Anyone know any good articles or tutorials on FM drum programming?

[TubularCorporation]

I've done a little bit of it on the TX802 over the years but not much. I mostly do FM programming by ear rather than theory, but for drum sounds that doesn't seem to cut it.

[Lucas]

I've thought of making a thread for sharing knowledge and experience especially on that topic but never took the time to actually do it. Never found any interesting tutorial precisely for drums either.

 

Something like three weeks ago, listening to the excellent "conqlavs" tracks posted here on watmm pushed me to experiment more with making FM beat sounds. I have a TX81Z so 4OP but I could already find some nice sounds. Didn't do that much though, actually just a kick a snare a hhat and a kind of perc sound. I thought there's a lot of potential there (at least for me now, really want to explore more in that area right now) and I'm excited to go further.

 

I can't share anything useful really, just wanted to show some enthusiasm :) Just an idea but we could also use the thread for sharing some FM drum sounds and discuss how they were made.

[psn]

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/80256-fm-synthesis-techniques-anecdotes/

[Entorwellian]

I do FM drums. My snares and symbols end up being me working with inharmonic frequency ratios and feedback modulation envelopes, and the modulation of those modulations are done similarly. Bass drums are mixed sinewaves that I try to keep at 1:3 ratio on to make them a bit hollow sounding. For snare sounds I usuaully have a fixed frequency as the carrier but for bass drums and toms I use variable ratios.

 

I learned FM from a book called Musimathics vol 2 and some online academic journals by Dr. Barry Truax who has done research and provides mathematical equations to determine sidebands of FM ratios and other very useful things.

[Guest skibby]

I had no idea how to use FM synths just 2 years ago. Here is my answer to the riddle, if you are using a yamaha:

 

1) choose an algorithm that looks "stacked" vertically

 

2) turn down the volume of all the operators except for the bottom-most operator

 

3) change the envelope and pitch of that operator and perhaps tune it to your song, or tune it to sound the way you like (even drums need tuning)

 

4) raise the volume of the operator above it in the "stack" (the algorithm illustration)

 

5) change the envelope and pitch of the operator "above" it until it sounds the way you like

 

6) change the velocity sensitivity of the operators in order to give the sound some interesting dynamic responses.

 

do no more than these six things until you master them. if you fail, start back at number one!

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I've had the 802 for ages and use it a fair amount but I haven't really done much with 4 ops and this is specifically in relation to picking up an FB-01 specifically to use it as a cheap, portable FM drum module. The Windows editor looks really simple so it shouldn't be much trouble to play around with it, hopefully I'll have a chance tomorrow (unless it needs a new battery, haven't powered it up yet). I've got PDFs of a few of the classic 70s and 80s FM theory books, haven't really read as much as maybe I should.

 

 

Making pads and basses and stuff is no problem, it's more snares and cymbals that elude me.

[TubularCorporation]

Same chip as the DX21 and DX27. Almost identical to the FM section of the Sega Genesis/Megadrive sound chip, but without the PCM channel and a few more voices of multitimbrality.

 

I've been on the fence about getting a TG33 for a long time but this seemed like a more size and cost effective route (very different synths but they both have a kind of grittiness I like and don't hear from other Yamaha FM synths, except for the toy ones like the PSS series)

This is the best demo of it I've heard:

 

[TubularCorporation]

Actually I've heard conflicting things about the actual similarity between this and the Megadrive chip.

[Lucas]

Here the kick / snare / hhat sounds I was talking about.

https://archive.org/details/FM.kick.test1

 

They're all made using the 5th algo from the Yamaha 4OP series, generally using two operators to make the tone of the sound and the other two ones for some noise (feedback).

 

PS: the snippet i posted are raw midi loops with some velocity action. the snare track has a delay on it

[TubularCorporation]

Cool, I have the thing set up and gave it a test run - somehow, incredibly, the battery still works after, what, 30 years? I opened it up and saw the stock battery the other day and just assumed I'd need to replace it, but maybe having the little "backup memory" swtich (or whatever it's labeled) off saved it? I thought all batteries had a shelf life even if they aren't being used. At any rate, I'd have had all day tomorrow to experiment with it except that's been preempted by having to get and deploy anti mouse devices.

[Guest skibby]

yeah cymbals need that noise and feedback. of course making your modulating operator louder than 90 will start to create distortion, maybe that's useful. but for sure, fast envelopes seem to be the way. using odd ratios is probably better for stick and membrane type sounds i would imagine.

