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Literature, Scientific Papers and Analysis of Virtual Instruments

Jett Hitt said:
I fear that someday there is going to be a great setback wherein vast stores of knowledge simply disappear because no one had the good sense to write them down, a sort of apocalyptic Alexandria.
Click to expand...
I fear this too and as far as release dates go, I’m creating a chronology as I go and may publish that as an appendix. (I’ll likely put it online as well but it has the same issue of likely disappearing.) The release dates for major libraries at least have a lot of redundancy, with reviews, press releases, and chatter on forums and social media that you can usually track it down even if the companies themselves are coy about the information, but each library takes googling and sorting through the hits, which is fine until you hit a library with a common name that makes googling challenging.
 
S.M.F said:
Hey,

I didn't really know which category was the right to post this thread, so I'm just going with the Welcome to VI one.

I'm currently doing a lot of research on the matter of Virtual Instruments for my bachelor thesis, and what I can find is very limited or outdated.
There is lots of literature on analogue or software synthesizers, most a bit outdated, but overall very little I can find regarding sampled, hybrid and virtual orchestral instruments.

Does anyone know any literature or good databases for extensive research?
Hope to hear from you guys.

All the best,
Sebastian
Click to expand...

Hi Sebastian,

You may also find helpful content on our portal:

Vi-Control

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Vi-Control Community

vi-control.net vi-control.net

VI-Control – A short history

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Welcome to VI-Control

vi-control.net vi-control.net

MIDI mockups – brief history

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Etc.

Hope this helps!

André
 
S.M.F said:
Works that I've read so far or I am currently reading:

The Synthesizer - Mark Vail (2014)
Sound Synthesis and Sampling - Martin Russ (2019)
Software Synthesizer : the definitive guide to virtual instruments - Jim Aikin (2003)
Designing Software Synthesizer Plug-Ins in C++ - Will C. Pirkle (2014)
Click to expand...
Add the classic Musical Applications of Microprocessors, by Hal Chamberlain (Hayden Book Company, 1980)
 
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Kyle Preston said:
This Sound On Sound series is a goldmine of info for sampling and virtual instruments.
Click to expand...
I see that they look back to musique concrète as the genesis for sampling, though philosophically Schaeffer's concept of the sound object is opposite to that of the VI where the goal is to mimic acoustic reality. It would be interesting to consider how these two philosophical perspectives -- acousmatic vs mimesis -- have interwoven and influenced hybrid virtual instrument development.
 
rhizomusicosmos said:
I see that they look back to musique concrète as the genesis for sampling, though philosophically Schaeffer's concept of the sound object is opposite to that of the VI where the goal is to mimic acoustic reality. It would be interesting to consider how these two philosophical perspectives -- acousmatic vs mimesis -- have interwoven and influenced hybrid virtual instrument development.
Click to expand...
A good example being the Spitfire Albion series, which contain both as major elements; and Spitfire sees the two working together as a standard part of modern media composition.
 
LamaRose said:
Go to the source. I'd contact as many developers as possible and ask their respective opinion/plans regarding your topic/interest.
Click to expand...
I don't know what country or curriculum is involved in this Bachelor thesis (calling it that suggests at least that it is not a UK university); but I'm not sure that pursuing in depth research to the point where conclusions can be drawn about future developments will be possible within the specific timeframe. In the UK, typically undergraduate theses may have some advance preparation, but they are largely completed within less than a year. I don't know what discipline is involved, or what appropriate research methodologies might be appropriate.

At the moment, it sounds like more general background information is required to form a sense of the terrain in order to facilitate forming a research question/puzzle.

But, on the other hand, if you don't ask, you'll never know how far people are prepared to co-operate. Speaking for myself, an undergraduate thesis that doesn't lead to so much as a publication is not the sort of thing I'd want to make sacrifices for outside of a charitable disposition; and developers are busy and face constant financial risks. A good deal of research would be required in advance in order to present oneself as being worth talking to.

