Physis® Technology vs. Sampled Sound Technology: What’s the difference?
Sampled Sound Technology in our hybrid and digital organs records a sound and stores that information on a hard drive. Each time you press a key, you are essentially performing the same function of hitting ‘play’ on a tape deck. When you depress that key, you are hitting ‘stop’. For as long as you own an instrument using sampled sound technology, the recording the manufacturer stored inside will always be the same recording you will always hear. Ask any pipe organist, and they will tell you that much of the beauty of the instrument comes from its continuously changing sound, tuning, nuances.
Our Physis® Technology
No note ever plays exactly the same way twice. Sympathetic resonance from other neighboring pipes, slight variations in air pressure, and the relationship of pipes playing in ensemble are all characteristics that Physis® Technology tackles. It’s not just about how a pipe organ sounds, but also how one acts that is reflected in our digital organs.
How it Works
Physis® Technology uses no recording to produce it’s sounds. Instead, the engineers at Viscount successfully created a series of complex algorithms (computer code) that build each individual pipe from ground up in real time immediately, faster than the human mind can recognize any delay. With the introduction of Physis® Technology, Viscount has succeeded in reproducing sound waves just as they would emanate from a windblown pipe organ—each with its own autonomy, individuality and unique characteristics.
Viscount’s UNICO, SONUS, and OUVERTURE instrument, using Physis®, produces a reproduction of each note’s sound wave in our digital organs just as it sounded in the original organ. Since there are no “breaks” or “split-points”, as found in many sampled sound technologies, the progression of sound across the keyboard is accurate, smooth, and natural. However, the shapes of Physis® sound waves are open, thus, making it possible to edit, modify and extend their structure. They produce a tri-dimensional sound. Physis® speaks, not just with “Left-to-Right” motion, as currently done with older technologies, but also with “Front-to-Back” and “Up and Down” motion as they do in real windblown pipes.
Physis® and It’s Quality and Adjustability
Currently, there are 72 separate parameters with that number continuing to grow with each update; the parameters make up the sound of each individual pipe of each rank. These parameters include temperature of room, humidity, diameter of the bore of the pipe, size of the pipe opening, age of the pipes, etc. After the sound is built, we can ‘remove’ or ‘adjust’ those one by one to achieve the best and most realistic pipe organ sound in the world. So, just like a real pipe organ builder, we can build and manipulate the physical characteristics of each individual rank of pipes to your exacting specifications in our digital organs. With Physis® Technology, you have a digital organ that is 100% yours, and voiced exactly the way it should be for your individual player or congregations needs.
And if your needs ever change, Physis® Technology driven organs can easily be adjusted by the user, without the need to pay a dealer to do it for you.
The Unico series is a line of classic organs developed with Physis® physical modeling technology, entirely designed and patented by Viscount’s Italian research facilities. With this new approach, based on physical modeling of the pipe organ, you will enjoy the most faithful and malleable sound on the market today.
Thanks to accurate audio reproduction and powerful reverberation effects, Viscount has transferred the magnificence of a large pipe organ into the convenience of a compact instrument.
The Unico series has a rich library of customizable settings and parameters which allows you to select, assign and store hundreds of additional registers. Features are easy to access through a discrete backlit main control display.
The SONUS series is a line of classical organs developed with exclusive Physis® technology - designed and patented by Viscount’s laboratories. Based on modeling the physical phenomena involved in pipe organ sound generation, the sound generated is incredibly authentic.
On top of Physis® sound generation technology, we have designed a revolutionary new audio system called RAR (Real Audio Rendering). Thanks to RAR technology, you can totally manage the impression of three-dimensional space in which the instrument is placed – from the smallest room, all the way up to a large cathedral setting. The new Viscount RAR (Real Audio Rendering) technology represents a significant step forward in terms of definition, spatiality and body of the sound, which is the most authentic way yet to create that magical effect of the most important organ stop – ‘the ambience’. Sitting at the console of the new Viscount Sonus, you will experience the most realistic impression of the instrument and its setting available from any digital organ you may care to play.
The OUVERTURE is an organ with 3 keyboards, complete pedalboard and 55 registers - each of which can select hundreds of organ and orchestra voices. There is also an orchestra register for every section of the organ which can be selected from the numerous options available.
The organ comes with 8 organ styles (4 fixed and 4 programmable) that allow the organist to create and store an infinite number of combinations, either in the 128 internal memory locations or externally via USB memory. The parameter settings are easily accessible through the graphic display on the front panel. The “Tracker Action” style keyboard accurately detects touch by obtaining the speed of actuation of the keys, making it possible to feel a "Tracker Touch" effect, i.e .the correlation between the "touch" of the organist and the transient attack of each virtual pipe.
Developed with the award-winning and patented Physis® physical modeling technology, which reproduces the physical phenomena involved in the sound generation of the pipe organ, the Ouverture is capable of generating the highest-fidelity, most authentic church organ sound.
Chorum instruments faithfully reproduce the sounds of a pipe organ with proprietary ARTEM technology (Advanced Real TEchnology Music) designed by Viscount's Research and Development labs in Italy.
The richness and beauty of stops are enhanced by an accurate reverberation system, able to recreate a great variety of acoustic environments, from a small chapel to the largest cathedral.
Chorum organs are highly functional, yet simple to use; you can store a large selection of memories and recall your stop combinations.
Unico Collection
Our flagship Viscount organ line powered by our patented Physis® (Physical Modeling) Technology.
Chorum Collection
Our sampled-sound based Viscount organ that beats all others in price & value for the money.
