve finished with your work modelling the drums themselves, you’re only halfway there because you’ll still have to model the innumerable ways in which the surrounding room will be part of the sound. (The phenomenon is part of all acoustic instruments’ sound, including pianos, but with drums, them moving so much air and causing so much reflections from the enclosing structure, it is of particular importance.)
_
Well, I've talked to guys from u-he (and in particular Sascha Eversmeier, him being a drummer and working the most on u-he's drum modelling attempt, which seems to have been shelved for the time being), and he said it's definitely a LOT more complicated than modeling a piano, because with piano you can reduce the string to a waveguide model, whereas for a kettle drum you need to calculate more dimensions simultaneously, there's positional sensing that is two-dimensional and across a larger surface area (whereas on piano positional sensing is largely one-dimensional), and there are many more other variables at play (and this is before you get into the interplay between different kettle drums, etc.)
And yes, cymbals are a completely different story. Even more difficult.
I’m sorry, but I still don’t see nor hear how a drum could ever be more difficult to model than a piano. I can understand why a drummer would say that, and I certainly don’t underestimate the difficulties involved, but then, ask a saxophone player and it’s highly likely that he/she would also say that his/her instrument is by far the most difficult to virtualize; and if I’m honest, I believe he/she would have a MUCH stronger case than a drummer.
Timpani are a different kettle of fish though and, indeed, probably significantly more challenging to emulate digitally than a snare or a kick drum, but even then presenting the modeller with nowhere near the order of difficulty and technical obstacles that a piano modeller is confronted with, in my, granted unscientific, opinion.
And I don’t really buy the multi-dimensional argument either. The sound of a piano, especially a grand, is at least as much a multi-dimensional phenomenon (in every single one of its timbre-defining ingredients) than that of any percussion instrument. (That characteristic multi-dimensional depth of an acoustic piano is, for example, one of the things that piano modelling still hasn’t quite figured out yet, or if it has, is unable to render due to the limitations of our current hardware.)
The amount of complex calculations to even only begin to suggest the most basic piano-like presence with only the crudest level of piano-like timbral characteristics, must already run up to an insanely high number, let alone the amount that is required for something which convincingly simulates the infinitely complex, chaotic but somehow musically ordered sonic cosmos — entirely different from one octave to the next, entirely different from one dynamic level to the next, entirely different again depending which keys and pedals are pressed, … — we know as the sound of a piano.
_
in my, granted unscientific, opinion.
Well, u-he guys actually did do the science and math behind it, so I'll trust their scientific opinion instead if you don't mind
Don't forget the Image-Line product, DrumAxx, which can sound good for some percussion instruments. My posts about it, with some quickie, elementary takes:
https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=1214
Sorry for the bad cymbals. I think someone with more patience and knowledge could get them to sound better:
And here's a link to the DrumAxx site:
https://www.image-line.com/plugins/Synths/Drumaxx/
Piet De Ridder wrote:in my, granted unscientific, opinion.
(...) if you don't mind
I don’t mind at all, Dragon. Believe what you like, no problem. But there’s not a fibre in my being that goes along with what you, or u-He, are saying.
http://users.telenet.be/deridderpiet.be/TD-50.mp3
This is the sound of the V-Drums TD-50, arrived at through what Roland calls ‘prismatic sound modelling’. I’m aware there’s a serious allergy for all things Roland roaming through this forum, but an unbiased observer can’t but agree, I would think, that this is pretty damn fine modelling work.
While I don’t like the actual sound of this — I’m not talking about the timbres, but about the sound — and while the emulation is still a looooooong way removed from the sound of a well-recorded real acoustic drum kit, it is definitely much closer to it than that of any modelled piano compared to its real counterpart.
As I understand it, even the cymbals and the hi-hats are modelled in the TD-50 (which makes me retract, to some small degree anyway, what I said earlier about hi-hats being unmodellable).
