Can I create sweet bell tones using Audio Mod? Is this really FM?

[robst247]

Hi SoundRider,
I don't (yet) possess hardware analog synthesis modules, but I do have the excellent Applied Acoustics Systems (AAS) Tassman https://www.applied-acoustics.com/tassman/overview/, which is the best virtual analog modular synth in the visible universe! Some Tassman modules are fairly conventional virtual analog (e.g. oscillators, envelopes, LFO's, mixers and effects), whereas others are based on physical modelling ('generators' such as flute, mallet, organ, tone wheel, etc. and 'resonators' such as beam, bowed beam, marimba, bowed marimba, membrane, bowed membrane, string, bowed string, plate, bowed plate and tube).
Some of the Tassman factory patches use FM, and, of course, it's easy to make your own.
Give it a try!
The only thing Tassman can't do is make a steaming hot mug of coffee. 

[SoundRider]

Yes true ... those AAS plug-ins are great sound ressources, particularly the physical modelling synths, I have a some in my collection, but never tried Tassman, which seems to be a very complete and flexible system to built ones own machines. Thanks for the tip, this was never on my radar Can you tell me, how much is the CPU load?

[robst247]

The CPU load is very light. On my ASUS X750JA laptop with Windows 10, I run Tassman standalone or as a 64-bit VST in one of my DAWs (Reaper or Cubase) and the CPU load indicated by Tassman itself never exceeds 8%. Usually, it's less than 5%, even with very complex patches. My CPU is an Intel Core i7-4700 HQ @ 2.40 GHz. At its current price of US$349 (€314), Tassman isn't exactly a steal, but the possibilities are infinite and the sounds it produces are suberb. It also includes versatile sequencers that you can use not only to trigger notes but also as LFOs.

AAS Chromaphone 2, StringStudio VS-2 and UltraAnalog VA-2 are fantastic too! I use Chromaphone most of all, because I love 'natural' sounds that are like struck metal, struck wood and bowed or plucked strings.

Do you also have Arturia Synclavier V? I've just started delving into it. Amazing!

Virtual synths are like the lassies: too many of them to explore; too little time. 

[SoundRider]

That's good to hear ... 8% on a i7 multi core seems acceptable for all that maths, which is going on in the background. I have a similar notebook and I asked, because I use some synths of u-he and Xils-Lab ... and those are really CPU hungry.

No, I haven't got any of the Arturia soft synths.  For digital FM I use FM-8, Bazille, MOD-7, and PreenFM2 ... which seems to be more then enough for me and the time beeing. As you said, exploring takes so much time .

This said, I don't know them all deep and down to the bottom. I am happy that I might have got an idea of some FM "sound-creation-concepts" and FM "sound-families" and how to approach them. The basics of FM can be learned quickly, but all those multi-operator patches and programs are so manifold and can be use so differently that I would say, it takes a life-time to go through all of it and there will still be much to explore in the afterlife. Most fascinating is, how much different simple and tiny modulations change the tones. If programed the right way, a single modulator-carrier pair can sound like two or three completely different voices singing together.

The most fun I have with digital FM, is on my PreenFM2. It's hardware with knobs and buttons, it's equivalent to a DX7 sound engine, loads even DX7 patches, and it sounds fantastic. A little box with yellow display and containing a cosmos of sounds .. lovely ones, natural ones, dark ones, and dirty ones ...

[robst247]

Your description of the PreenFM2 sounds great. How much did you pay for it? Did you buy it in kit form or pre-assembled?

Years ago (maybe as long as 20 years ago), I fiddled around with a friend's Kurzweil synth that had FM onboard. And a colleague of mine had a DX7 and showed me how the various patch configurations worked, but I couldn't really wrap my head around the concept at that time. I have Native Instruments FM8 but have never really got under the hood. Work is the curse of the synthesizing classes! Wrong f***king planet! 

If you make any interesting MatrixBrute patches featuring the Audio Mod knobs, please share them here or in the presets section of the forum.

Happy knob-tweaking!

[SoundRider]

I bought my PreenFM2 fully assembled from Van Daal Elektronics: http://vandaal-electronics.com/shop/ They are charging 300€ now and I think, my price was about the same.

I have experimented a lot with the audio-modulation of the MB, to understand, how it sounds and where I can find interesting sweet spots. If found many. But unfortunately I haven't saved much. The most interesting sounds I got using filter FM, particularly using a tiny bit of blue noise, because the MB is my only synth, which has blue noise to modulate the filter

[robst247]

Please save and share some presets. I'm interested in hearing the results of your labours. 

[Amiral]

- In the mixer, turn off VCO 1, set VCO 2 level to 2 o'clock, send VCO 2 to the ladder
- in VCO 1 and VCO 2, turn down the saw wave fully, set Sub wave to sine (fully counter clockwise)
- in VCO 1, set Sub level to half
- in VCO 2, set Sub level to 3 o'clock, set Coarse tuning to +1 octave (turn it clockwise until the LED lights up)
- in the FM section, set VCO 1 > VCO 2 to 3 o'clock
- in the performance section, set the Octave to +2 (compensating for the fact that we use Sub oscillators)
- in Env 2, set Attack and Sustain to minimum, set Decay and Release to half
- in LFO 1, select sine wave, set Rate to 1 o'clock
- in the Mod matrix, assign LFO 1 to VCA, set the amount to 30  (to get wavering/shimmering)

Everything is right, except you should not leave VCA's ENV2  sustain to Minimum, unless you get a PopCorn Song sound 
You need to push it to Half to get a Bell Sound.
Brilliant move, by the way. Smart Tip !

