Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazz Paladin
Project SAM's stuff isn't a slouch, I've used it before, and very usable. I just resolved a number years ago to avoid large sample libraries after I started seeing the potential of physical modeling.
I guess the downside for me is the vast amount of storage space they take up, as well as how long it takes to reinstall all those massive libraries if your HD ever crashes...No fun at all.
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I guess it depends on how many sample libraries you have and how often your hard disk goes kaput. I've been using EWQLSO and Ivory Italian Grand for 5 years and only had to reinstall them once -- not a big deal in my opinion, but of course it multiplies if you have scores of libraries instead of just two. The nice thing is that if you've got the RAM, you can load dozens of samples in at once; it sounds like that could be tricky to pull off with physical modeling unless you had a really high-end machine.
That said, the beautiful Sample Modeling brass instrument demos give me hope that physical modeling will solve some of the challenges for faithfully reproducing winds and bowed string instruments, and in a few cases already has. Their strings and flutes are a little weaker, and still sound a bit "synthy" to me.
Are you aware of any complete packages of orchestral instruments (including ensembles) using the physical modeling approach? Sample Modeling sounds great in general, but the catalog isn't yet complete, and purchasing all of their instruments would be over $1000 I think.
In contrast, you can purchase a good starter orchestral sample library from Project SAM or VSL for a few hundred. Depends on what you're doing with it for sure, but for many people sample libraries are probably still the way to go for an all-around package, at least until the modeling technology develops a bit further and the prices come down.