Additive + FM, which synth?

[Dewdman42]

Ok, so I have been trying to wrap my head around FM8 for a while. Bottom line, that beast is capable of some incredible tones, but I find it really hard to figure out how to Get the tones. I can sometimes take an existing one I find and string it up a bit differently, but usually the mod matrix with operators feeding into other operators and back into themselves...while obviously incredibly power, I think a bit difficult to understand. But what I love about FM synthesis is that you can attach controllers to the operators which provides real time control over the timbre in a way that a lot of other synths don't do. FM makes awesome growls and stuff like that. The gritty stuff you can hear, and the changes over time, really fun to do with FM and have one or two controllers make a huge tangible change to the sound, providing you can figure out how to string together the operators to get a sound.

Additive on the other hand, just seems a bit more intuitive to me in terms of the basic timbre. You can visualize the spectral signature and see which partials are doing what, and what you hear is what you see. Not to mention that you can resynthesize timbres from samples to get in the ballpark.

But it seems to me I'd be really happy if I could have an Additive synth that does resynthesis and all that stuff, with a lot of partials, but also have an extensive mod matrix were the operators can do FM type stuff. Not so much for making the basic tone, but for making the grittier stuff at lower frequency modulation (but higher frequency then most synth mod matrixes go)...growls, etc..

I think probably Harmor does this, or something close to this....I'm really interested in that once its on the Mac, but what else out there will do stuff like this? Basically resynthesis the basic tone, but allow you to use Frequency modulation, at higher rates then 1/64 or 1/128 or 1/256, enough to go into FM synthesis territory....and possibly more than one operator deep. Am I dreaming, confused or naive?

[Examigan]

Have you checked out Nemesis?

It has Wave import, resynthesis, and an additive spectral editor.

[Dewdman42]

Nemsis is on the list of things I want to try. You have mentioned how to create the basic additive sound and that's fine, there are numerous products that can do that now. The question is more about how can you manipulate in real time. With Additive, you have a few hundred partials, so its not realistic to think you would ride the levels of specific partials in order to change the sound over time. Some additive synths can also capture different spectral images over time and include that in the evolving sound, but at that point its just playing back the sample pretty much. Or maybe you can manipulate the spectral image so that its a wavestation-like evolving sound...but again...that doesn't provide a way to tap controllers into the sound to go ballistic in real time with it, like you can with FM.

The next question is how to attach controllers to something other than the all so common "Filter", to make the basic sound go ballistic with automation. One of the reasons FM is so powerful is because if you can stumble upon the right operator configuration somehow, then you can have one or two controllers that make humongous changes to the tone because of the way the Frequency Modulation comes in from the side. That part of FM is not hard to understand and very powerful. The part that has always left me grasping around in the dark is the part about constructing the base tones to begin with. That is way more straightforward with Additive. Conversely, Additive, on its own, is difficult to impose any kind of real time controls for evolving the sound with manipulation. So I like the idea of something that uses Additive to get the basic tone, and then more extensive mod matrix then we normally seem to get.

That could also be done with wavetable I guess and some fm synths will supposedly let you do that. The advantage of Additive is that you could also do the unworldly tweaks to the spectral image over time, and then still modulate the hell out of it after that if the facilities exist.

[PaulSC]

Linplug Spectral might be a good fit for your needs.

[raymondwave]

Try Synapse DUNE 2, it's a VA with wavetables and FM with deep mod matrix. Quite forward thinking unison/layer system also.

In all honesty I didn't follow 100% what you're after, but DUNE 2 might fit in there.

[pdxindy]

So you want to do some fx and soundscape type stuff?

Do you have some audio examples of what you are trying to do?

[DJDJ]

Blue 2 is FM + Additive, and sounds amazing

[V0RT3X]

go and demo a bunch, there are lots of great ones out there!

I personally like Zebra the best.

[aMUSEd]

Operator (from Live)

[Zenstation]

Z3ta+2 does both FM and additive. It's my favorite synth at the moment, and it's surprisingly cheap considering how good it actually sounds.

[Nokenoku]

Sytrus is an FM synth with additive oscillators.

It's actually pretty awesome.
But the GUI is a bit smallish.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Alchemy 2 will probably have FM! Looking forward to that.

[DiNFeVo]

Linplug Octopus is an Additive + FM synthesis. I think is pretty much what you are looking for and is quick, simple and intuitive to use.

[ksandvik]

Yes of all the FM synthesis UI interfaces, me thinks Octopus and the simple but powerful UI in Logic's EFM being the easiest for creating FM sounds. Not that FM patch generation is really voodoo, you need to kind of get an intuitive feeling what operators do and mostly by trial and errors narrow down the sound you want. Meanwhile you get a lot of other patches you could save for a rainy day.

[realmarco]

Absynth does additive and FM

you can even make additives waveforms being FMed by another additive OSC