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Is FM synthesis really as difficult as its reputation?
You just hear all the time about how complicated FM synthesis is and how the Yamaha DX7 was oh so hard to program.
Is this truly the case or is the notorious DX7 interface just so frustratingly confusing? If all its parameters were on display would it be easier to pick up?
Also which iOS FM apps are worth investigating?
The FM4 looks interesting.
Are there any iOS FM vehicles for making and then transfering patches to say a Volca FM?
Comments
No, it’s very easy.
Pick up NFM (AU) app or FM4, allocate a couple of days and use the power of the internet to study the basics and fundamentals of FM synthesis - extremely powerful indeed and yes, suffers from poor reputation mainly from the introduction of some famous digital synths with few knobs and requiring deep menu diving. Awesome if you can master it.
I think the problem with FM is it takes a while to get your head around how the carriers will sound when modulated. To me it feels very mathematical and not as intuitive, but maybe with practice it can be.
FM4 is absolutely BRILLIANT. Much easier to program than a lot of FM synths. And it just sounds amazing.
Fun fact: all those noisy shrillex womps were made on NI's FM8. Not sure what you can do with that, but yeah.
Think about it this way. A pure sine wave has no extra overtones at all, it’s not a bad sound, but it’s about as boring as you’re going to get. To make a sound more harmonically interesting, we need more harmonics, or overtones. One way to add harmonics is to change the shape of the wave from a sine to something else. If you cause another oscillator (also at audio frequency, but not necessarily the same pitch) to modulate the frequency of the first one, it will have the effect of causing it to ‘hurry up’ and then ‘slow down’ at an insanely fast audio frequency (ie, you can hear it speed up and slow down as a tone - a tone that sounds interestingly different, beyond either the modulating tone or the original tone that is carrying the signal to the output). This speeding up and slowing down, if it is done at audio frequency to another audio frequency, as we describe, has the effect of ‘pushing’ the carrier waveform over, bending it or leaning it a bit (or a lot) away from the fine upstanding sinewave it once was. But wait, this pushing or leaning is occurring at audio frequency itself, and what goes up must come down, so part way through the wave, or perhaps twice through the wave, or half through the wave (ie, once through two waves), it starts bending it back the other way a bit, so leans the carrier waveform back the other direction, to give it a different shape even more. If they’re the same frequency, the shape is fairly explicable, but if they’re different, you’re going to get leaning forward pushes, and leaning backward pulls of the waveshape at interesting multiples and patterns throughout the waveform.
That’s FM - that’s with one carrier and one modulator. Now if we put an envelope on the amplitude of the modulator, you’ll get an ability to change the harmonic alteration through the duration of the note, however you like. The higher the amplitude of the modulator, the more harmonic influence it has.
Now add a few more modulating oscillators, each with its own enveloped amplifier. Allow a few different ways of interconnecting them (some as carriers, some as modulators, some as both) (these ways of interconnecting are called ‘algorithms’ in FM) and you’ve got the possibilities of some amazing harmonic alterations.
Wow - beautiful explanation! ^
IMO FM is hard to learn if you're trying to create specific sounds and actually know exactly what you're doing. It took a long time for me to get a feel for what kind of effect on the sound twisting all those knobs had. At first, it was just messing about until taken by surprise by some super cool sound. I can't say I was ever successful at having a sound in mind and going out to get it like I'm able to do with subtractive synths.
But over time some basics emerged, like the effect of higher modulation frequency vs. lower frequencies, stacking of modulations, and especially envelopes and LFO's. I still can't say that I have a sound in my head and am able to go for it, but I can say that I have a pretty good idea how to incrementally mold what I'm hearing.
So, as far as making great sounds, not complicated to me. As far as mastering intentional sound design, not so much. I think that's why I enjoy it so much.
I've owned a DX7 since the early 1980s and still can't make it do what I want. I can get some very weird noises out of it though.
Phasemaker (and it's excellent manual) do a good job of making things a little simpler.
perfectly explained - and both synth mentioned are excellent.
The NFM is a bit more for the DX-7 purist and hits that specific character to a stunning degree. FM-4 is focussed on the TX81 like 4-Op things, rough and punchy, but all FMs can easily do strange sounds.
Both have a much easier programming interface than their hardware counterparts.
It’s no biggie it’s just not as fun. Gotta love the sounds I guess.
It think it's just that the early 80s saw a transition from the analog 70s synth era, where there were dedicated controls for everything. Suddenly everything was buried in menus. I think this tended to exaggerate the difficulty.
But I can tell you I lived through that transition and had little trouble adapting. Yes, it was less intuitive and immediate compared to analog, but we were more than happy to live with that trade off, because we gained things like patch memory and MIDI! And stable tuning!
Anyway, it's all pretty much irrelevant now that we have software and touchscreen controls for everything. FM vs analog is pretty much a level playing field. IMO, the legendary difficulty of FM was always overblown and lingers on largely due to outmoded historical conditions that are no longer relevant.
Admittedly, I learned FM in the early 80s the easy way:
I had a Yamaha CX5m
and the YRM-102 voicing cartridge was like this:
@u0421793 I'm with Wim. Great explanation of FM.
6 Operator FM synthesis is harder to program than a basic 2 osc/LPF/2 env/2 LFO subtractive synth—just by virtue of the comparative number of parameters. I agree the difficulty was blown up a bit by the DX interface. It's not that it's hard to program (once you know what's what), but it definitely laborious to program.
+1 for Phasemaker.
For a Volca FM editor, I think https://coffeeshopped.com/patch-base/editor/korg-volca-fm is the only one at the moment.
I found this short tutorial helpful:
Wow! Nerd mic drop.
What is THE no 1 FM Synth to have on iOS ?
That video was very informative. Thanks for that.> @u0421793 said:
Great simplification of a complex topic. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge, again.
Phasemaker is so simple to use and make sounds with. You really don’t need to know all the ‘why’ stuff happens when you get to know the ‘what’ happens when I alter such and such. Yeah it’s interesting to know the why, but not essential for making sounds.
Half the mystery surrounding programming FM was historically due to the appalling interfaces and fixed mind sets on subtractive synthesis.
Or just cut to the chase and study additive synthesis.
I'm a fan of simple 2OP FM. The 'Chiangmai Gadget' layers 2 2OP FM/VPM patches and is quite flexible, SunVOX does 2OP FM pretty well too. Poison-202 has it's cross-modulation which is somewhat similar...
Classic drawbar organs do additive synthesis (and 6 operators that act as carriers can do pretty convincing organs sounds, it's like having 6 drawbars). NFM is one of my current favourite FM synths on iOS.
If I'm after 'classic' FM-Sounds Yamaha FM Essentials is as close to my TX81z as it gets
Yeah this...
I think with the number of controls and the number of combinations possible with FM it is difficult to make a 'fiddle and see what happens' type interface for it, hence all the menu diving, and no real way of discovery like there is with the simpler subtractive controls.
my sonically most flexible synth is a 3 oscillator (2 2op FMs + noise) + resonator + feedback + filter section.
It goes from chiptunes to wierdo to perfectly convincing VA and orchestral instruments.
(developed by a dutch fellow on the Creamware Scope modular system and compiled into a standalone device by John Bowen, named Python Pro)