Any FM in u-he's future?

Official support for: u-he.com
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

KBSoundSmith wrote:Anyway, the actual topic is FM, right? Yay, FM! :wheee:
I'm actually thinking, if we added external side chaining and two knobs to Zebra's FMOs we could possibly add gazillions of possibilities. That, and maybe steal that "tap the map" option from ACE for FMOs and LFOs, and we would've cut the number of feature requests in half. Or so. Almost.

(no estimated release date)

Post

Urs wrote:(no estimated release date)
:D
Most people wouldn't know good music if it bit them in the ass. –FZ

Post

Urs wrote:
KBSoundSmith wrote:Anyway, the actual topic is FM, right? Yay, FM! :wheee:
...if we added external side chaining and two knobs to Zebra's FMOsually thinking, we could possibly add gazillions of possibilities....

(no estimated release date)
Whenever it comes, that will be pretty exciting.

Post

Urs wrote: I'm actually thinking, if we added external side chaining and two knobs to Zebra's FMOs we could possibly add gazillions of possibilities.
Sounds great!

Er, what would the two knobs do?

Post

Maybe we'll know more after Musikmesse 2012!? :)
Urs wrote:The big news are not necessarily related to new products that come out at the day. It's more like that "Hell Froze Over" type of thing, and actually at least two of those. Imagine something along the lines of "Roland licenses D-50 waveforms to u-he" or "Eric Persing contributes Zebra patches", but neither of those it is (even though I wouldn't mind any of these to happen as well)

;) Urs

Post

eXode wrote:Maybe we'll know more after Musikmesse 2012!? :)
Urs wrote:The big news are not necessarily related to new products that come out at the day. It's more like that "Hell Froze Over" type of thing, and actually at least two of those. Imagine something along the lines of "Roland licenses D-50 waveforms to u-he" or "Eric Persing contributes Zebra patches", but neither of those it is (even though I wouldn't mind any of these to happen as well)

;) Urs
Hahaha... you *must* know something. And if you do, I guess you might be right.

Post

Urs wrote:
eXode wrote:Maybe we'll know more after Musikmesse 2012!? :)
Urs wrote:The big news are not necessarily related to new products that come out at the day. It's more like that "Hell Froze Over" type of thing, and actually at least two of those. Imagine something along the lines of "Roland licenses D-50 waveforms to u-he" or "Eric Persing contributes Zebra patches", but neither of those it is (even though I wouldn't mind any of these to happen as well)

;) Urs
Hahaha... you *must* know something. And if you do, I guess you might be right.
Messe can't come soon enough... :)
Last edited by eXode on Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post

eXode wrote:Messe can't come soon enough... :)
Absolutely. Our studio drowns in chaos. Yesterday we got the trussing system delivered. We decided to buy our own rather than rent because it pays off after about 2 shows. The kitchen is becoming a workshop for case building. Clemens and Fritz are sussing our bare bones systems with parts flying all over the place. And then there's front plates, potentiometers, packages with resistors and all sorts of things everywhere. Next week we shall get delivery of bags, brochures, usb sticks (in nice gift boxes).

Post

Urs wrote: I'm actually thinking, if we added external side chaining and two knobs to Zebra's FMOs we could possibly add gazillions of possibilities. That, and maybe steal that "tap the map" option from ACE for FMOs and LFOs, and we would've cut the number of feature requests in half. Or so. Almost.

(no estimated release date)
Sounds most excellent to me good sir!

Post

[quote="Urs"]I was bidding for FS1Rs on ebay couplatimes, but never won.

My main interest is, how do those formant things work? Are they merely bandpass filters behind each oscillator that do a similar thing as keytracking?

Or is each operator either a bandpass filter or an oscillator?
[/quote]

I have an FS1r in my studio. It's a very cool device indeed, but a little cumbersome to edit via the frontpanel.

Luckily there is a program here http://synth-voice.sakura.ne.jp/fs1r_ed ... glish.html

That program should be able to run without an Fs1r attached, so it can give you a good idea of how an FS1r runs internally. I can also fill you in on any other details on the FS1r, since I very familiar with it.