Only to say: we’re surrounded, and have been for many years, by dozens of examples — some more promising than others — that make it undisputably clear that modelling drums realistically falls well within the realm of attainable goals for the very imminent future. The current state of piano modelling on the other hand, tells me that, yes, we will get there too one day, but it’ll take much, much longer and require substantially more powerful computing, because it is … a much more complex and difficult affair.
_
In a bunch of cases when Roland said "modeling" it ended up actually including a bunch of samples and some clever trickery around them, though... And to my ears at least it's pretty evident that the example you posted most definitely does use samples. To draw a rather shallow analogy, it's more like TruePianos than Pianoteq.
Could be. Before posting the previous post, I did a quick-ish search on the web to check what the sound sources are for the latest TD's and everywhere I went, it said: modelling or 'prismatic modelling'. I have no idea whether that includes using (snippets of) samples or not.
Doesn't sound sampled to me though. I happen to have many of the better and even best drum libraries, and they all sound way more convincing and natural than the TD-50 in the example above.
_
Yeah it'd depend on what sort of processing Roland had on the supposed samples. They can have a very VERY specific coloration to them (for example, the sample playback engine of V-Synth - it is highly characteristic).
Key Fumbler wrote:With a mechanically fixed pivot point. There are far less variables to deal with - that said what actually needs to be modelled to create a convincing sound from a listeners perspective could be far less demanding than from a players perspective (what we call feel), where the lack of variation in tone would surely become more noticeable?
My son plays on an electronic drums.
I am not sure wether the harware, at least Roland, takes account of the position of the hit on the pads. I should verify.
Well, I've talked to guys from u-he (and in particular Sascha Eversmeier, him being a drummer and working the most on u-he's drum modelling attempt, which seems to have been shelved for the time being), and he said it's definitely a LOT more complicated than modeling a piano, because with piano you can reduce the string to a waveguide model, whereas for a kettle drum you need to calculate more dimensions simultaneously, there's positional sensing that is two-dimensional and across a larger surface area (whereas on piano positional sensing is largely one-dimensional), and there are many more other variables at play (and this is before you get into the interplay between different kettle drums, etc.)
And yes, cymbals are a completely different story. Even more difficult.
I have just one question for you, specifically, EvilDragon to answer, perhaps as scientifically as possible. My question is: “Which is more complex to modelle, an Imperial Bösendorfer or a bongo?”
As far as the complexities of positional sensing on modeled percussion (whether piano or drum ostensively) go, already Pianoteq mimics that behavior via its Strike point parameter and seems to up the ante even further with MALLET BOUNCE on each of its mallet instruments.
Here is my conjecture, whatever (if anything) that's worth.
The whole question with modelling is surely about finding out what you can get away with for real time performance (much as a great artist may create a work of art with less brush strokes).
In other words less about finding out what elements there are to model, more about finding out what you don't have to model for the program to produce convincing results (with as many consumer level CPUs as possible in order for the project to be commercial viable) in order to fool the users ears, brains and the finger tips.
So computer programmers could be talking about different things when they say this or that is incredibly hard, depending upon where they are on the development curve, or the absolute standard they are looking to achieve for their assumed expectations of a given customer base for a given level of hardware.
I see how you may feel that way, Key Fumbler, when you’ve certainly gotten away with plagiarising from my statement, as though it were yours:
Actually, MODARTT virtual instrument development changed from modeled percussion, when it began to modelle a harp (string instrument) and an organ just afterwards.
Let’s try to be considerate in the future —and for now examine our attitudes and work ethic!
For your information, I as a drummer, a beat counter, hardly view myself a bean counter. But, if I were one, I’d gladly count beans just to diminish hunger from the mouths of starving children living across very poor countrysides.
I see how you may feel that way, Key Fumbler, when you’ve certainly gotten away with plagiarising from my statement, as though it were yours:
Actually, MODARTT virtual instrument development changed from modeled percussion, when it began to modelle a harp (string instrument) and an organ just afterwards.
Let’s try to be considerate in the future —and for now exam our attitudes and work ethic!
