Interview with Pianoteq author:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/05/makers-of-pianoteq-talk-piano-modeling-developing-for-linux/

I have a Roland V-piano and I must say the pianoteq is bloody good - running it very close if not better on certain patches.

>Logics Sculpture

Is it Apple only?

Stuff like pianoteq is the beging of a new pyridine soft synths were physical molding starts to get good. Good as in real. They have been at it for the last couple of years. I am quite surprised that I have not seen anyone take advantage of CUDA cores.

NAMM is coming up I am sure there will be some new molding synths.

I have not checked out AAS for a long time they also made a cool software modular system called Tasman that all their products are is biased off of.

Kyma is also very interesting if you want the nuts and bults of modal synthesis, but its an expensive hardware option.

And the legendary Yamaha VL-1, Brass uses the same algorithm so its kind of funny that they are making it sound all new technology. Brass licensed the technology from yamaha.

Physical Molding has been a niche market for synths for a while, it sonds like a new technology but they have been hacking away at it for over a decade. It never really caught on in the marketplace that wants bigger sample libraries or the latest fad soft synth.

The guys that really used it too its full extent are the woodwind controller guys.

@bitcrusher

I can tell you one core word - "tablets".
With cheap and fast tablets whole synth market must be reorganized.
Moving actual synths to the software and starting to make really good keyboards with really sturdy controls.
Unfortunately, such words as "optimization" and "size" had been forgotten lately.
So, we have bunch of huge libraries and CPU hungry synths.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev
Look here : http://www.spectrasonics.net/contest/contest-omg-1.php

http://www.applied-acoustics.com/chromaphone/overview/

Good job VK! Nice find! Will check this out... sounds like it could be Synful for Percussion!

@johnnym

re: CUDA and most video guys have never heard of audio ;p and as we hurtle towards AVID ditching Pro Tools and making it a shared prog with MC - scary lol WIth FCP rapidly and inexorably heading to history in the pro environment and AVID merging their video and audio products, I forsee a bit of a bunfight with editors with audio aspirations and dubbing mixers.

Sakura

http://flstudio.image-line.com/help/html/plugins/Sakura.htm

Not sample free, but the following all made waves within the scoring community through the use off variants of physical modeling technology. I think they qualify, feel free to remove if you disagree.

Synful Orchestra (most of the instruments in the orchestra)
http://www.synful.com/

Sample Modeling (Saxes, Trumpet, Trombone)
http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products.php

Also, not a piece of software, but the Roland V-Piano has its own form of physical modeling that is distinct from Pianoteq.

Incidentally, I was more impressed with the controller keyboard of the V-Piano (one of my favorites I've played to date) than the sound. I don't like the timbre of either the V-Piano or Pianoteq (at least not as of a version or two ago).

But timre is affected by too many parameters to be summed up in that fashion. If you want that level of detail, you could pay my usual audio consulting fees. Or catch me at NAMM between sessions and I'll do my best to give you the short version. :)

@almcomposer I'm sending a private message about why your concerns (though likely in many other situations) aren't the reason I responded the way I mentioned in this case. Didn't want to clutter the thread. :)