FM synthesis. Anyone know how?

N

nattwalls

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I'm okay with subtractive synthesis, and fancy getting to know more about FM sound synthesis, having heard the richness of the timbre on the presets in Zerba.

Does anyone know any decent site/books that teach the fundamentals? I know it can be quite a heavy subject, so preferably something digestable!!!

cheers

peace
 
oof you know what i don't. the best i can think of would be the Sound on Sound back catalog - they had a column called Synth Secrets or something like that. that might have what you're looking for.


for me, it was just the dx7 manual and trial and error :(
 
the sound on sound stuff is too much, i feel like i need a doctorate to understand that ish!!!

thanks anyway
 
im pretty sure FM synthesis was invented by a doctor actually, so you may want to reconsider diving in in that case :)
 
lol
typical... you get some nice sounds though!
 
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Getting your head around the basic principles of FM isn't that hard - but applying that knowledge is. Basically it just takes a lot of experimentation to get a feel for it - I've been programming FM synths on and off for around ten years (though never very obsessively) and still don't have a solid grasp of what happens when I switch the op order or route this there or whatever...but well, it pays off in the end. Just dive in.
 
yeah don't even try to deal with it mathematically. that's how you're 'supposed' to do it, and an FM purist might yell at me (i've never met an FM purist, id like to) but i just have a crude knowledge of harmonics and what the algorithms sound like and blunder my way through the rest. it's great.

have beer on hand.
 
When you get into FM synthesis you will find that the mod matrix
like the heart of the synth.
Where you have alot of routing options
 
cheers for the response guys... now do you know of any sites or books that might show me the ropes?

thanks again
peace
 
If you can track it down, there's a book simply called "FM Synthesis", which I think originally came with DX7s but has been sold separately as well. That's where I learned from...but it might be hard to find and the generic name doesn't really make the googling any easier. The mentioned SOS articles are pretty good as well.

Couple of primer tutorials from Electronic Musician:
* Square One: Basic FM Training
* Operators Are Standing By

Don't be intimidated by the vocabulary. It's necessary, but it's not as cryptic as it may first seem. Common sense (my favourite phrase) goes a long way.
 
a really basic tutorial in constructing FM sounds comes with the DX27 manual. and im sure other old FM synths from Yamaha. They talk you through creating a sound from scratch in really simple language.

The great news is, that Yamaha has just about every single manual on their website - so take a look there its free!!
 
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