The impulse response approach would work best. People do not pop
balloons as I understand it, they sweep a sine tone through all
frequencies to record the impulse response.

If you don't mind spending money, you could use the Pianoteq and tweak
its parameters to get, probably, more or less exactly what you want.
This is a physically modeled piano synthesizer for Mac/PC/Linux, VST,
RTAS, AU, ALSA, Jack. The struck or plucked string with damper pedal
down would resonate with the entire piano model, including all
individual strings and the soundboard, with pretty good reverb on top
of that.

Also have a look at Bilbao's prepiano opcode, you might be able to get
that to do what you want, it's got some really cool sounds.

Good luck,
Mike

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:40 PM, Aaron Krister Johnson
 wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm curious to collect ideas about how one would proceed to simuThe late a
> finger-plucked piano string.
>
> I like this sound, but I cringe at the idea of having to do hundred of
> samples!
>
> Thinking out loud---is the pluck/repluck/wgpluck/wgpluck2 suite of opcodes
> at all up to the task, given a set of reverbs/convolutions/filters after the
> initial plucked signal? Or is it, as I suspect, too
> 'artificial-harpsichordy'? Or, could I use some kind of special excitation
> source that has a piano like spectra for the 'aexcite' parameter of repluck,
> for instance?
>
> I was thinking that a large part of the piano timbre is the impulse response
> of the total piano with the dampers raised, IOW, doing a 'convolution
> reverb' using the impulse response of a piano with the dampers
> raised.....so, to produce an IR of my piano, do I have to buy a balloon, pop
> it above the piano, and record the decay? Maybe putting 'pluck' or its ilk
> through this would be interesting anyway....
>
> Secondly, would some kind of modal synthesis (using 'mode') do the trick?
> How would one find the resonating modes for a piano? Is there some kind of
> tool withing Csound that I can use to find modal frequencies, or is it best
> to use some standalone specialized GUI tool?
>
> Thanks,
> AKJ
>
> --
> Aaron Krister Johnson
> http://www.akjmusic.com
> http://www.untwelve.org
>
>

Regaring repluck, you would want to use the attack waveform for the axcite parameter for the plucked string - so perhaps a recording or simulation of a finger hitting a damped string. Then use the output of that string as the axcite for the rest of the strings (plus perhaps a weighted feedback of all the strings?).

----- Original message -----
> Hi all,
>
> I'm curious to collect ideas about how one would proceed to simulate a
> finger-plucked piano string.
>
> I like this sound, but I cringe at the idea of having to do hundred of
> samples!
>
> Thinking out loud---is the pluck/repluck/wgpluck/wgpluck2 suite of
> opcodes at all up to the task, given a set of
> reverbs/convolutions/filters after the initial plucked signal? Or is it,
> as I suspect, too 'artificial-harpsichordy'? Or, could I use some kind
> of special excitation source that has a piano like spectra for the
> 'aexcite' parameter of repluck, for instance?
>
> I was thinking that a large part of the piano timbre is the impulse
> response of the total piano with the dampers raised, IOW, doing a
> 'convolution reverb' using the impulse response of a piano with the
> dampers raised.....so, to produce an IR of my piano, do I have to buy a
> balloon, pop it above the piano, and record the decay? Maybe putting
> 'pluck' or its ilk through this would be interesting anyway....
>
> Secondly, would some kind of modal synthesis (using 'mode') do the trick?
> How would one find the resonating modes for a piano? Is there some kind
> of tool withing Csound that I can use to find modal frequencies, or is
> it best to use some standalone specialized GUI tool?
>
> Thanks,
> AKJ
>
> --
> Aaron Krister Johnson
> http://www.akjmusic.com
> http://www.untwelve.org
>
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