The Fight for FM

[living sounds]

if you ask the software synth to do 'much tighter bass', it will.

So you could argue that maybe the DX7 was easier to get good sounds with, but I seriously doubt it would be even half as easy to make a preset with a DX7 than with today's software synths.

Look, we had these discussions time after time here. The point is, there's not a single sound coming out of any plugin FM synth that has the qualities of most sounds coming out of the hardware. It's obvious when playing, and it's obvious listening to recorded stuff. It gets very obvious when mixing. It's very much like the quality difference between a plugin compressor or EQ and good outboard. The mind boggling thing with FM is that it SHOULDn't be different. But it is.

[Download SOphist]

What's VOPM?

download


manual (kind of)

Cheers!

[tony tony chopper]

The mind boggling thing with FM is that it SHOULDn't be different. But it is

How about looking somewhere else than the synth itself? The recording maybe?

But anyway, how do you input exactly the same settings in a DX7 and say, FM7? Have you verified each of them? How did you translate them?

[living sounds]

The mind boggling thing with FM is that it SHOULDn't be different. But it is

How about looking somewhere else than the synth itself? The recording maybe?

But anyway, how do you input exactly the same settings in a DX7 and say, FM7? Have you verified each of them? How did you translate them?

You can import than. Anyway, the general sound of the synths is vastly different. The FM7/8 always sounds like a blanket has been put over the speakers, there is an artificial (not in a good way) twist to the sound, the envelopes are super-slow,...

[living sounds]

What's VOPM?

download


manual (kind of)

Cheers!

Now this one is fun! It's not the greatest synth in the world, but it sounds as I remember the old OPM chips. In fact better, the old sound cards had worse converters than what I got now. Finally a plugin with really quick envelopes and a well-balanced sound without the usual veil over it. Now if those guys would make a DX7 emulation...

[tony tony chopper]

You can import than

There's hardly any accurate & detailed doc on the DX7 param, you can't assume that parameters are perfectly translated.

The FM7/8 always sounds like a blanket has been put over the speakers, there is an artificial (not in a good way) twist to the sound, the envelopes are super-slow,...

that sounded really scientific, I'm sold

[living sounds]

that sounded really scientific, I'm sold

I use this stuff to make music, so my primary concern is for sound.

[aMUSEd]

Brian Eno used to argue that the only major difference between the FM7 and original DX range was the originals had snappier envelopes. He still preferred the FM7 on balance though but although I haven't got a real DX I know how important snappy envelopes are to making certain sounds. What I don't know is whether NI addressed this issue when they updated to the FM8 or if other DX synths have (I suspect Hexter and DX Heaven might have) - my G2 also does some great DX sounds and it has fast envelopes.

[tony tony chopper]

You don't seem to be interested in knowing why it's different - it may be because of something that's not related to the DX7 itself or FM synthesis.

See, my previous soundcard had DirectSound & ASIO drivers. For some reason (probably settings burried somewhere) its ASIO output had its stereo shrinked.
Should I have concluded:
-'DirectSound sounds better'?
-'my soundcard sounds better than.. itself'?
-'it sounds different, but I know it's some processing that I can probably disable somewhere, even if I can't find it'?

I have a fact, DirectSound & ASIO sound different on a system, but I certainly can't draw any dumb conclusion just because it 'sounds like'. So I go for the most logical explanation.

[tony tony chopper]

was the originals had snappier envelope

But FM7 has multipoint envelopes with user-definable curves, no?

[aMUSEd]

Yes indeed. I'm just repeating what Eno said (in a SOS interview - I still have it) - I have no way to make this comparison myself - however he probably should know a thing or two about it.

[living sounds]

You don't seem to be interested in knowing why it's different - it may be because of something that's not related to the DX7 itself or FM synthesis.

See, my previous soundcard had DirectSound & ASIO drivers. For some reason (probably settings burried somewhere) its ASIO output had its stereo shrinked.
Should I have concluded:
-'DirectSound sounds better'?
-'my soundcard sounds better than.. itself'?
-'it sounds different, but I know it's some processing that I can probably disable somewhere, even if I can't find it'?

I have a fact, DirectSound & ASIO sound different on a system, but I certainly can't draw any dumb conclusion just because it 'sounds like'. So I go for the most logical explanation.

Windows resamples the direct sound output, so ASIO should sound always better.

As for the FM synths, we've been speculating about this in this forum for ages now. Since none of the designers of the Yamaha FM synths are present we could go on speculating forever. I'd certainly like to know why they sound different. And I'd like someone to come up with a plugin that sounds as good as the hardware. But I'm not a software designer.
Some people have provided some insight here, you can do a search on it. But if you want to do music now my answer will be get a TX7 for reasons stated above.

[tony tony chopper]

Windows resamples the direct sound output, so ASIO should sound always better

Not if there's nothing to resample (already same samplerate). Besides, there were Creative soundcards with a fixed 48khz that were too resampling everything.
But I was talking about shrinked stereo anyway. Probably some setting somewhere, in some mixer (yes, for ASIO too).

[living sounds]

Windows resamples the direct sound output, so ASIO should sound always better

Not if there's nothing to resample (already same samplerate). Besides, there were Creative soundcards with a fixed 48khz that were too resampling everything.
But I was talking about shrinked stereo anyway. Probably some setting somewhere, in some mixer (yes, for ASIO too).

No, the internal k-mixer always resamples the incoming signal to 48khz and then resamples it again to the sampling rate you are working with for compability reasons. This affects the sound quality, of course. The only way to avoid it is ASIO.

And yes, the virtual sound card mixers are a source of never ending problems.

[BFunKu]

FM8 hands down is the Best FM VSTi.