Whats the story on hardware and FM??

[flatfinger]

Hey guys ,

I'm wondering , having gotten in to FM soft synths in a big way recently; Do workstations like the fantom G and M3 do FM ?? can you import sys.exe files for programing??

I notice that the yamaha xs series have no PLG expansion capabilities ( though I would have serious issues with paying $250 for the DX plug for 1983 capabilities anyway) so it's strictly sampling or rompler there ( not too sure about how well fm sounds can be executed in those methods )

 

 

Any of your thoughts an input are greatly appreciated!!!

 

Cheers

[Yoozer]

The Fantom has no other synthesis methods. The M3 has the Radias expansion which has a limited form of FM, only Korg calls it VPM (Variable Phase Modulation). The OASYS has the full wazoo.

 

though I would have serious issues with paying $250 for the DX plug for 1983 capabilities anyway

You're spoiled. You remember what the original pricetag of the DX7 was?

 

If you want FM in hardware shape, you either have to buy an older keyboard or module (and lots of 'm are 4-operator FM that are programmed very much like building a ship in a bottle, the TX81Z being the most bang for the buck), get the FS1R (does more, costs more) or the DX200 (does the same as a DX7 with knobs, but may be harder to find). If you're willing to spend more, you might find a TG77 or SY77/SY99 which has a full-blown 6-operator FM synth with extras (Realtime Convolution) in there combined with a sample-playback synth. You might have to replace the backlight foil, though.

 

The cheapest way is to get a Yamaha TX7 which is a "dumb" (can't program it from the front panel) expander unit which is cheap for exactly that reason. Then, get the sysex files from the internet and send 'm over to the TX - and presto, there's your FM.

[Mark Schmieder]

Depends on what you want it for. I owned all of them while exploring FM synthesis over the past few years. I learned a lot that way, and it was cheap as sometimes I got more than I paid due to the quirks of vintage synth ups-and-downs.

 

The FS1r is unquestionably the greatest FM synth ever, and has capabilities unavailable elsewhere (including software). It was the last vintage synth to depart from my studio -- quite recently, and a bit reluctantly. The interface drove me crazy, alongside its lack of Voice Mode (you have to fake out the Performance Mode to behave as though it is Voice Mode, but for a variety of reasons, including how the knobs behave in different modes and that they are always active but not defaulted before handling, I found the FS1r useless as a live module).

 

Otherwise, the other "great" FM synth is the SY77 and its rarer SY99 update (as well as the TG77 rack version). This synth is arguably partially superseded by the recent FM8 update to FM7, which adds some vectoring capabilities into the software FM synth, but which doesn't include samples so it still different.

 

Only a few people found the combination of samples and FM musically useful: most used the SY/TG series with "one-at-a-time". I personally did not find combining the two very musical. But I liked the vectoring capabilities, when applied to pure AFM or AWM. Summa is the greatest advocate of the SY/TG series and told me he found some great recipes for combining AWM and AFM in a musically useful way. His patches are free and public.

 

All of the other FM modules were crippled in some way, or had maddening interfaces (usually the best interfaces were crippled, and the worst interfaces had the most power, such as individual inserts for effects). Timbrally, the SY/TG supersedes what came before in terms of any advantages they may have had from one rack module to the other. Also, reliability-wise, you're better off with the SY/TG or FS1r.

[J. Dan]

The recently discontinued Alesis Fusion does FM, Virtual Analog, Wind Modelling, Sampling/Sample Playback. I have not messed with the FM very much as I've never really had much experience with it. From what I understand from the guys on the Fusion forum, it's fairly powerful with the FM stuff, but it isn't set up to be programmed like a DX7 or similar - a little non-user-friendly in that regard.

[Bill H.]

I notice that the yamaha xs series have no PLG expansion capabilities ( though I would have serious issues with paying $250 for the DX plug for 1983 capabilities anyway) so it's strictly sampling or rompler there ( not too sure about how well fm sounds can be executed in those methods )

 

The best the XS has is sampled FM waves. But there are dozens of them... many more than other brands, being it's a Yamaha and all.

 

There must be over 50. But they're scattered all over the place and not organized as such. There are even more in the ES series. The XS cut some FM waves out of the waveform ROM it carried over.

 

All the usual suspects are there. Lately bass, chimey EPs, raw waves with all kinds of typical FM harmonics waiting to be filtered. And that's how you use them. Filtered and combined as elements in a voice. Not FM programming to be sure, but a way to get FM sounds out of this rompler.

 

[Mark Schmieder]

But with the exception of the simple analogue-ish sounds like the famous "Lately" bass line, most FM sounds do not translate well to sampling, as the whole point of FM is the control over the attack transient and the general organic reactive nature of the envelope.

 

FM is far closer to additive synthesis than subtractive synthesis. I do not find the FM samples in any Yamaha keyboard (starting with the CS6x/S80 series and going forward to the XS series) to sound remotely like an FM synth. With the exception of a few of the simpler synthy basses and leads.

 

OTOH some of the analog modeling of filters and effects in the XS series can do a few tricks on AWM-based synthesis, in conjunction with the super-articulation mode and the eight parts per voice, such that one could come close to building some rudimentary four-operator FM sounds (with LOTS of conditions).