For your information, I as a drummer, a beat counter, hardly view myself a bean counter. But, if I were one, I’d gladly count beans just to diminish hunger from the starving children living on very poor countrysides.
I thought this was a civilised conversation?
I take it you are having a bad day and jumped to strange conclusions.
You should read and consider more carefully the context of what others write before making allegations.
I have not plagiarised anything. If I (or anyone else) accidentally touches on an opinion that you have already shared with the group then you should say we are in agreement, not jump to accuse people of such stupidity.
Strange, I have not accused you of anything. Actually the only thing I have ever done for you is give you points praise in the FXP corner.
You have misunderstood what I wrote earlier in the thread:
Most companies are at their best when they stick to their original mission, not spreading their resources too thin, obsessing about expansion, pleasing the bean counters over the customers.
...Plenty of other jack of all VSTi developers out there!
This isn't directed as an insult to any person here, or anywhere else for that matter. It is really strange that anyone could take it that way.
This comment was about how a business can sometimes expand in multiple directions only to end up with inferior business (in terms of customer experience) because they stretch their limited resources too thinly (for a time this may please bean counters as sales increase).
This isn't a comment against an individual, as you seem to have taken it!
Lastly just because I express an opinion here I seriously doubt this would have an iota of difference to Modartt's plans. If they had a great drum model in development that could be exciting too. I love to be proven wrong in good ways.
I see more of your prickly nature here:
...
However, perhaps people at MODARTT are too comfortably seated on their laurels to involve themselves or venture away into pursuits outside an already quite successful Pianoteq.
That as a virtual instrument software one considers is demonstrably praiseworthy alone.
If they choose to produce a drum product at some point and can maintain the steady quality improvements we have seen already in this amazing piano product all power to their elbows!
Yet, you have just made my point:
That as a virtual instrument software one considers is demonstrably praiseworthy alone.
Right on, man. Get it all out!
Now, Key Fumbler, I’m going to take from the aforementioned risk that has been suggested by EvilDragon (though how he sees any research and development constituting a potential risk factor for MODARTT is clearly unbeknownst to me) and generalize with a broad brush stroke, if either you or anybody else uses this thread to vote against a foreseeable MODARTT Drumteq project, you do so from your selfish motivations, only, whether or not you have the balls to admit to them in a public forum!
I don't want them to ditch Organteq at all. It will be amazing, I know it.
Also, maybe you didn't notice the elephant in the room. It took IKM 11 years of working on this project before releasing it to the public. That is a whoooooole lot of R&D. No way is that worth the risk for Modartt.
I am going to ignore your unhelpful input now Amen Ptah Ra.
One consideration is the need for extra efficiency when modelling drums. Perhaps really convincing physically modelled drum tracks will require us to freeze those tracks to save on CPU. Perhaps that will be worthwhile if the results are sonically superior?
So maybe when developers say drums are harder than piano to replicate this is down to the context in which they are to be used. Users don't expect to have to freeze percussion tracks.
I think genius at pianoteq could make an excellent modeled drum kit. Would be very interesting and a nice expansion to the business.
You and I possibly think alike. Personally, I got this vibe a while ago; any genius at MODARTT has been grossly under appreciated and undeniably underestimated —when Pianoteq suddenly introduced its vibraphones, xylophone and marimba. All of which barely anyone mentions in a forum post. And, people post almost nothing in gratitude about a Pianoteq Celesta, Glockenspiel and Toy Piano, or, Steel Drum, Spacedrum, Hand Pan, and Tank Drum modeled in Pianoteq!
Just as soon as I can afford, I anxiously anticipate a license to a copy of the vibes will become mine. My plan is to get that license just after I acquire a Pearl Malletstation needed for some jazzy Pianoteq vibe playin’ to include my rhythmic soloing, of course..jpg&w=745&h=429 "https://pearldrum.com/utility/thumb.php?i=/common/assets/images/electric/malletstation/malletSTATION%20-%20Mallets(2).jpg&w=745&h=429")
Let me just extend my sincere thanks, to the people at MODARTT for their hard work. I appreciate it, truly!
