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FM synthesis tutorials

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 7:38 am
by devnull
Hey guys

Was wondering if anyone knows of any good resources for FM synthesis tutorials? I have been playing around with FM8 and I love its versatility and expressiveness, but I do not quite understand the signal flow when creating more complicated algorithms with multiple oscillators.

I have watched a few vids on YouTube, but they always seem to only go into 1 or 2 oscillators, where as I am looking at patches in the browser which are using 5 or more. I would love to get my head around this synthesis method as it really does seem to open up a world of possibilities.

Cheers

- Devnull

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:20 am
by nova.k
There are a few FM sections in this series of articles. Seems to be pretty highly regarded: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:36 am
by legend4ry
http://insidesynthesis.blogspot.com/200 ... art-1.html

helped me a lot.

Basically, if you think about it logically for a second - all the oscillators work together, you set it, like via a matrix what you want affecting what.

so making 1 go into 5 but 5 going into 2, 2 going to cut off, cut off going down through 7 and 7 going to output.. Then using the basics of FM - modulating them all to your needs via volume and how much input they have on the matrix.. Its difficult getting patches to work on FM at first but I find it very great for making interesting sounds.

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:34 am
by devnull
Thanks guys

Legendary: Yeah I saw that video. It is BRILLIANT, but he doesn't go on to the more complicated stuff....which is kinda what I was asking about (been hanging out for part 2 of that video, but been more than a year since the first was released.)

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:50 am
by legend4ry
devnull wrote:Thanks guys

Legendary: Yeah I saw that video. It is BRILLIANT, but he doesn't go on to the more complicated stuff....which is kinda what I was asking about (been hanging out for part 2 of that video, but been more than a year since the first was released.)
Yeah man - if you watch that video then look at a patch from the default FM8 bank, you'll kinda get what means in the more in-depth scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4OWsez10Zg

This might also explain it better, if you kinda see it at more than one oscilator and do a bit of experimenting