From what I remember there are quite a few operator oscillators you can choose from. Formant happens to be one of them... There is also a typical Sine operator and then few that are basically a sine fundamental with added odd, even, or both harmonics dropping off significantly. It basically sounds like a bandpassed saw/square. The formant is basically the same deal except that you can change the nuances of the bandpass filter via parameters. So you can basically have a wide bandpass narrow off while changing the slope of drop-off, etc. All this can be controlled by velocity, keytracking, Mod Wheel, etc. Sounds cooler than it actually is IMHO. :)

I personally found the formant stuff to be marginally usable and instead depended more on typical sine modulating sine type stuff. Each 'voice' (of which the fs1r has 4!) of the Fs1r can have up to 16 operators: 8 voiced (pitched oscillators) and 8 non-voiced (AKA noise through a bandpass). For most purposes, I was able to get good 'vox type' sounds without using any of the formant oscillators.

As far as FM sounds are concerned, the Fs1r is a superior to anything FM I've used in the software realm. When I started playing with the FMOps in Zebra, I immediately thought about how cool it would be to try fs1r type stuff and run it through Zebra's superior filter section.

Zebra is still overall a much more versatile synth.

Post

Hum de doo (posted in wrong thread).

Post

taken from a thread in instruments
regarding FM7/FM8 vs the yamaha's
aciddose wrote:well, their primary waveform and scaling isn't the same as in the YM series chips and so the end timbre doesn't sound as rich. it tends to have a more "plastic" timbre with less harmonic content.

i would say a really nice fm synthesizer as vst doesn't exist, period.
aciddose wrote: i haven't used a tg77 myself, but the YM chips sound much better than fm7/8 because fm7/8 uses different base waveforms, different depth tables and so on.

with some presets it's difficult to tell the difference, with others it's extremely obvious. if you start making your own presets being used to using a dx-7 or any other YM-x based synth it's a very different experience.

while the authors of fm7/8 emulated the most popular presets fairly well (i can only say "fairly") once you go off the well trodden path it doesn't match up anymore.

this is especially important if you're doing the "FM" sounds. not just a guitar a flute or an organ sound as in some of the presets. lots of feedback, extremes of modulation depth, complicated envelope use (taking advantage of "bugs" or weird effects) won't work correctly in most of the 'emulators' available as vst.

which is strange, because dosbox and mame both have very nice emulations of these chips. the mame emulator i believe is even supposed to produce bit-for-bit accurate output if it's run at the correct rate.
i fully agree with this developer's comments.

u-he were first to get it right with the analo?gs (with diva)....maybe they can be the first to nail the yamaha's digitals too.
even a basic rick hastley's never gonna give you up dx7 bass doesn't sound right in Fm7.
all punchy dx basses lose all their punch and bite when imported in the various softwares...obviously something ain't right with hamronics/transients results. with tight settings it feels like a smudged copy of the original .

Post

rockin1 wrote:
Howard wrote:
Sendy wrote: Once you go beyond a tickler being tickled by a tickler I start to lose any grip on the outcome :cry:
I guess that's why I'm happy with just four operators and four potential modulators with non-sine-based waveforms... It covers a huge ground as it is...
+1
Very true, but not some well known ground the FS1R is capable of... Also, FM is hard enough on its own. It benefits greatly from a UI designed around FM. Regardless of how anyone feels about the sound, I think most would agree that FM8 does a nice job of making it easier to see what is going on. This is something that isn't likely to come in a modular or semi-modular. It requires a synth focused on FM...
To me and fm blue is clearly better than fm8. even better presets etc. only good point in fm8 loads old Yamaha patches...
ps. must ahve good point i mean.

Post

Urs did u read my previous post above with the quotes from aciddose? to get the same sound as the yamaha's it's essential that these points are taken care of in any future project/implemetation.

Post

olikana wrote:Urs did u read my previous post above with the quotes from aciddose? to get the same sound as the yamaha's it's essential that these points are taken care of in any future project/implemetation.
Well. I don't believe in everything AD says. Those earthshattering differences might as well be the result of aliasing, imagination and what not - effects all of which we want to avoid.

That said, my motivation to do emulations of any DX/SY series device is fairly limited :oops:

Post Reply

Return to “u-he”