Physical Modeling

In contrast to spectral modeling, physical modeling synthesis can be regarded as modeling sound at its source, thereby enabling parsimonious representations and sonic manipulations following closely the physics of sound production. To the delight of musical instrument performers, physical modeling synthesis naturally provides the complete playability range for virtual acoustic instruments. While there is no fundamental reason why spectral modeling (or sampling synthesis) cannot provide the same range of playability--any effect can be recorded and indexed--it is simply impractical to do that much work for most instruments. The required effort is prohibitive even to obtain initial recordings which span all possible variations in tone and expression, let alone to subsequently model them as spectral components and transformations on spectral components.

In the following sections, we will review the topic of physical modeling synthesis of acoustic instruments, beginning with basic strings (the simplest case), and continuing on with overviews of current physical synthesis models for selected instrument types.