What will happen to real pianos????

I think that's an interesting question to ask even now.  With pianoteq, or even any sampled solution.. 

Let's say for practice, would you rather get a small upright, or a good keyboard controller + vsti, or a good dp?  It's hard to say, because a tiny upright will cost more, and also limits practicing to regular hours.  With vsti or dp solution, you get half acceptable keybed (sometimes inacceptable), with livable sound that won't tear your ears off.  And ultimately, you are practicing, so which will improve your playing more?  It's really hard to say.

For technique, you'll always need the real thing, no doubt about it.  But to just learn a song, or to develop your understanding of a song (for jazz improv, etc) perhaps the accuracy of the action, sound isn't so important, as it's more of a mental activity.  But of course, it'll be better with an acoustic grand, etc...  just saying for bare minimum.

For me, I learn faster on an acoustic because the sound keeps me interested, and it always sounds fresh.  This is mostly a problem in sampled pianos, but also to a certain degree in physmod.. there's just something about an actual audio phenomenon taking place (in a real acoustic) that is physically different from hearing it from speakers or headphones.

That's not to say improvements can't be made on the piano..  there are companies that are still improving on the structure / technology, all that is cool.  Seems the reason manufacturers need to keep to certain traditions is to maintain backward compatibility with many music written for piano..  seems to make sense to me, but I guess there's nothing stopping them from making something very different. 

Problem is, if something is different enough, then new techniques need to be developed and taught, new music needs to be written to exploit it, etc.  Cool for a new instrument, but seems tough for something as established as a piano.  But as Glenn pointed out, it happened with the electric guitar, so why not for piano, right?  Actually, it already happened with piano through ep and synths, but anyway..

But it's sort of like cinema and tv.  tv didn't replace cinema, it just became its own thing.  It's not one thing over the other I think.  To say that some day technology will replace acoustics is a misunderstanding.  That's what synth builders said in the 70's.  They started off modeling acoustic audio phenomenons, and ended up with an instrument of its own.

The beauty of any instrument is in its limitations.  It is a set grammar, a set of rules.  And you write or speak whatever you want with it.  Just as nit picking the faults and inefficiencies of the english language is of little value, searching for ways to improve an engraved set of rules seems counterintuitive, especially because those rules are valuable because they are solidly engraved.  When you play basketball, those rules better stay consistent, or the definition of the game fades.  So, while I think it is important to ponder the possibilities of an alternate piano, the tradition of piano is best left as it is.  We just add new things to it.

Impressive reflection !!!

kensuguro, are you the writer of Obama's discouses?

:-)

When cheap upright acoustic pianos no longer sound as good or play as well as a modeled piano, that will soon be the end of them.

The clavichord was an acoustic instrument that was virtually replaced by the piano and became extinct.

There are a few clavs being used today, but they were built to reproduce the sound of the music that was written for them.

Physmod is getting better, while the cheap acoustic pianos seem to be getting worse.

The technology of an acoustic piano, no matter how poorly built, is still very complex.

If DP's haven't already replaced (or started to replace) the cheap acoustic pianos, then why are there so many DP's in existence, compared to the year 1990 when I bought my first Technics?

I won't suggest that physmod pianos will replace acoustic pianos suddenly or even in many years, but the change (at least partial) seems as inexorable and inevitable as the death of the clavichord.  Well the clav didn't quite die off either - there are still many of them in our living rooms - aren't there?  LOL

The biggest drawback I've encountered with an acoustic (I owned a Yamaha G2 for about 27 years), is recording one.  The requisite equipment is cost prohibitive.  Recording a DP or one using physmod is far simpler and cheaper, and the recorded midi file can be manipulated far easier than the recorded wave file from an acoustic.  Unless you add Yamaha's costly diskclavier system.

This question is not so straightforward, though. Let me remind to some esteemed discouteers that the mankind not always holds correlation between a better device and a better result this device can produce. Watches with mechanical movement, fountain pens, vintage cars… fur coats… (should I continue?). These goods are rather a matter of respect, as well as an acoustic upright at our apartment. Or it’s a kind of ineradicable snobbery.

It seemed to be not correct to create such a sequence: replacing a clavichord by a piano is comparable to replacing a piano by its electronic emulation. You see, the historical period of a clavichord was the very beginning of “classical music”, when means of expression were at their early stage. As far as new tracks of virgin soil were been brought under cultivation composers and performers demanded more and more sophisticated instruments. That is why a clavichord wasn’t REPLACED by piano. It’s still there, in its late Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. But it’s alive today — because it seems to be incorrect to perform on contemporary piano pieces by Bach or J. Kuhnau composed for a clavichord.

