Re: [AH] DX7 Vs...

From Florian Anwander
Sent Fri, Sep 28th 2018, 21:53

Hello Marshall

Am 28.09.18 um 23:24 schrieb Marshall Craig:
> I mean, can you have a sound in your head and begin to approximate it 
> using specific methods?
I had a DX7 in 1984, for two weeks I only played presets. Then it took 
me around 3 hours with the manual starting from the init sound to get an 
idea how one has to approach constructing sounds in FM. Since then I can 
make sounds in a DX, which I have in my head. It takes me about twice as 
long as with a subtractive synth, but for many standard sounds still 
under 15 minutes (using a hardware contoller).

I don't understand FM mathematically, but I understand, that there 
aren't too many variations of sounds, and there are only a few important 
basic parameters. There is frequency ratio between operators, there is 
modulator level (with envelope) and you have to decide, whether your 
carrier operator runs with keyboardcontrol at audio, or without 
keyboard-control at low frequency.
Algorithm variations are overrated. Of course they make a big difference 
if you have a finished sound and change the algorithm.
But for building sounds from the scratch, it does not matter too much, 
whether two parallel modulators go to the same carrier or to two 
different carriers at the same frequency. The first will have a similar 
sound like Filter-PolyMod on a Prophet5. The latter one will remind 
simply two oscillators with VCF and VCA for each oscillator (like the 
voice architecure of Yamahas CS15 / CS80).

Thats it.

Florian