Problems getting creative with FM8

[foot2theballs]

Hey all, this is my first post on the KVR forums! I'm not all that new to making music; I've been doing it for probably around 5 years now. But I am 100% self-taught, so I'm here to learn! Thus far, I've literally ONLY used additive synthesis in my music, so I'm finally branching out and learning FM, mainly with NI FM8. While my book-knowledge of FM synthesis and FM8 are pretty damn sound at this point, I'm having trouble being creative and getting the kinds of sounds I want from FM synthesis. Hell, I'm having trouble being creative with additive synthesis too! But that's a post for another time. To use a specific instance, I'm having trouble making a nice sounding trance pluck with FM8. The only changes I've made from the default 'new sound' settings are these:

Changed operator F to a sawtooth wave

Modulated operator F with operator E at a rate of 50

Key synced both operators

Changed the envelope of operator F to your basic pluck envelope

And from there, I've tried all different types of waveforms on modulators and carriers, tried different ratios, and just generally played around with it for a solid 15-20 minutes. It was then that I realized I needed some help from some people with a bit more experience than me. So from the patch I have so far, what changes would YOU make to create a decent trance pluck?

[rjames25]

Try routing the output from the carrier signal (Operator F) into the Filter (Z). Then bring down the cutoff of the low pass filter until you have those "muffled" plucks. Draw in a similar pluck-like envelope in the Filter Envelope and then bring up the envelope amount slowly until you get those sharper and more defined plucks. Play around with the decay on the Filter Env and adjust to taste. Fm8 is incredible and honestly the fastest way to learn fm8 is to just mess around with it for hours and hours and hours....

[EnGee]

FM and Additive synthesis are not easy. So that many are approaching them with a substructive style.

I suggest to go through some tutorials first:
http://www.fm8tutorials.com/category/tutorials/

Then spend the many hours with it trying to play in the range with the mouse so you feel the effect of this parameter in this particular preset.