Or, put another way, this is a great suggestion for later, which may be how you intended it, but it is necessary to understand more of the background before making a plausible approach, and before formulating questions and methods appropriate the research aims and the realistically achievable results.

On the other hand, I'm a philosopher and, in the strictest sense, we philosophers don't do research (we just read what other people have thought about an issue to aid us in thinking about it - and to get in some citations and avoid trying to reinvent the wheel); so, what do I know?

Put more simply, this poor soul is doing an undergraduate thesis; don't load them up with all the responsibilities of writing groundbreaking research. At this stage, they just need to know what they are dealing with a bit better. Astounding the world can wait for a week or two.

But maybe such things are very different in the degree programmes of other educational traditions...
 
Hi. Over the past 20+ years I’ve read (and re-read) a lot of scientific papers on virtual instruments, and bought and studied a lot of not-cheap commercial VIs to find out how they work. You’ve gotten a lot of good suggestions on this thread so far. On the academic side, here are some topics and names you might want to follow up on: Spectral interpolation synthesis, Roger Dannenberg, spectral modeling, SaxEx, CSEMPs, Eduardo Reck Miranda, KTH performance modeling rules, concatenative synthesis.

I think you’re going to find, if you haven’t already, that the academic and commercial worlds of VIs run in parallel universes. Commercial VI developers have competitive reasons for having their products remain black boxes. Academic researchers don’t have the bread to keep track of what commercial developers are up to. It’s only in the last few years that academic papers have started acknowledging that “concatenative sampling synthesis” is here to stay as the dominant technique for VI music-making. And yet the academic world is full of tantalizing ideas for taking VIs and VI-related music production to new levels.

Kent mentioned useful books by Gilreath, Huber, Pejrolo, and McGuire. Even though some of them were written by people in academia, mostly they cover current practices in the commercial world, and for that reason they need regular revising. For books that are more theoretical and forward-looking, have a look at the books written or edited by Eduardo Reck Miranda.

None of these books is cheap. Here are some freely available theses and dissertations that attempt to say something general about VIs:

Furduj, Boris (2019) Virtual orchestration: a film composer's creative practice

Sundstrup, Leif (2009) The virtual orchestra: a systematic method of realising music composition through sample-based orchestral simulation

Hu, Ning (2013) Automatic Construction of Synthetic Musical Instruments and Performers

Somewhere in my various stashes I’ve got a few more like these. And if you think you might be interested, I’ll be glad to see if I can make a pseudo-bibliography of the more specialized academic papers in my stash.

Greg Smith
 
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Kent said:
There was a similar thread a few years ago that might help:

History of the Orchestra Sample

Hi everyone ! For my thesis, i'm looking for some informations of the history of the sample (basically, all the virtual orchestral instruments). I wanna know how the first ones were conceived etc If you can help me, I would gladly appreciate :) Also I will have some question on how you guys...
vi-control.net vi-control.net

and a more fun-based one:

Is there a timeline of the history of the releases of significant orchestral libraries since the beginning?

I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please
vi-control.net vi-control.net

And some more:

Credible sources on history of VI's

Dear Forum I need some academically trustworthy online sources on the history of samplers, virtual instruments, and physical modeling plugins; in addition, the history of using the aforementioned musical devices in: film scores and music for media (union disputes), musical theatre, various...
vi-control.net vi-control.net

Is there a timeline of the history of the releases of significant orchestral libraries since the beginning?

