Looking for a cpu friendly (for core2duo laptop) FM synth, preferably one with a nice GUI from a pro company.

Anny suggestions?

fm8

Can't think of an FM synth right now that isn't CPU friendly...

+1. Are there even any alternatives to this?

It gets No love here...but all tubeohm products should!!

Check out t-fm.

If you are in Canada there is a review coming up in the following weeks in thisweek

BL

sytrus

+1

+ 1

Rhino, Octopus, Blue.

There's always Toxic Biohazard...

It's a great FM synth...

Maxx should be delivering the x64 version soon...

Not everybody feels the love for NI

An overlooked little gem. Oops, there it is in my folder! Hello, Toxic, sorry I haven't been over in a while... yeah, I've been seeing FM8 on and off, you know how it is. Well, see ya sometime.... no, I'LL call YOU. Bye.

+1 for Sytrus and Toxic Biohazard.

If you're interested in freeware there are two synths that I'd recommend:
De la Mancha's FMMF http://www.delamancha.co.uk/FMMF.htm which is a 4 Op, algorithm based synth that has superb envelopes.

Then there is also FEM2 http://wd81p901z.homepage.t-online.de/news.htm which is a 6 Op, matrix based synth that has it's own character.

Recently Odo's stuff has become available again and there are a number of superb FM synths in the collection. Site is here: http://theodosynthsarchive.wordpress.com/

On the payware front LinPlug's Octopus is a killer synth with 8 Ops, a matrix and multi-stage envelopes that is worth a look.

TubeOhm's T-FM is also very good - it's 6 Op algo synth that follows somewhat the architecture of Yamaha's famous DX7.

Rob Papen's BLUE is worth a look too. It's another 6 Op, algo synth but comes with it's own particular character.

One that often gets forgotten in DiscoDSP's Phantom. It's a 4 Op, algo synth that can also read SysEx data from the Yamaha DX27, DX21,DX100 and TX81Z. Sounds good too.

For me Rhino and Sytrus are too fiddly but can sound good if you have the patience to deal with their interfaces.

Edit to mention that all of these synths are fairly CPU friendly. I'm on an oldish Core2 laptop and have no trouble with any of these synths.

Finally, and this is a bit of self promotion, some articles on FM synthesis that I wrote for Wusik Sound Magazine:
http://issuu.com/wusik/docs/wsmsept2011/4
http://issuu.com/wusik/docs/wsm_october_2011/62
http://issuu.com/wusik/docs/wsmfeb2012/5

Part 4 is due this month. In the articles, apart from covering theory, I've had the chance to look at a number of the synths mentioned. There are two more articles to come that will include a bunch more.

Bazille - due to her modular approach and PD stuff

NI FM8, Sytrus, Rhino, and I'll add the little FM synth form Disco DSP, very affordable and fun to use.