Greetings,

I realize in the past couple of years that I have barely touched FM synthesis. True, there's that set of FM knobs in V-Station, but...

Recommend me a good VST... I've tried demos for Linplug's "Octopus", Imageline's "Sytrus", and I'm thinking of trying FM-7. Care to share your own experiences, favorites and thoughts? I have a budget, but it's not that low at the moment (gotta love no social life).

Right now, I'm kinda leaning towards Octopus: affordable, and alot of fun matrixes at your disposal. Sytrus is hybrid-ish to a fault, but it seems to make alot of interesting and redeemable sounds and textures none-the-less. Octopus seems to make the workflow of the matrix more straight-forward without dozens of various tabs. Still, I dunno.

Is it my inexperience, or are FM synths the champion of surreal bell sounds?

___________________
Audio-s

In software FM-7 Rules.

In hardware you can get a TX-81z for about $60 (4op) a DX7 family for about $150-200, and a SY/TG family for about $300.

Personally (Being mostly hardware based) I have a TG-77 that you will have to prise from my cold dead hands..

FM Synthesis can be very powerful, you can literally explore whole new worlds of sounds you couldnt even think of making with "normal" additive/subtractive synthesis. In Psytrance, there is a lot of the sounds made of FM'ed synths. To me, FM synthesis is really tricky and you will have to learn it from scratch... because its pretty different from substractive synthesis. At least to me, its very hard to recreate a particular FM sound on your own, because its much harder to imagine how your stuff actually sounds like. I'm digging a little deeper into it at the moment, and still, if I hadn't received good hints from the pros, it would still be trial and error to me.

Some pure FM synths are pure HELL and a science on their own. If I look at Sytrus, I'm always totally confused. It's very powerful, true, but I dont get it at all.
FM7 just doesnt work for me. I just cant seem to get good sounds out of it, I even dont like many of the presets. It's still fun to play around a little, but in the end, I dont feel happy with the results most of the time.
Haven't tried Octopus yet, but will do so because your description sounds good.

Until now, I've made my FM sounds with "normal" synths that are capable of FM synthesis as well, for example Albino and z3ta+.
The FM options are very limited compared to those in FM7 for example, they basically go like "waveform 1, go modulate the frequency of waveform 2", but this simplicity is actually what I love about them. Still the sounds produced are much fatter and more satisfying than those produced by FM7 for example. Until now, I never reached the point where I needed "more FM".

If you are not a sound engineer spending hours or even days fiddling around with knobs until you got your sound right, you should think twice about getting a "pure" FM synth - my opinion.

___________________
Cybernetika albums (free DL): Atropos (2009) | Nanospheric (2008) | Neural Network Expansion (2007) | Promo #1 (2006) | Paralysis (2005)

homepage: http://www.cybernetika.de

I see where you are comming from. After browsing through some reviews of the machine you mentioned, it's easy for me to want to purchase a soundcare with more than one stereo-Analogue-in, and start looking for sellers. PLUS, this looks like a rare piece of equipment... and it doesn't look like I'm gonna buy one from you, does it.

However, like I said, I'm new to FM synthesis. Because of the avaiability of softsynths and their flexibility, I'm inclined to take the "easy" path before I overcommit immediately.

[EDIT]

Cybernetica, thanks for the feedback. Very detailed indeed.

Yes, I see where you are comming from as well. I will weigh my options according to your comments.

Indeed, I do recommend you try the demo of the Octopus. Let me know what you think!

I'm sorta hoping that immersing myself in an FM world will forge a better understanding on the shapes of sound. However, judging from your opinions, it's more of a science than I imagine.

___________________
Audio-s

Last edited by Four_On_Four-er on Jun-07-2006 at 16:17

quote:

Still the sounds produced are much fatter and more satisfying than those produced by FM7 for example.

I must disagree, FM7 is very versatile and can create powerful sounds...

___________________
Entice

Fm 7 is a very very powerfull fm synthesiser.
if your not good enough with creating your own sound it comes with very good sounds that are very useful, but once you get comfortable with it youll realise that its really fun to make sounds in it.
theres even a tutorial on fm7 on the computermusic website check it out, it kinda shows you the basic stuff of the program.

well i havent tried other fm sysnths, i only used fm7, i would recommend it to everyone but thenagain i havent tried the other stuff so i dont know what theyr like

UnoFM is my fav... fm synths are a bit like women fucken sexy on the outside complex as all fucken hell on the inside.....

___________________
Signature Suspended as it was deemed offensive.

BTW if you're new to FM and get a TG-77 (Not many of you out there I'm sure!)

Get these

http://www.analoguesque.com/sy77.htm

as a starting point instead of the presets in there which suck ass..

Check out the demos at the end, though the WMP / MP3 compression does nothing for them they really are a great place to start exploring..

No affiliation with them, just loved their sounds.

Now I make my own.

BTW NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING beats an SY/TG for hard metallic basses..

@ Diginerd

You are really trying to convert me aren't you. Personally, I can see where you are comming from, but I've so heard the argument go so many ways (hardware vs. Software). Don't worry, If I stumble upon a seller, I shall consider it. Otherwise there are none, and I want to better my technical skills before I slap 3-5 hundred on anything.

Plus, if I bought a piece of hardware... it better do more than hard metallic bass (unless I'm rich, and can afford to target one novelty sound). Plus, can you download a demo to this synth... naw... you can't.

___________________
Audio-s

Last edited by Four_On_Four-er on Jun-08-2006 at 01:23

All fair answers. If I was you I'd get FM7, it will serve you well.

It too can sound juicy.. :-)

I'm not sure about FM7, but Sytrus has unison, which is very useful. And it also works as a subtractive synth if you want it to.
http://www.sytrus.com/
The demo song is pretty cool.

Technically FM7 is a hybrid (actually the SY series too) as they cheat ad give you a filter (Subtractive!). Pure FM employs no filters..

FM7 has unison too.