Does anyone use an FM synth with a MIDI controller for more of a full hands-on experience? Are there some models in particular that have great MIDI implementation?
I found this paper to be extremely helpful - the title was not promising but it is super informative and well written.
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Great album and they did use the FS1r a bit as far as I know… don’t know on which albums tho. Big users of Max also and in some of Mark Fell’s solo stuff he’s quite explicit about what he’s using. If I remember rightly it was Manitshutu where he was explicit about what FM patches were being used and he also used a pre-release version Native Instruments Razor.
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iirc Mark Fell said Atavism is all/mostly FS1R
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Would be fun to combine the 8op algorithms with a game of Snake so it modulates between them as it crawls around the screen
Or Breakout, as a moving pixel slow removes an op block at time from the array
Of course Tetris, they could fall and neutralize other op blocks in the same row
I’m calling my new FM synth “Thee Blockchain”
Dr Chownings book is a great resource for getting the key concepts down.
Brian Eno was famously one of the few people who figured out how to create hundreds of new patches on the DX7 and used it on many of his albums. Apparently everyone else just used the presets, also with great results
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I’ve only see them perform with laptops so no idea if they use hardware. Cool project for sure. Ryoji ikeda is another FM experimental classic.
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interesting. i only knew Multistability, which i always thought was made with Supercollider(?)
(not hardware but also amazingly cool for FM if you have the patience)
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(Sorry, we might be derailing, but would you have recommendations (i.e. links) to Ikeda’s specifically FM work? I searched a bit and found interesting stuff but it didn’t sound absolutely FMy - for what it means)
I don’t know for sure whether he used Supercollider or not, I can imagine that he might have. But this sent me down the rabbit hole of reading old interviews with him. Seems he definitely uses Max a whole lot and has a long standing appreciation for FM. This article - Mark Fell on his love of FM synthesis and algorithmic composition - is particularly interesting although I can’t figure out which Yamaha he’s using in the main photo - looks like it might be some PSR rather than DX. There is some interesting stuff about how they used a TX81Z and it’s interesting multi-mode. I guess you could sort of emulate that with sound locks on the Digitone. Would be even cooler if you could point an LFO at the sound pool… anyway, I’m rambling.
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I posted a few links in the “FM music/artist” thread a while back but they’re taken down now 
worth checking his YT channel though. He does FM synthesis in a non-traditional way though and I would be surprised if he (still?) uses any actual hardware. Basically cranking the carrier and modulator to the highest frequencies at the fringe of human hearing. Or in some cases just using sine waves, introducing feedback etc.
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Thanks for posting that article, interesting read!
I’m totally not sure either if he used SC. but in the past i’ve been messing a lot with the pattern library and it suits arithmic series and growing/shrinking patterns a la Multistability very well (and it’s great for FM)
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Not sure if this is exactly what you’re asking, but I play my Opsix & Syntakt with a Launchpad.
I’m just using it for the scales, velocity and aftertouch really since I’ve kind of given up with keys. I don’t have any CCs mapped.
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I should have clarified that I was thinking of faders/knobs to control parameters, e.g for simultaneous control of multiple operators. That sounds like a nice setup though.
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That’s how the implementation in the Kronos works, i.e with faders and knobs controlling various aspects about the operators.
Thanks!
Looks like this is what CC’s the Opsix listens to.
Right center column “O” designates recognized CCs. Left is transmitted.
I’d mostly want to edit envelopes per operator if I could vs paging through each operator, but seems it’s just the overall ones on the home screen.
It’d make for some nice shortcuts at least if I took the time to set it up!
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Goddam, that’s rough. LOL
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Depending how much you want to work, you could go through Howard Massey’s THE COMPLETE DX7. Sometimes PDFs float around the net, or you can sign up free at the Internet Archive and read it there:
If you go through the book with a synth that duplicates the DX7 architecture (Volca FM, Dexed vst, etc.), the author explains how to make different sounds and gives you simple demo patches to set up—you can hear what he’s talking about. The concepts would apply to other Yamaha-style synths: Opsix, Montage/ModX, vintage Yammies.
I didn’t finish the book but found it helpful.
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That’s a good one. Can’t remember if it is in that book or elsewhere, but my favorite FM description was comparing a 4op synth to the beatles where each op is one of the members of the band. Paul is singing as the carrier op, and John is a modulator. Instead of John singing, he shakes Paul by the neck at incredibly high speeds, going from a vibrato sound to being shaken so fast that he creates a harmonic overtone. Then, George grabs John and shakes him while he continues to shake Paul, introducing another overtone etc etc
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I have a Digitone and it is super user friendly compared to the other FM synths that I have used in terms of selecting operators and so forth. Then I have FM eurorack modules like Hertz Donut that are really powerful with tons of routing options.