Hi Urs,

So, I just posted this over in the Camel forum... basically, I'm just trying to run the idea by my favorite developers in the hopes that they will a) become aware that it's a thing and b) turn it into a real product at some point! Without further ado:


I just wanted to alert you to a little thing that's been happening over in the Sound Design forum for the past couple of years regarding FM:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4798504#479850 4

Click the first link, and you'll see the original thread I started almost two years back. I'm sitting at over 2200 downloads now, and it sure looks like a lot of us are pretty excited about this. Many of us grew up with these sounds, and they remain a big deal to us. We'd absolutely love to use them in some modern context.

If at some point u-he were to decide to delve into FM, why not this? "Sam" has already written what could be an excellent starting point. What do you think?

Didn't read the topics yet, buuut, Urs "sent signals" that Zebra could use more FM in the future. If this is kind of library, it could be easily implementet in there as a module. Just thinking.
(Also idea of huge U-he FM synth is not bad at all btw. Just wait and talk to him when he apears. )

If so, that'd be incredible. I've managed to make VOPM really scream... TOUGH sounding little synth if programmed correctly. But, it's noisy as hell. That may account for some of the aforementioned, but I know Urs could make it SO much better. Being able to load .opm files in Zebra would be an absolute dream come true! That mixed with those insane comb-filters-as-oscillators... JOY!!

Anybody know when Urs is expected back from Jamaica? It is Jamaica, right? Hope he's having fun... lord knows he deserves a break!!

Yes, recent controversial Kvr threads have turned him into a Rastafari:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=339149

I just came across a thread on Gearslutz about the FS1R. There are some folks talking about how no soft synths can do what it does. It would be really cool to see Urs take on this challenge...

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments- electronic-music-production/694070-yamaha-fs1r-alternative.h tml

I agree completely. I was just messing with Zebra again today, and comparing the sound quality to some of my other favorites. Urs' stuff is generally just a cut above. If I'd trust anyone to do it right, it would be him.

The FS1R was indeed an amazingly powerful bit of kit. I don't think we've seen a truly great FM soft synth yet. Everything on the market has these major limitations. VOPM is probably the best sounding to my ears, but is quite basic and not much to look at. FM8 is quite nice, but doesn't have that VOPM sound, and the modulation options aren't that incredible (though the matrix is quite novel and very nice). All the others I've tried are just far too limited in terms of the modulations that can be set up.

If a developer such as u-he were to take on the task of doing it completely right, making a crackingly powerful beast of an FM synth with no real limitations in terms of routing or sound quality (ultra-high quality offline options), I think it would significantly alter the course of pop and electronic music. FM just hasn't been explored nearly enough, IMHO. With our computers the way they are now, why not??

Zebra already has 4 operators, which can have many modulation sources.
Adding certain filters on, and you can really good fm tones imo.
Isn't that enough to work with.
I can't speak for Urs, but just judging from the amount of new products U-he is working on releasing, I'd think the possibility is very small on the fm thing.
Maybe some updating with the Zebra FM modules would be a good idea though.

There is also Bazille

We just need a few extra waveforms in the FMO... Saw, square, triangle, a few different pulses, and then FM7-style bandlimited versions of the above with smooth edges. That and an update to the Ring Modulator to more easily do AM and maybe an option to switch off DC offset blocking of the waveform generators, and that's all the FM I think we'd need...

No need for a new product, Zebra is the only synth we need! (Along with other u-he products, of course )

I think we could use a couple more FMOs as well if we're trying to do this in Zebra. However, I think a dedicated FM synth from u-he including both modern / clean and "classic" (DX7, etc) modes would be quite interesting. Urs has a real knack for well thought out UI.

Yes, I think something that would at the very least cover everything the FS1R can do would be wonderful. Also, the ability to route absolutely anything to FM amount for, say, multiple operators at once, each of which would have a defined range (like you can define ranges in Z3ta+, for example--an incredibly useful and oft overlooked feature for live performance, especially), would be awesome.

I would say 8 operators minimum. Plus formant sequencing. Yeah!

I'm proposing a true FM monster synth. Octopus is quite powerful with 8 ops, but still limited in terms of UI, IMHO. If this could all be worked into Zebra, I'd be thrilled. But, it would require doubling the size of the matrix, for one.

Sorry, 4 ops just isn't enough. I've easily maxed out FM8.

This whole idea revolves around the fact that I've heard and made some really thrilling evolving, personality-oozing FM textures of great complexity and subtlety with only FM8, or even VOPM. I'm often left wanting, though... I always think how great it would be to set up a very sophisticated, original, FM lead sound with at least 3 realtime controllable parameters that could be mapped to pedal, mod wheel, and aftertouch for instance, that could shift the sound from tame to scary, all the while more or less preserving the signature timbre. To me, that's the true beauty of FM: you can make it scream and wail like no other form of synthesis I know of... of course, you can do a lot with additive, but it's all the crazy intermodulations that make it so rich and interesting to my ears. Everything described above I've tried to do the way I'm thinking (having trouble explaining it all here both briefly and in detail), but I've always run into some bottleneck, something I find can't be routed to something else, a modulation source I want but that doesn't exist... that kind of thing! A bottleneck-free FM synth is what I'm after. One where sound quality is the top concern. The 4-mode rendering system Urs has employed for DIVA could be brilliant on a high-end FM synth. Of course, Diva's filters would be, too!

The FS1R architecture should be a jumping off point. Just having that beast in software form would be a major achievement for anyone!

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?

Urs

If you can reign in 8-op FM and get it to do what you want, you're far better at it than I am (which wouldn't take much)

Once you go beyond a tickler being tickled by a tickler I start to lose any grip on the outcome

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...

In the FS1R each voice has 8 normal FM operators for FM and 8 bandpass noise operators (called unvoiced operators).
The unvoiced operators has a center frequency, a skirt (Q or bandwidth) and a level.
The unvoiced operators are fixed in parallell routing but the voiced ones has the normal DX algorithms + some new ones.

The "formant sequences" is where you can create talking and crude re-sysnthesis, when released you could not much with it but some clever people created some editors on how create your own.

The hard part is trying to overview all envelopes controlling the operators, and what each operator is responsible for.