I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please
vi-control.net vi-control.net

Here's a great, seminal paper on the Hyperorchestra, by Sergi Casanelles:
www.academia.edu

The Hyperorchestra: A Study of a Virtual Ensemble in Film Music that Transcends Reality

This dissertation analyzes how Contemporary music for audiovisual media integrates with the concept of Hyperreality, as defined by Jean Baudrillard. The study begins with a philosophical investigation for the ontology of the concept of hyperreality,
www.academia.edu

And in general you should check out academic journal-resources like MAMI:

Music and the Moving Image on JSTOR

Music and the Moving Image is an online journal dedicated to the relationship between the entire universe of music and moving images (film, television, music vi...
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

And JSMG:

Some practical-textbooky options:

Gilreath
Amazon product ASIN 0240814134
Huber
Amazon product ASIN 0367549980
McGuire/Matějů
Amazon product ASIN 0367362740
Pejrolo/Derosa
Amazon product ASIN 113880150X
Some miscellaneous resources I used for my graduate creative research challenge grant:

History of the Fairlight

Basic Sampling Timeline

New Series: The Art Of Sampling

Part 1: The Pioneers Of Sampling (Video)
sonicstate.com sonicstate.com

'Pre-Virtual Instrument' History

Also, this very forum is a primary source! (Do some digging... probably 60+% of the libraries you are considering come from companies that got their start and/or early support from here, c. 2005 and on)
Click to expand...
Amazing thank you! I'll look through all of them, quite excited to see what I'll find.
 
Kent said:
@S.M.F what exactly is your thesis on? Or are you not narrowed down enough to a topic yet?

I did a bachelor thesis myself. I spent 4 semesters in a self-directed study learning everything I could about the Beatles and their music, but my thesis was on the rather narrow topic of:
The Beatles’ Evolving Use of Vocal Harmony and Background Vocals as a Compositional Element

...And even this I felt was a bit broad (as I didn't have as much space/time to really dive in as deeply as I wanted to in ~50 double-spaced pages).

So, if you've not already narrowed down your topic here because you're not ready to, that's fine...but I would still artificially limit what you're trying to learn about at a given time and try to go deep into a few specific areas rather than broadly into that direction. The tidbits and hooks you find as you do your deep dives should influence the ultimate nuance of your direction.
Click to expand...
I want to focus of the evolution of sampled virtual instruments and mainly explore the possibilities of where boundaries can be pushed further and what is to come. But I think I'll also have to look into physical modeling and synthesis for that.

I think to narrow it more down I'll focus on string instruments and all methods which are used to recreate realistic emotive performances of these instruments.
 
gamma-ut said:
The AES digital library. I'm guessing you will have access via your institution.

Have you tried Google Scholar with basic search terms like "sample library"/"virtual instrument"? You get false positives but I found a couple of papers and theses that offer up citation and reference chains that would expand out into a reasonable list.
Click to expand...
on the AES library it was very scarce
but I'll look into google scholar - thanks!
 
Dansereal said:
Hi. Over the past 20+ years I’ve read (and re-read) a lot of scientific papers on virtual instruments, and bought and studied a lot of not-cheap commercial VIs to find out how they work. You’ve gotten a lot of good suggestions on this thread so far. On the academic side, here are some topics and names you might want to follow up on: Spectral interpolation synthesis, Roger Dannenberg, spectral modeling, SaxEx, CSEMPs, Eduardo Reck Miranda, KTH performance modeling rules, concatenative synthesis.

I think you’re going to find, if you haven’t already, that the academic and commercial worlds of VIs run in parallel universes. Commercial VI developers have competitive reasons for having their products remain black boxes. Academic researchers don’t have the bread to keep track of what commercial developers are up to. It’s only in the last few years that academic papers have started acknowledging that “concatenative sampling synthesis” is here to stay as the dominant technique for VI music-making. And yet the academic world is full of tantalizing ideas for taking VIs and VI-related music production to new levels.

Kent mentioned useful books by Gilreath, Huber, Pejrolo, and McGuire. Even though some of them were written by people in academia, mostly they cover current practices in the commercial world, and for that reason they need regular revising. For books that are more theoretical and forward-looking, have a look at the books written or edited by Eduardo Reck Miranda.