[guyaguy]

I've been playing around more with FM on the MxB, Rev 2, and Ableton Operator. Getting clear tones is definitely hardest on the MxB but I usually like the not-quite-clean bells best. Here are some other tips to add to Dr Justice's and robst247's:

1. TING ATTACK: Route Env 3 to Audio Mod VCO1>2 and set Env to Attack and Sustain minimum, Decay just above minimum, and Release to taste. This adds just a bit of crash to the initial attack and, depending on your FM setting, will add slight pitch modulation. I've not studied bells to know how they behave but I know that the initial attack is slightly higher when striking a guitar or bass string. This effect replicates that effect.
2. HARMONICS: Using VCO 3 as a sine at noon if VCO 2 is at 3 can bring out some nice harmonics if it's tuned to a 5th, suggesting natural harmonic complexity. Depending on the frequency your VCO is set to you might be able to mix that in as well.
3. BRIGHT PING: Tune VCO 3 to its highest octave and blend at around noon for extra brightness in the attack. Use the LP filter envelope to cut off those frequencies while retaining the root VCO 2 frequencies.
4. WARBLE AND MOTION: You can modify the modifier by using the VCO>VCO1 Audio Mod routing if you're already routing VCO1 to 2. Setting it to 8-9 o'clock adds just a bit of movement to the patch.
5. NON-PERCUSSIVE: And of course use a longer attack on these patches to get a Cristal Baschet or glass harmonica type sound!

[standingwave]

 The brute does do FM synthesis, but it is not the DX style or Ableton operator style FM you may be trying to achieve.  The brute uses exponential FM where as styles of FM generally limited to use in digital engines is linear FM.
 Using the audio mod section in conjunction with modifiers (LFOs, envelopes, etc) can create very interesting sounds. Also, you can daisy chain the FM from one to another to creat very complex sounds.
 Try combining FM with oscillator sync!

 So yes this is FM, just dont think you'll be getting a 1980s pop bass like a DX7 will get you.

[guyaguy]

The brute does do FM synthesis, but it is not the DX style or Ableton operator style FM you may be trying to achieve.  The brute uses exponential FM where as styles of FM generally limited to use in digital engines is linear FM.

Yep exponential FM will always affect the pitch with just small amounts of modulation. Linear preserves the pitch more efficiently. And through-zero FM pretty much leaves the pitch in tact. Being able to switch between linear and exponential would have been nice. Maybe on the MatrixReloadedBrute!

[Processaurus]

The brute does do FM synthesis, but it is not the DX style or Ableton operator style FM you may be trying to achieve.  The brute uses exponential FM where as styles of FM generally limited to use in digital engines is linear FM.
 Using the audio mod section in conjunction with modifiers (LFOs, envelopes, etc) can create very interesting sounds. Also, you can daisy chain the FM from one to another to creat very complex sounds.
 Try combining FM with oscillator sync!

 So yes this is FM, just dont think you'll be getting a 1980s pop bass like a DX7 will get you.

Yes, this is the reason we won’t get DX sounds out of the matrixbrute (or other conventional analog synths with FM). The way I’ve had it explained is that an analog synth has exponential fm, because if you want to add, say vibrato, you want the pitch to bend up melodically/musically/harmonically the same amount as it bends down.  Say you want to bend A4 (440Hz) up and down an octave, you are bending up to A5 (880Hz), and down to A3 (220Hz). You’ve bent up by 440 Hz, but have only bent down 220 Hz. That sounds right for most musical modulation, but getting into audio rate modulation of pitch, designers found that when modulating a linear amount, the same Hz up as down, the added harmonics were more musically related to the fundamental note being played. Sweeter/more musical, and linear FM ended up being the classic 80’s FM sound.

[standingwave]

I have a my trusty TX7 module on a rack shelf for just such sounds.

 I'm unfamiliar with the term "through zero FM". Could you elaborate Guyaguy?
 Cheers.

[Lunatic Sound]

The DX7 and similar Yamaha digisynths actually use Phase Modulation (PM) and were just marketed as FM, right? This also means that you don't really get the sidebands and some of the challenges, that (Exponential) FM comes with.

(I wrote this part, then edited it out, cause suddenly I wasn't sure sure if I am mixing it up with the Casio Synth, but they use Phase Distortion , and now I am editing it back in, because it also helps to understand the rest of this post better.)

@standingwave: Thru-Zero means, that the oscillator is able to run "backwards", when the FM reaches a point beyond having it go to 0 hz, thus allowing for strong modulation beyond that point or also for example allowing the oscs base frequency to be 0hz,and the FM modulating it equally to both sides of that point, which deals with some of the problems (pitch shift) introduced by expo FM.

In eurorack wonderland, there have recently been some amazing inventions on this front.

Intellijels Rubicon2 made the TZFM big, SSFs Zero Point Oscillator has Lin FM, TZFM and some amazing wizardry regarding some AM coupled to the Zero Point and Joranalogues Generate3 has TZPM of plus and minus 720 degrees.

There was this very comprehensive article on all the different possible types of FM, further differentiating it into what they called it FM+ and FM-, but I haven't been able to find it in my quick search right now...

[Lunatic Sound]

All of the above VCOs are completely analog, by the way!