We’ll set the Ratio to 18.00, giving us a harsh, sustained tone. To create our digital piano we want to use a fairly high ratio to simulate the harmonics created by the electric piano’s tine being struck. If you play a note and drag up on this parameter you’ll hear how the timbre becomes sharper and brighter, eventually beginning to alias and create all kinds of unusual tones.
We can change the timbre of this frequency modulation by adjusting Operator E’s Ratio setting. This adds harmonics and gives the sound a sawtooth-like timbre. Drag up on the box in the matrix below Operator E and to the left of Operator F like until the modulation amount reaches 100. In the matrix, right-click Operator E to activate it, then left click it to bring up its parameters. Starting with the default patch in FM8, click the Expert tab on the left-hand side of the screen to bring up the modulation matrix. We’ll be using NI’s FM8 plugin for this walkthrough (you can download a demo from here), but the same principles apply to any good FM synth plugin.
This time we’re going to employ some more involved programming to create another classic FM sound, a DX7-like digital electric piano that’s perfect for capturing that smooth 80s vibe but can also be tweaked to create much more modern sounds.
#FM8 REESE TUTORIAL HOW TO#
In our Introduction to FM Synthesis we looked at how to create a simple percussive synth bass sound using one operator to modulate another.
This is the basis of countless classic sounds in just about every genre of dance music. Moving forward with our examination of FM synthesis, we show how to create a classic electric piano patch in NI’s FM8.