Key Fumbler, ignore all you want. It takes a man to admit when he is wrong!
Otherwise, he just defends and denies.
I think genius at pianoteq could make an excellent modeled drum kit. Would be very interesting and a nice expansion to the business.
I'm sure they can do at least as good a job at creating a modelled kit as any other company, given the right time in development, if they want to do this. It doesn't sound like a job to be underestimated (by the buying public - not the developers that will understand far better than I possibly can).
I was impressed by the vibraphone enough to pick that one up a while back. Of course that is very different to a full drum emulation.
Off topic: I apologize for feeding the forum troll Amen in your thread, I was slow to realize what he is.
Surprised no one has mentioned AAS Chromaphone. Every few months it's available in a promotional for half off. It's a very capable software synthesis engine for percussion with MIDI control of parameters. I've used it since the first version and it keeps getting better though updates are few and far between.
https://www.applied-acoustics.com/chromaphone-2/
I believe a lot can be done in Pianoteq Pro with all the deep editing parameters to create very cool organic percussion.
I think drums are a instrument that could be improved on via physical modeling, I believe a physical modeled drum kit could sound as good and have the same control and sensitivity options as the real thing.
That genius at Pianteq could do a good job.
There is always room on a drum or a set of drums for some improvement. I’ve known since I was a thirteen year old snare drummer and the only minor performing for just about every Southern California orchestra other than the LA Philharmonic, it exists not only for both a physical drum and a physically modelled one but for a drummer’s playing and his rudimental technique as well. Today, together my Roland e-drum pads and Roland e-drum module utilize a combination of physical modeling and samples, that even after five (5) years results in a sum of drum set nuances still surprising to me. Surprises happen each time I play behind my e-drum kit.
I’m saying I’m a well seasoned drummer who was a first place recipient to state and national championships and I feel strongly my surprising current circumstance occurs largely via Roland modeling technology, mainly, though the Roland Corp. keeps trade secrets on its tech undisclosed. Also, I feel whenever I play along to audio input, I experience a sensation of my being somehow lost in musics and tend to forget I am playing in reality at only plastic and rubber pads —and yet I’m a jazz drummer!
Since I can only imagine an entirely modelled kit will offer —nuance wise— a lot more than drums partially modeled, I am enthusiastic over the premise, MODARTT from experience and its proven track record has within its organization enough know how to pull off modeled drums —better than any other entity can!
Now for a reality check, as I see it, a bottleneck given current hardware limitations (namely USB speeds) could limit the computer software modeled drums access, chiefly to DAW mixer applications, especially whenever the musician using such software is a jazz drummer having lightning fast expressiveness like I have (of course). Although, I saw YouTube videos when some drummers appeared to play from their e-drums and drum modules directly into drum sampler softwares.
I think genius at pianoteq could make an excellent modeled drum kit. Would be very interesting and a nice expansion to the business.
A smart individual whether or not a genius and whether inside MODARTT or another organization outside it, if he’s gotten materials and has resources by his being specifically in a company or corporate organization, generally needs others’ approvals given in board meetings and the like of such before he or she jump starts a new project. For all you and I know, possibly, none of the mathematicians who were graduated from European universities takes even a slight interest in drum constructs right now at MODARTT. A piano often a glorified instrument (probably the most glorified) appears more elegant and moreover appeals to a status quo more so than any drum by itself, certainly, anywhere inside Europe where only three (3) European run drum manufactures are well known.
Correct me if I’m wrong; modern drum sets are basically an American possibly African-American jazz era invention, though SONOR drum company and presumably PREMIER MUSIC INTERNATIONAL LIMITED drum company both European drum manufacturers are the older drum companies.
Curiously, I want to know if you and I have a long wait before we see a Drumteq or simply a basic drum product coming from MODARTT because it is yet a company everyday of its existence based undeniably from long honored European traditions and controlled by mathematician intellectuals still within those thriving traditions as they were indeed graduated with honors, doctorates, by the most prestigious of universities founded in Europe itself.