But what about a grand piano? Do contemporary pianists demand a more sophisticated instrument? The answer is: no, they don’t. Look at philharmonic placards — Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Skryabin, Rakhmaninov… — this music is top rated. A piano was perfect enough for that time. It hasn’t changed dramatically, only a slow improvement took place (by the way, mentioned here and there in posts S. Erard is one of genius inventors…). Yes, “recording a DP or one using physmod is far simpler and cheaper, and the recorded midi file can be manipulated far easier than the recorded wave file from an acoustic” (Glenn NK). But I’m afraid it would be very difficult in the nearest future to make a professional classical pianist sit down at a physmod controller, even with perfect mechanics, on a philharmonic stage. I’m sure it’s not due to an ordinary snobbery.

(However such a piano performer could agree to play physmod piano, but under condition of accompaniment by Quantum Leap East West Symphonic Orchestra.)

Maybe we should start working on the design of an acoustic piano that sounds like Pianoteq....?  If I could only have one, I'd rather have a mediocre acoustic than Pianoteq... Why ?  For when the power goes out... or the power supply... or during a storm when I don't want to chance it...  or when I want to reach in and strum or prepare...  but I am fortunate to have both.  And what about the romantic atmosphere of an acoustic....? ...and you don't hear the fan... or have to turn anything off... and you can hear it sympathizing with other odd sounds in the room, like when I stepped on an old carpet tack......  ( ...though if a Michelle Pfeiffer clone came with every download and I could play like Jack Baker.... )

not really...  historically, pieces that work only with specific instruments have not done too well.  It's not a crazy idea at all, it's actually the first thing that everyone does.. you write pieces to take advantage of the peculiarities of a new / interesting instrument.

It's artistically important I think, and it's a noble act.  But pieces like that are usually short lived because unless that specific feature becomes standardized, the piece cannot be played back properly, and so it becomes history.  A recording may remain, but that's pretty much it.. 

It's like encoding.  Let's say you encode audio in the newest, awesomest lossless audio codec.  If that codec got lost, and was forgotten in 2 years, your audio will never ever be played back again..  which sort of sucks.

See, what I don't understand is that some people (not just you Beto-Music) seem to expect strange things from a physmod synth...  variable timbre, out of this world controllability to make surreal sounds...  to me, it all sounds like what you'd get, or what we've been getting from just a general synthesizer for that past 40 years.  A general synthesizer (sample based, hybrid, subtractive, additive, fm, pm, granular, spectral, etc..) is much better at creating new sounds like that.  I mean, a physical model is not built for things like that in the first place.

I would much rather have a physmod piano that did what it's supposed to do... model whatever instrument it's trying to mimic, as best as technology allows.  If that can't be attained, then all the bells and whistles really don't mean anything.

bach knew only a minute portion of what we now know about music, and we have all the cool toys!  lol, na just kidding.  I too wonder what some of the past greats would have done with what we have now, knowing what we know now.

Yes, but some" technoholics" persons in this forum probably don't work after a power cut.

:-)

Let me get somewhat off topic... For my lifetime I have been loving electronic music. This passion started whe I was three or four years old with the sound of "Switched-on Bach" of Wendy Carlos. So electronics and music were my way to go. But there was also a not-too-good spinet and an old upright piano, horribly out of tune, within my reach, and my parents had a lot of records with "classical" music played on conventional instruments that I listened to occasionally. In my early years I preferred the "pure" electronic sounds as children usually choose simple milk chocolate over an aromatic apple. Within the last fourty years the electronic sounds became more complex and so did my way of hearing. The extra "noises" and irragularities became more and more important. Samplers and their capability to endlessly repeat recorded matter like notes from "real" instruments made us aware of the "noisy" transients, the repitition of which made natural sounds machine-like. First that was an interesting effect, but musicians got tired of it and searched for a new quality of uniqueness of any single note that always had been given with natural instruments.
Physical modelling gives us back this uniqueness by emulating nature itself. Maybe the noise of releasing dampers is not desirable for everybody, but the point is, there is an actual want for more than "pure" sound of simple oscillators that produce simple waveforms.
Will real pianos survive? Why not? There are so many ways of perception that need to be supplied; It's the inner dimension of sound that I tried to explain above, but there is more than that, as Glenn NK suggested when mentioning the impressiveness of grand pianos (or Igor with the watches). Nowadays there are still musicians preferring tube amplifiers although they are voluminous, expensive, energy-guzzling and shock sensitive. Is it for the sound? Don't howl me down, but I am convinced you can build transistor amplifiers that sound exactly the same. No. It's the magic glow of the tubes, their physical warmth, It's how they feel in your hand when you replace one and how the wondrous metal construction inside the glass bulb looks. And it's made of components that are "handy". That's what a real piano is. Made of components that are handy. You could even do some repairing yourself. You know the components and what they do and what they sound like (hammers falling back, dampers and so on).
There will be less real pianos being sold as there are more economical ways to get their sound; but there will always be people who have space and money to get the real thing and who do not want to abandon the "real" experience of as many stimuli as possible.