[TubularCorporation]

Now that I think about it, the last time I tried to program FM drum sounds was like 6 years ago, and I had pretty much zero experience with synthesizing drum sounds from scratch on anything back then, this is probably going to be a lot easier than I'm expecting.

[Entorwellian]

FM isn't very difficult but the plethora of options and algorithms available to the user is overwhelming. You can totally learn by ear and trial-and-error though and learning afterwards why the parameters settings you chose work. The amount of flexibility offered by FM and the versatility of the timbres are incredible for a single device.

 

I think it is easier to work with if you have good visual-spatial intelligence and can picture the waveforms in your head as you manipulate the ratios and envelopes.

[psn]

 

I think it is easier to work with if you have good visual-spatial intelligence and can picture the waveforms in your head as you manipulate the ratios and envelopes.

...or an oscilloscope!

[Entorwellian]

 

 

I think it is easier to work with if you have good visual-spatial intelligence and can picture the waveforms in your head as you manipulate the ratios and envelopes.

...or an oscilloscope!

 

That would make programming a dx7 far more easier

 

also experiment with even and odd ratios. For a good thumbprint here are some basic modulator-to-carrier ratios... 1:1 is basically a pure sinewave that can be modulated into a smooth sawtooth, 2:1 is a square wave, and 3:1 is an extremely jagged sawtooth.

 

for carrier-to-carrier ratios, 1:1 carrier will amplify the signal by 2x, 1:2 will produce a sawtooth harmonic and 1:3 will produce a pulse harmonic.

[TubularCorporation]

Thanks for the tips.

 

Thinking back, I think the main issue I had back when I was messing with this on the 802 was that I wasn't modulating the pitch of any of the operators with a envelope. I definitely had no trouble getting vaguely 808 style kicks and bright, snappy, noise based snares but I struggled to get anything with any real punch to it.

 

In general I've always found FM pretty intuitive but I was never too happy with the drums I got.

[ceiling]

Anyone got any good tips on getting some decent drum sounds using synplant? Trying but atm failing

[Lucas]

re using pitch enveloppe, I thought it's good to hold yourself using some in the first place (if you're on a yamaha fm synth chances are there are no pitch enveloppes anyway) in order to find out how to get the punch strictly out of algos / OP ratios and amp enveloppes. Probably easy for me to say as I just have a TX81Z but I think it's better to do it that way if you want to understand more about FM. And I'm just saying that as a FM beginner.

[Lucas]

yeah the pitch env does make it somewhat too easy, but it's basically the only way to get all the ops to move pitch whilst staying in sync with the ratios and whatnot. you can also try making the porta time really quick, hit the highest note possible and then hit the lowest note possible to create a cheap pitch decay.

 

funny that you mention that, I'm working on a track right now which heavily features a TX81Z patch where I use this legato trick. Works great with low notes for a kind of Udu-style bass drum but also at the top of the spectrum for a metalic/melodic percussive sound. The fact you can play with the time between the two notes (1st and 2nd "legato" note) but also their pitch difference (faster or slower pitch-sweep) gives this patch a lot of expression potential.

 

Writing this makes me realize I cheated with this no-pitch-enveloppe principle I wrote above, didn't even notice it ;-)

[sweepstakes]

 

yeah the pitch env does make it somewhat too easy, but it's basically the only way to get all the ops to move pitch whilst staying in sync with the ratios and whatnot. you can also try making the porta time really quick, hit the highest note possible and then hit the lowest note possible to create a cheap pitch decay.

 

funny that you mention that, I'm working on a track right now which heavily features a TX81Z patch where I use this legato trick. Works great with low notes for a kind of Udu-style bass drum but also at the top of the spectrum for a metalic/melodic percussive sound. The fact you can play with the time between the two notes (1st and 2nd "legato" note) but also their pitch difference (faster or slower pitch-sweep) gives this patch a lot of expression potential.

 

Writing this makes me realize I cheated with this no-pitch-enveloppe principle I wrote above, didn't even notice it ;-)

 

Ha, I was going to say both of these things, that it's better to try to avoid pitch envelopes and also that legato trick. Nice :)

 

On the legato tip, though, if you have an Octatrack or Monomachine, you can use the arp to do this legato trick "automatically" though of course you won't be able to do it any more quickly than 1/96 of a bar. Handy for kicks, etc, though.