Possibly, you too have a comment to the following:
Are you really surprised by the fact that of all the grand pianos offered in Pianoteq, starkly none is American?
You and I have to use the metric system in our piano and microphone settings, whether we like it or not.
Finally, after over a decade, European Dutch speakers just got a manual they actually can read!
Empathetically, I may have to subscribe to the assertion, “Nobody really likes doing as he’s told.” and especially after he’s received a PhD from one of Europe’s finest but having now to go over the many remarks of unknown bedroom mixers and deciding what to give on a credence scale of from one (1) to ten (10) with regards to forum posts, even from an individual straight out of Compton or Watts, and saying “Look man, this is how I think you should run your company, if you really want it to be successful.”
Irregardless of however forum openess permits, he as a founder discovers a dichotomy of, in the forum, and out of the forum, which he brings to discussions with his peers and coworkers, in determining what direction his organization is to take.
The good news is; input from forum posts sometimes reaches positive responses from board of directors meetings!
So, let’s (you and I) see if we can project possible market trends from a snipet of supply and demand moving towards the profitability of an ostensible Drumteq business model, that of the future of modeled drums.
I’ll start:
My scenario is one in which a modern drummer resides within a single unit apartment household.
He or she wants to:
practice, quietly without any disruption to his or her household and disturbances to neighbors. He or she needs a quiet e-drum kit.
hear the nuanced details of his or her practice. He or she needs a state-of-the-art kit.
record realistic drum performances. He or she needs a VST!
change real drum parameters. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants to choose:
from an unlimited broad selection of microphones. He or she needs Drumteq!
independent microphone bleed levels. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants to have:
access to specific microphone placements that he or she can change freely. He or she needs Drumteq!
a visual representation of a drum kit including cymbals and mics . He or she needs Drumteq!
angled instruments and microphones. He or she needs Drumteq!
LEVEL and DELAY COMPENSATION choices. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants to:
tune drumheads. He or she needs Drumteq!
remove a bottom drumhead. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants to access linear parameters of:
drumhead muffler tensions. He or she needs Drumteq!
cymbal diameters and thicknesses. He or she needs Drumteq!
all drum shell dimensions. He or she needs Drumteq!
cymbal sizzle and sustain. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants parameter selections of:
sizes and weights of drumsticks. He or she needs Drumteq!
size and type of drumstick beads. He or she needs Drumteq!
brushes whether nylon or metal. He or she needs Drumteq!
bass drum beaters. He or she needs Drumteq!
He or she wants parameters of:
Direct sound duration. He or she needs Drumteq!
Spectrum profile. He or she needs Drumteq!
Impedance. He or she needs Drumteq!!
Cutoff. He or she needs Drumteq!
Q factor. He or she needs Drumteq!
Sympathetic resonance. He or she needs Drumteq!
Blooming. He or she needs Drumteq!
Volume. He or she needs Drumteq!
Dynamics. He or she needs Drumteq!
VELOCITY. He or she needs Drumteq!
STICK AND MALLET BOUNCE. He or she needs Drumteq!!
EQUALIZER. He or she needs Drumteq!
theinvisibleman, let’s you and I review some of the niceties of business expansion, that importantly include increased revenues, even though at least one forum post to this thread of your original posting, has indicated wavering dire opposition to small business expansion.
That is a resistance to change.
However, in a motion norm universe, change is inevitable; you acquiesce to it.
A serious musician, specifically the drummer requiring highly optimized tech may spend a small fortune just to get the very best out of his or her performance. To me, Roland Corp. manufactures the highest tech in high tech e-drums pads and modules as MIDI controllers for any current drum sample library VST. Although, that Roland high tech hardware drum gear comes at a price (which is) equally high; it’s also widely known the most sought in addition to it being the most expensive e-drum hardware in consumer markets!
