FM Synthesis (techniques, anecdotes)

fm is math. Ratios. etc. Just play around till you like what you hear.Im a big fan of Barry Traux's old stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kylrHmgmvW8&index=79&list=FLWIRaKQuOpIpBeuQd7Mvcjw

What's the best free dx7 patch editor around at the mo (winxp or win10)? I just found my tx7 on the floor behind my desk while dusting :D I stopped using it ages back because the (paid) editor I had on win xp just stopped working I couldn't be arsed to try and sort it out

Dexed, maybe?

Yeah definitely Dexed, absolutely phenomenal DX7 VST / patch editor

Great cheers, will check it out! Thanks!

  On 4/26/2017 at 5:51 PM, acid1 said:

Get an Akemie's castle, twist knobs,run it through ass tons of CV, 

 

https://instagram.ftpa1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t50.2886-16/17640029_203982790089014_2516094251197005824_n.mp4

got one of these a couple weeks ago. great for all kinds of percussion and FX type sounds and weirdness. modulation can be pretty unpredictable depending on which algorithm you're in.. requires a fine touch to offset/attenuators to get things where i want them.. still.. really a great voice in a modular system. 

really great module. 

Just got the FB-01..  Sounds really great. Very much a crunchy/low-resolution feeling to it.

Next project is to find an editor for my TX81Z. I used an old windows one previously, but I never got it to work properly. How bad are the midi buffer problems by the way? With the FB-01 I can edit in what feels kinda like realtime. Is that possible with the TX81Z too?

wish there was a more artistic way to make fm sounds. Like a light bright or something

Don't know if this is considered 'artistic' but it's certainly different

For Reaktor you've got this headache if you wanna go full Wacaday -

https://www.native-instruments.com/es/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/5021/

i have a DX-11 i got for $100 (shipping to my front door included!) and it's great for a lot of FM stuff. i like it a lot.. can't complain about any of it :)

FB-01 multitrack:
https://soundcloud.com/ok-nd-konstn-r/transaction-codes

sweet thanks!!!

You know, I really like 2 op fm, and it is available on a lot of synths. The ms2000 has some really nice fm sounds up its sleeve. The tempest also has 2 op fm.

Since most people really have no clue what they are doing with even 4 op, 2 is a good starting point and it's honestly really versatile.

  On 5/2/2017 at 3:43 PM, sinewaves said:

How bad are the midi buffer problems by the way? With the FB-01 I can edit in what feels kinda like realtime. Is that possible with the TX81Z too?

Pretty bad. Well, I think certain parameters (levels, for example) are worse than others.

  On 5/2/2017 at 5:37 PM, marf said:

wish there was a more artistic way to make fm sounds. Like a light bright or something

Agreed. 

  On 5/9/2017 at 1:56 AM, sheathe said:

You know, I really like 2 op fm, and it is available on a lot of synths. The ms2000 has some really nice fm sounds up its sleeve. The tempest also has 2 op fm.

 

Since most people really have no clue what they are doing with even 4 op, 2 is a good starting point and it's honestly really versatile.

Wow, had no idea the MS2000 could do FM.

Yeah agreed, once you get into 4-op those 2-op skills pay off. One nice thing about FM is that it scales conceptually - your 2 op structure becomes just another super-operator that can modulate other operators, or be modulated by other operators. So it becomes sort of modular in an interesting way. I don't know why someone hasn't made a decent FM interface that takes advantage of this fact (please correct me if this exists).

That said I'm pretty damn rusty at the whole shebang at this point. 

Anyone have any techniques introducing formants to make phonemes or human-like voice?

Dunno if it helps but the Wikipedia article on formants has some graphs and links to graphs that show what frequency two formants should be combined to create particular vowel sounds. I haven't tried it much though on my own. I did once with some interesting results but need to keep going with it.

i have a korg-ds8 and i think it's pretty straightforward the way you program your patches, although, i don't really have a term of comparison. never really tried other fm synths apart from the dx7...
 
there's this tool that i think it might be quite handy, never tried it but looks really good:
https://www.squest.com/Products/MidiQuest11/Instruments/YamahaDX7/index.html
it works for almost any fm synth out here:

midiquest is a pile of shit

at least in my OS X experience. it worked some times for some synths.. but mostly was totally disappointing. 

aight, thanks for letting me know, was thinking of actually buying it...

I'd love to contribute to that topic, but I'm quite a noob when it comes to FM synthesis, most of my knowledge comes from randomly messing with u-he's Bazille oscillators.

Anyway, as I'm on a Gabor Lazar binge, I was wondering how similar sounds can be achieved. Sounds like FM and/or comb filtering to my ears. I've made some similar sounds (well, maybe closer to Errorsmith's early  works) using all sorts of modulated delays and reverbs, but I'm really curious to know how to get such sounds with FM.

Any advice / tips ?

u-he's Bazille and Zebra, as well as Aalto, are my weapons of choice for anything FM.

Thanks!

  On 5/5/2018 at 1:30 PM, Nil said:

I'd love to contribute to that topic, but I'm quite a noob when it comes to FM synthesis, most of my knowledge comes from randomly messing with u-he's Bazille oscillators.

 

Anyway, as I'm on a Gabor Lazar binge, I was wondering how similar sounds can be achieved. Sounds like FM and/or comb filtering to my ears. I've made some similar sounds (well, maybe closer to Errorsmith's early  works) using all sorts of modulated delays and reverbs, but I'm really curious to know how to get such sounds with FM.

 

Any advice / tips ?

 

u-he's Bazille and Zebra, as well as Aalto, are my weapons of choice for anything FM.

Thanks!

same thing, trying to get better in the field of fm synthesis. I could be totally wrong but from what I understand, a lot of the difference between various fm synths resides in the number of operators and their ability to feedback or not ? correct me if i'm wrong.

Take advantage of fixed-frequency operators.

Experiment with swapping carriers and modulators - get a feel for how different frequency relationships behave on either side of the audible divide.

Keep track of interesting frequency ratios (and by ratios I don't mean relative to the key but between operators, for example a 3x operator and a 2x operator have a 1.5:1 ratio).

Integrate boring but pleasant 2-op structures into more complex contexts.

The difference between a boring sound and an exciting sound is often an envelope. 

Try detuned modulators feeding into the same carrier to get phasing/beating effects - can get pretty interesting at high modulation indices.

Any good book on the subject ?

  On 5/7/2018 at 5:09 AM, D4M0 said:

Any good book on the subject ?

Yes, there's one that I believe Chowning co-authored... will try to dredge up a link.

That was easy.

http://www.burnkit2600.com/manuals/fm_theory_and_applications.pdf

There's also this hideously dated page that goes into the sideband maths that Entorwellian reminded me of when we were hanging out a few years back. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the author but you'll know the disgusting orange background when you see it. I'll try to find that too. It's not so much about musical applications as some of the kind of math/harmonic/psychoacoustic aspects of it.

Truax! Boom: https://www.sfu.ca/~truax/fmtut.html