I’ve had some great results making drums with the FM synth. If you change the algorithm to 7 (I think? It’s the A > B + C > D one) you can separate the tonal body and noise parts of a typical drum. I also like to use my drum’s table with an oscillator sync 00 command just to make sure the transient is consistent. You can use the CLK click operator shape at the end of your chain and use noise to modulate it to alter the transient’s character. Between this and just changing the operator ratio on the CLK you can find lots of different transient sounds. If you FM a filtered noise osc with another filtered noise osc, you can get lots of slightly different noise textures. I think this is super helpful for making snares, for example, since snares in particular rely on the character of their noise a lot. I like to use the POST:W1 distortion for drums because I think it handles transients really nicely when you just have a little bit of drive. POST:W2 gives you some overtones that work alright with snares. I also find the band stop filter type is the most helpful for drums which is a bit surprising since LP/HP filters are my most used filter types everywhere else. With modulators, I like to use the DRUM ENV for pitch sweeps but I assign it to MOD 1 or another FM modulator. This way I can assign the pitch sweep to operators A > B (the body of my drums) and not the C > D pair (which I usually use for noise stuff). Assigning pitch modulation to operator B but not A in my body pair also gives you an interesting sound. Finally, don’t sleep on the wavetable shapes for the operators - if you find a wavetable that lets you go from sine to an almost sinelike sound with very few harmonics and target that with an envelope it gives you a pretty cool decay sound that kind of mimics an acoustic drum.
I really love synthesizing my own drums for tracks and the M8 lends itself to drum synthesis like an absolute champion. It’s one of the things that really sold me on it.
Thank you very much for the tips, i felt a bit stuck in my quest and you’re giving me new ways to explore. I also find out A>B + C>D is the most evident for drums. Guess This filtered noise FM > filtered noise trick for snare is gonna help me a lot because i was stuck on filtering only the noise for snare, unless using two synths for a snare and then resampling into one.
I’m also interested in mimic acoustic drums (not only, depends on inspiration) so it is good to know you do too.
M8 users - how are you incorporating your M8 into a bigger setup? I’m thinking of pairing my M8 with a hardware synth and I’m looking for some inspiration.
Currently I have everything routed through Ableton into the M8.
Every gear has its own track.
In every track is a Rewind plugin, it records in the background for the last 10-60 minutes without pressing any record button. So you can experiment and jam completely free but never miss a nice part of it.
Then I mostly sample straight into the M8.
Any idea or sounds will be recorded.
I could route everything via midi but I like to arrange everything later in another session in a different room which is not full of gear or even outdoors.
How do you continue with the samples/recordings after they are recorded into the M8?
Do You cut,edit, normalize every recording.
Do you make “instruments” with every sample?
Or do you just move the start point without any worry?
I know it might be obvious…I guess I’m asking:
How messy is the proces afterwards?
I come from a time with 20 seconds of sample time, so I’m still deeply concerned about sample management, order, keep everything thing clean.
This “OCD” sometimes prevent me from going with the flow and just being brave.
Yes had my pair of ER4XR for a decade now. I would say always start with volume low or off when you use them since they go to dangerous levels. and also they block out sound really well my goto for airplane travel.
I think the best thing is not to worry about the mess with recorded samples. Once the project is finished, just purge the unused instruments, create a bundle, which will only keep the samples you actually used, and then delete all the samples from the SD card.
I use Quick external render for most of my parts.
So I have perfect loops and can use the slice feature quicker and it creates a new instrument automatically for it.
But I don’t rename it or else.
The only thing I do I create at subfolders for specific synth samples like \hydra \digitone \Nyx when I use the sampler directly.
i don’t have my M8 for a long time, but since then mostly : at the sketch step, the M8 is synced with SP404 and Syntakt, and can sequence other synths or effects if needed, then everything is recorded/sampled in the M8 for developing composition and arrangement.
apparently the render external instruments function normalize the sample. Otherwise it depends the need. Same for instrument assignation or chopping, it depends how you want to play your sample, if you want to just read it as it was recorded or if you want to use M8 features to open possibilities.
I have a JBL Boombox that I use with all my portable music stuff. I did use a TE OB4 and it was perfect but it fell off a garbage can onto the cement and now does not turn on. Need to take it apart to check on it. No, neither of those use batteries but 25 hours for the TE and 34 hours for the JBL on their batteries is great. Also, not portable in a small sense but work great for taking anywhere.
A bit costly (manufactured in the UK), but I use a pair of Minirigs 4.
They sound great and go beyond just proximity use. Given how loud they can get, you could pretty much throw an indoor party in an average sized room with them.
Also, they double-up as portable batteries, one for my FaderFox UC4, the other for the LaunchPad Pro, which makes a fairly portable complete setup.
In order to have a sound that’s more in line with the Genelecs I use to make music, I had to lower the bass almost all the way down in the settings, because lower frequencies are often set ridiculously loud on that type of speakers.
If you are pressed for time literally nothing will beat an iPad. One USB cable and headphones. I have been sequencing chords from the m8, sending to synths/sounds on the iPad via the External instrument, and then using External render. Then you can slice the sample to access the chords.
This approach also works the MPC Live 3. Cannot recall if you have one. A bit more cumbersome than the iPad, but better ROMpler sounds.
Both can also be used as effects via USB once you learn to switch the Main Out on the m8.
No worries. Just writing out a bunch of my thoughts on making drums. I was making a snare the other day with (operator C) band pass noise > (operator D) band pass noise and I found that adding an envelope to the volume of operator C gave me a really nice decay quality to the noise (although you could probably accomplish the same thing with a LPF lol). The 4op synth has so much depth it’s unreal. Every time I think the M8 should have a standard VA synth engine it turns out the FM engine can get me there… except for sync sounds which macrosynth covers.
USB C between M8 and an iPad. Headphones on the M8 since the audio from the iPad would go into the M8. Same with an MPC 3. The M8 can go anywhere and I find the workflow faster than almost anything else.
With the setup I described above (re: portable speakers), I really don’t miss anything:
LaunchPad Pro MKIII for clip launching: clips being mostly loops, but also just one note sometimes, so I can sort of ‘play’ melodies as well.
FaderFox UC4 for knobs and faders: the power of 8 model makes it particularly well suited for the M8. In order to always know what controls what during a performance, I made it a rule that each controller column (i.e. encoder+fader+button) should control the corresponding track on the M8.
As I’m obsessed with portability, I have also considered the Lightreft Monolit - instead of the UC4 - but it’s costly and I’m not sure 8 faders and 8 buttons would be enough for me. It’s nice to have encoders as well for certain parameters (e.g. filters). However, the Monolit packs a wealth of interesting MIDI features, like extra LFOs, scales, playing notes with a fader, etc. I might end up getting one.
I have one of these, and I use the green buttons as track mutes. But then I struggle to find what else to do with it. I don’t adjust track volume enough to need that on the faders, for example.