Just look at some of the prices:
(1) Roland TD-50KVX V-Drums 6 piece Electronic Drum Set #MPN TD-50KVX-S 6PC Cost: $8,734.03
(1) Roland Cymbal Cost: $469.99 a little under the price of an average entry level Pianoteq connected digital piano
(1) Roland Hi-hats Cost: $769.99
(1) Roland Snare Drum Cost: $729.99
(1) Roland Bass Drum Cost: $1,549.99
A sample based drum VST is just as pricey too:
(1) Superior Drummer VST Cost: $319.00 occupies over 230 gigabytes of hard disk space
(1) Superior Drummer Expansion Pack Cost: $179.00 occupies over 12 gigabytes of hard disk space
(14) Superior Drummer Expansion Pack each contains different drum instruments Cost: $2,618.00 an average occupies about 12 gigabytes of hard disk space for a guessed sum of 168 gigabytes Subtotal plus 230 gigabytes (from Superior Drummer VST core engine) for some 398 gigabytes Grand Total
Apparently, MIDI drum players, have to spend a great deal substantially more than MIDI keyboard players do in necessary MIDI hardware purchases!
So, in conclusion, if your question to me is: “Are e-drum drummers today potential customers willing to spend money on e-drum products, specifically, software?” my response assuredly is, they indeed are willing to invest large er vast sums on e-drum optimized VST software, undoubtedly! An enormous untapped market seems wide opened to innovation in modeled drums and just ripe for an experienced modeled instrument company MODARTT (that is chiefly about modeled percussion instruments anyway) to capitalize: supply and demand!
Now I'm saying: Hurray for PIANOTEQ er DRUMTEQ!
I'm just saying: Hurray for MODARTT!
I have no idea what you’re going on about for most of that post, Amen, except that I would say that several of your assumptions are the result of either being misinformed or very prejudiced. But I guess there's a point in there somewhere.
In answer to your last paragraph however (which is a fine example of the being misinformed):
With just few hundred dollars or euros, you can pick from any of a handful of very satisfying drum libraries (of which Toontrack’s aren’t even the best, in my opinion), and do things like these little demos which I made:
Handheld Sound MAD White Kit
Handheld sound MAD Blue Kit
Mixosaurus
The Handhelds (size: 21gig) cost $199, Mixosaurus (size: 120gig), alas no longer in development, costs or used to cost $399. And if you don’t feel like spending any money at all, you can download Sennheiser’s free Drum MicA (size: 4gig), which is also an amazingly competent collection of drumsamples, and do something like this.
Besides these (which just happen to be my personal favourites), there are, llike I said, a dozen or so really, really good other drum libraries none of which are inordinately expensive and all of which can provide most of the solutions to the problems that a DAW-based musician, seeking high-quality virtual drums, might be faced with. Provided these musicians take the time to learn these libraries of course and have some insight in how to create/simulate/suggest a convincing drum performance (the latter proviso often being a much more serious problem than any perceived lack of potential or quality in the libraries themselves).
_
I'd be happy if Pianoteq was the only product - but that's up to Modartt.
Piet, those are excellent drum libs. They do sound like well recorded kits - and sound naturally played, super. Thanks, I'm resisting the urge.
Exactly as said above - the human element, like piano is so important in terms of what a recording sounds like in the end. Time, effort and seriousness around musicianship etc.
On product differentiation, Pianoteq sorted all my previous piano deficits.
The difference with VST drums is that an over-abundance of offerings are readily accessible and already entirely useful. To the point where I'm not saying "If only there was a useful VST drum kit" - ever.
Loops too are ubiquitous, at least in modern music (less human factor required, not suggesting it's lazy but that comes down to production over musicianship and so it goes) - that market doesn't want to learn e-drums, let alone what a drum kit is.
That said, given how top tier Pianoteq is, Drumteq would be something I'd definitely try.
To be taxing limits, I'd be extra happy if we go beyond sounds, to production - like making it easy for people to use or choose logical/sane mic arrays, split over "tracks" (in supported DAWs?), say an overhead mic plus each close mic etc.. be able to arrange in L & R panning.. BUT within the plugin, rather than utilising different aux or fx returns - and so on. Would make "good drums" more accessible to many DAW users.
