In this video, synthesist Davide Puxeddu shares an exploration of the ambient and cinematic side of the Erica Synths Steampipe.
The Erica Synths Steampipe is a physical modelling synthesizer, developed in collaboration with Dutch company 112.dB. It’s an 8-voice polyphonic instrument that can mimic the rich, organic sounds of wind and string instruments, using physical modeling.
The results of physical modeling synthesis can be very different than other types of synthesis, especially for creating realistic acoustic type sounds and sounds that get into ‘uncanny valley’ territory.
Check out the demo, and share your thoughts on the Erica Synths Steampipe in the comments!
via matrixsynth
It sounds good but I find Expressive E Osmose’s Haken Audio Engine much better at these types of sounds and it provides an actually good MPE keyboard for the same price as a Steampipe which is ridiculous.
This does something that’s impossible on the Osmose – it makes it easy to create new sounds using dozens of hands-on knobs.
While that may be ‘ridiculous’ to you, lack of hands-on control and the complexity of EaganMatrix are the biggest complaints people have about the Osmose.
The Osmose in its current state is great, though, for keyboard players that want what’s for most an expressive preset synth.
I agree with you there, EagenMatrix is pain to use. Osmose is working on dedicated overlays that will make it much easier. In the meanwhile, there are a lot of premapped macros accessible on the Osmose itself which radically changes the sound. And you can CC control them with another controller if you don’t like the knobs (the knobs are terrible I admit).
And you don’t have to be a keyboard player to enjoy Osmose! I use it for percussive stuff a lot and pads. It’s like all my fingers replace the traditional envelopes most synths have. Going from on-off switches to continuous control is such a huge change.
Would be nice to try Steampipe out one day for sure though.
According to Expressive E the Osmose is getting its own Eagan Matrix Editor for making new patches. They teased a bit of it on Sonic State a while back if I’m not mistaken
I love my physical modeling synths, but we have some distance to go yet before people know HOW to listen to those sounds. What we find cutting-edge and intriguing, day-to-day listeners find weird, even off-putting. We’re still missing context. Jazz and ambient doings won’t do the job. Someone, or several someones, need to find the path to making the method rock. That will be the A-HA! moment.
sorry bro, i just downloaded some 808 and trap hihat samples. apologize or I will download some vuvuzela samples too. and pray I do not use autotune
I agree with you though… the only way I see people enjoy them without question is within otherworldly soundtracks for movies like Dune (Osmose was used a lot). Besides that, the sounds are considered “world” or “oriental” and are segmented away. Maybe they do better in non-western markets?
100 percent wrong. What cloud are you on guy? Did you even listen to the demo. I don’t think so.
sound lovely
J’ai un Steampipe depuis un an environs, et j’aime beaucoup. Il m’inspire énormément et il est facile à utiliser. Cette vidéo représente bien le Steampipe. Je pensais que je ne l’utiliserais pas beaucoup, mais il est tellement inspirant que j’ai facilement le réflexe de l’utiliser avec ses sons apaisants.
I don’t see why. AAS plugins are as good if not better, 8 voices of polyphony is ridiculous low for dsp synths and no multitimbrality is a disgrace. So on the one hand you have the pots, on the other the hassle to connect it..
This is for sure the best Steampipe demo I’ve heard. I’m a windsynth player, and had high hopes for this one, but it seems to be limited in practice.
Steampipe goes into uncharted territory very easily. I enjoy layering it with very heavy tones. It is also really fun to use.
Whoa ….WHOA, take it easy on all that fx!
I had the opportunity to play one of these at the local synth shop. It is a very playable instrument. There are a lot of options out there for Karplus-Strong style synthesis that all can pretty much achieve similar sounds but I have yet to experience any that were as much fun. This one’s for the knob-tweakers less than the sound designers out there.
If you wanna try the concept, the Erica Synths Steampipe uses the same core Karplus-Strong physical modeling concepts.
If you own Reaktor, you likely already have it in your “Factory Library.” under Steam Pipe and Steam Pipe 2. Martijn Zwartjes from 112dB name is on the v1 plugin ui. The second version has most of the parameters the hardware has although obviously it wont sound the same, the plugin sounds more “tame” imho.