Apparently Most FM VST's aren't, they're Phase Modulation

[whyterabbyt]

I know more or less how a stack of 3 operators will sound given their ratios are harmonic integers , how feedback sounds in a 2-3 operator loop , becasue I did it a million times .

that's 'the most intuitive synthesis' for you, only takes a million attempts.

[swilow11]

There is basically no reason at all for the human brain to understand what will emerge when one waveform modulates the phase or frequency of another and if that's really your claim, you're talking nonsense.

I also don't get why YT tutorials are automatically bad for learning FM synthesis but, yeah, there is a reason to understand what will emerge when one waveform modulates another: arithmetic. It's in Chowning's (written) tutorials among others. It's a different approach to synthesis most people don't really want to bother with as, to make it work you need to have a decent idea of the frequency profile of a sound and be prepared to do a few sums, but the sidebands are predictable.

Of course they are predictable but intuitive, no. My point was that the human brain really has no priors when first faced with an FM synth and a basic explanation of what a carrier and modulator is.

But mainly, I was calling out the ridiculous elitism that some folks here exhibit. As if fumbling blindly on a synth for hours is somehow better than watching a tutorial. The point by the elitists here usually boils down to "Ive been doing this for 45 years and I'm better than you". Well, I'm going to make fun of those people as they deserve, and i hope that newcomers or new producers/musicians don't think the whole area is being gatekept by elitist bullies.

[Ah_Dziz]

A fun way to get a more "intuitive" feel for Phase modulation is to load up something like bitwig grid or another modular type system that allows for direct manipulation of the phase of a given osc. Then start with modulating the phase with a simple saw wave (phasor) which will simply play back the wave as is at whatever frequency the phasor is set to. Then play around with driving the phase with other waves. And then playing around with modulating the frequency phasor (which is PM synthesis). I think (it was my experience) that this will drive home what is happening in a reasonably straightforward way. Also spending lots of time just fiddling about will get you a good understanding of what's happening. That's what I did. It takes more time obviously.

[BertKoor]

> The point by the elitists here usually boils down to "Ive been doing this for 45 years and I'm better than you".

Nope, the point is: "I've tried it 45 years ago, failed miserably, eventually gave up and filed it under wizardry. So did everybody I know that also tried. Good luck... you'll need it!"