Lastly, the "It" factor again, the missing human playing the kit.. it's one thing to have all the libraries as Piet mentions, but again, like playing piano, the more you do it the better the results - but that's where drums kind of differ, in terms of loops and samples. These allow non-drummers to create believable rhythm sections and so on, even if their fans don't even think about any of those things. So, a sensible "arrangement" tool would be IMO a real boost, over other offerings. Just a way to be able to say "4/4 - jazz - intro - 8 bars - chorus" - many ways to consider it - but it would be hugely helpful (to me, I know) if I could NOT have to do these kinds of things in one tool, export stems, then re-configure the instruments (drum parts) to all of these.. then Humanise
But I'm doing OK without that too because, sometimes, it's the "having to apply yourself" to drums, which can take something from idea to more finished. Sometimes you can't avoid those hours spent, if you want the result.
A Drumteq which saves me many of those hours, would have me looking for my wallet.
Qexl, if a DRUMTEQ does eventually come out of MODARTT, you may find yourself quoting Betty Rubble and Wilma Flintstone, “Charge it!”
I have no idea what you’re going on about for most of that post, Amen, except that I would say that several of your assumptions are the result of either being misinformed or very prejudiced. But I guess there's a point in there somewhere.
Yeah didn't find any point whatsoever.
I'm sure you just neglected to respond to my question posted somewhat early to this thread:
I have just one question for you, specifically, EvilDragon to answer, perhaps as scientifically as possible. My question is: “Which is more complex to modelle, an Imperial Bösendorfer or a bongo?”
Here let me rephrase it for you, to get my point across; now my question is: “Which is more difficult to modelle, an Imperial Bösendorfer or a conga?”
Amen Ptah Ra wrote:A drum, like a piano, is a percussion instrument!
Except the physics of it are completely different and require a completely different (a lot more complex) model.
You, EvilDragon, certainly, made your point: yeah, but! A whole world is full of "yeah buts" disgusting!
Piet, you've a wealth of information, obviously. I just need some time for me to process it.
Admittedly, if I am honest, some of my buttons were pushed —and I just reacted!
theinvisibleman wrote:I think genius at pianoteq could make an excellent modeled drum kit. Would be very interesting and a nice expansion to the business.
I'm sure they can do at least as good a job at creating a modelled kit as any other company, given the right time in development, if they want to do this. It doesn't sound like a job to be underestimated (by the buying public - not the developers that will understand far better than I possibly can).
I was impressed by the vibraphone enough to pick that one up a while back. Of course that is very different to a full drum emulation.
Off topic: I apologize for feeding the forum troll Amen in your thread, I was slow to realize what he is.
I mean I had just been called the T-word by Key Fumbler —but for no apparent reason. My feelings were hurt. I feel badly.
”Off topic: I apologize for feeding the forum troll Amen in your thread, I was slow to realize what he is.”
Piet, should this type of name calling ever become appropriate or ever even permitted in a public forum that is about software, simply if a view or two shared by a minority were expressed!
I'm not the best person to ask or discuss these things with, Amen. In fact, I'm the least best person. When irritated, I'm prone to much more brutal and offensive language than anything Key Fumbler ever wrote, and I have to admit, if you'd gone after me the way you been going after Key Fumbler, it would be deceiving the public if I said I wouldn't have been irritated. And things would have gotten ugly very quickly.
How did all this start anyway? Key Fumbler inadvertently included a line of yours in a quote, thereby making it seem as if it were a line of his. Was that it? Surely, a completely innocent and harmless error, I would think? Or was it something else?
Whatever the cause, can't we draw a line under it, disarm the tension, shake virtual hands and carry on talking music and pleasant stuff?
Hugs and kisses!