None of these books is cheap. Here are some freely available theses and dissertations that attempt to say something general about VIs:

Furduj, Boris (2019) Virtual orchestration: a film composer's creative practice

Sundstrup, Leif (2009) The virtual orchestra: a systematic method of realising music composition through sample-based orchestral simulation

Hu, Ning (2013) Automatic Construction of Synthetic Musical Instruments and Performers

Somewhere in my various stashes I’ve got a few more like these. And if you think you might be interested, I’ll be glad to see if I can make a pseudo-bibliography of the more specialized academic papers in my stash.

Greg Smith
Click to expand...
Thank you sou much! I don't think you realize how helpful this is. Even just with terms like concatenative sampling synthesis, I was able to find scientific papers, which on first view seem to discuss the concept of creating complex virtual sampled instruments from a scientific perspective so exactly what I was looking for.

I have a lot of reading to with the papers that you've named me and some others I found. But still I'd be amazing if you are willing to make the effort to give me such a pseudo-bibliography with everything you could find regarding this field. 🙏

All the best,
Sebastian Müller
 
I just want to say thank you to every single one of you, who took the time to chip in! I've only been part of this forum for a few weeks but the cordiality and mutual support within this community is awesome
creativeforge said:
Hi Sebastian,

You may also find helpful content on our portal:

Vi-Control

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Vi-Control Community

vi-control.net vi-control.net

VI-Control – A short history

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Welcome to VI-Control

vi-control.net vi-control.net

MIDI mockups – brief history

vi-control.net vi-control.net

Etc.

Hope this helps!

André
Click to expand...
 
Kent said:
There was a similar thread a few years ago that might help:

History of the Orchestra Sample

Hi everyone ! For my thesis, i'm looking for some informations of the history of the sample (basically, all the virtual orchestral instruments). I wanna know how the first ones were conceived etc If you can help me, I would gladly appreciate :) Also I will have some question on how you guys...
vi-control.net vi-control.net

and a more fun-based one:

Is there a timeline of the history of the releases of significant orchestral libraries since the beginning?

I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please
vi-control.net vi-control.net

And some more:

Credible sources on history of VI's

Dear Forum I need some academically trustworthy online sources on the history of samplers, virtual instruments, and physical modeling plugins; in addition, the history of using the aforementioned musical devices in: film scores and music for media (union disputes), musical theatre, various...
vi-control.net vi-control.net

Is there a timeline of the history of the releases of significant orchestral libraries since the beginning?

I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please
vi-control.net vi-control.net

Here's a great, seminal paper on the Hyperorchestra, by Sergi Casanelles:
www.academia.edu

The Hyperorchestra: A Study of a Virtual Ensemble in Film Music that Transcends Reality

This dissertation analyzes how Contemporary music for audiovisual media integrates with the concept of Hyperreality, as defined by Jean Baudrillard. The study begins with a philosophical investigation for the ontology of the concept of hyperreality,
www.academia.edu

And in general you should check out academic journal-resources like MAMI:

Music and the Moving Image on JSTOR

Music and the Moving Image is an online journal dedicated to the relationship between the entire universe of music and moving images (film, television, music vi...
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

And JSMG:

Some practical-textbooky options:

Gilreath
Amazon product ASIN 0240814134
Huber
Amazon product ASIN 0367549980
McGuire/Matějů
Amazon product ASIN 0367362740
Pejrolo/Derosa
Amazon product ASIN 113880150X
Some miscellaneous resources I used for my graduate creative research challenge grant:

History of the Fairlight

Basic Sampling Timeline

New Series: The Art Of Sampling

Part 1: The Pioneers Of Sampling (Video)
sonicstate.com sonicstate.com

'Pre-Virtual Instrument' History

Also, this very forum is a primary source! (Do some digging... probably 60+% of the libraries you are considering come from companies that got their start and/or early support from here, c. 2005 and on)
Click to expand...
The Hyperorchestra paper is gold!
 
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