Posting this overdue review of F.’em – FM synth from Tracktion, which seemingly went under the radar.
It’s a very nice synth with a lot of advantages and features useful in FM synthesis. It’s not perfect, though.
Anyway, it’s the new tool of trade for me.
Now this is a very hot topic: A different take on how to (not) compress a track.
It was an old idea, probably 8 years old by now as I got it back at the university. “Supercontinuum” means, in layman’s term, a rainbow laser. So that’s pretty much what you can see on the cover:
It’s quite an ephemereal phenomenon unlike anything observed in nature, and so is the sound design for this track. Not a single subtractive synth was used in the making of “Supercontinuum”, and samples were very sparse too. Main lead is string morphing smoothly into flute thanks to Harmor. Bassline comes from newly purchased FM8. Pseudo-acoustic instruments is Chromaphone 2, some atmoshperes come from Iris 2 and Ableton Operator is also there.
Last, but not least – all the melodies and harmonies were created by AI. It’s all Orb Composer, and in fact I started to create this track immediately after I purchased the tool back in 2018. Took me many months and three attempts to get anywhere with it. In fact, I been adding final touches in August 2019. Even though the track was signed immediately, it still took several months to get the remixes done by Sublitrance and LTM.
This concludes the mini series about FM synthesis:
I’m on fire, so much content coming out recently.
Also got ideas for some hotter topics, which will get closer to mixing electronic music.
Let’s continue the FM synthesis series, shall we?
Mic fixed. Also added a lot of extra graphics to make maths part easier to understand.
Honestly, all this preparation and editing takes a lot of time. Hopefully in the future there will be more music and less theory.
Let’s continue, shall we?
The early episodes misfired due to very bad microphone quality, but I’m still improving in both audio and video.
This episode is a retake on my presentation about FM synthesis I made almost 4 years ago. Got a lot of material ready to use and explain in some sensible matter, and part 2 is coming.
NI’s new flagship VST, the Massive X, was surrounded by controversy and buzz months before launch. Some claim it was a dissapointment, but I gave it a chance and it surpassed my expectations. As a matter of fact, Massive X might be my new favourite 🙂
Massive X is the holy grail combining ease of use, quick operation and vast possibilities. Beyond standard envelopes and LFOs there are also numerous handy features and options, such as “switcher LFO” or modulation bar next to every control, even synced delay times. An unbelievably flexible “performer” sequencer is accompanied by note-dependent, velocity and random modulators – all of them immediately available for quick use. No modulation matrix and no menu diving whatsoever.
In terms of synthesis options, everything is here – phase modulation / FM, sync and even wavefolders – till now rarely found in virtual synths, especially not all at once. Massive X also offers great sound quality for moderate CPU usage thanks to (brave) implementation of AVX instructions. These are commonplace in every CPU released since 2011, though many people already complained their machine is even older and thus completely incompatible with new synth. But hey, I’m up for latest tech advances!
DJ Warmonger blog 