Piet
With just few hundred dollars or euros, you can pick from any of a handful of very satisfying drum libraries (of which Toontrack’s aren’t even the best, in my opinion), and do things like these little demos which I made:
Handheld Sound MAD White Kit
Handheld sound MAD Blue Kit
MixosaurusThe Handhelds (size: 21gig) cost $199, Mixosaurus (size: 120gig), alas no longer in development, costs or used to cost $399. And if you don’t feel like spending any money at all, you can download Sennheiser’s free Drum MicA (size: 4gig), which is also an amazingly competent collection of drumsamples, and do something like this.
Besides these (which just happen to be my personal favourites), there are, llike I said, a dozen or so really, really good other drum libraries none of which are inordinately expensive and all of which can provide most of the solutions to the problems that a DAW-based musician, seeking high-quality virtual drums, might be faced with. Provided these musicians take the time to learn these libraries of course and have some insight in how to create/simulate/suggest a convincing drum performance (the latter proviso often being a much more serious problem than any perceived lack of potential or quality in the libraries themselves).
Say Piet, some of your audio drum examples now appear missing; their links have been removed, maybe. Maybe some are out to get you too. Jeepers creepers, possibly I'm just paranoid.
Anyway I have decided I will post a few drum and Pianoteq performances (some mixes) of my own. Tentatively, I will begin to post some next month.
Since Izotope has recently released Neutron 3, an amateur mixer, such as myself, can easily upload a mix of Pianoteq, Superior Drummer and other instruments without my being extremely self conscious about it.
Candidly, I’ve long been impressed by your mix:
Taxi For B
If you ever decide to post to FXP Corner from your Steinway B Home (customized) preset that you used to make Taxi For B, to study I very much would appreciate it.
Thank you.
Anything harder than model this ?
Seriously, a Drumteq could double or even triple sales amounts for MODARTT overnight, more so than any Organteq ever possibly could! I firmly stand by this end user’s projection.
Obviously, from other drummers, this thread would receive much more positive input affirming an ostensible Drumteq project, if in fact more keyboardists who are Pianoteq end users, were themselves drummers also.
Keyboardists are just likely partial to keyboard instruments and software made available to them. The keyboardists have keyboard interests. And, put those first!
They’re going to go with their own gut level instincts, er inclinations.
Seriously, a Drumteq could double or even triple sales amounts for MODARTT overnight, more so than any Organteq ever possibly could! I firmly stand by this end user’s projection.
Yeah, anyone can just should random numbers without any substantial proof. Do you run Modartt's marketing now?
Do you run Modartt's marketing now?
Use some common sense.
Yeah, anyone can just should random numbers without any substantial proof.
No shoddy account is ever proven substantial or even necessary to point out your own errors.
Whenever you are responsible in reply to my question, "Which is more difficult to modelle, an Imperial Bösendorfer or a conga?” as relevant as it is to this one specific thread (that is) about, clearly, modeled drums, I will try my best then to give an answer to any of yours, positively!
Well folks and evil, I’ve a turnaround that is a complete change of heart. Now I like drum sounds from MODO DRUM. After an update, I find them very realistic; so much so, I got a licensed copy. That I plan to use in my very own jazz drum soloing. Man, the sounds are just that good. Do they sound Uber realistic?
Check out this YouTuber’s post:
https://youtu.be/ba6jG90MLRE
So...No one had any love for the Imageline DrumAxx thing? I just played around with it some more, after this thread was resurrected, and was surprised that I still think it sounds good with a lot of tweaking and some absolutely necessary reverb. Needs some work on the cymbals, I still think, or I haven't quite found a good ride cymbal yet--it can get exhausting going through all of the presets and swapping out items and editing all 16 parameters.
Also needs a "humanizer" for the velocity of the hits.
And the Muverb reverb from Mulab still sounds good to me, for drums and some pianos. A serious offering and still free of charge: Has controls lacking in many reverbs, such as separate channel predelays. Or maybe I like it because the name makes me think of putting a microphone up to a cow and running the line through a reverb unit out in a pasture:
https://www.mutools.com/muverb-product.html
Don't know why the audio demo only shows off the Great Hall preset. It can do much more subtle stuff.
But back to Drumaxx--No one even liked the snares in the crude demo I posted? With your volume turned up? Standing on your head?