Synthesis Methods Explained: What Is FM Synthesis?
Synthesis Methods Explained: What Is FM Synthesis?
What is FM Synthesis? Frequency modulation synthesis has origins in early analog synthesizers, but solidified with John Chowning's digital synth research and the Yamaha DX Series. Learn how FM works, and where it came from.
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
There are so many articles and videos on FM explaining what it is and its history, but I haven't seen any on how to use it. There are lots of algorithms, but it seems its hardly any reason to use one over the other except for where the feedback is (to create subtractive style waves) or the number of carriers. Its a chaos engine, and there are some gold in there, but nobody really knows how to find it.
If you know any source that gets into an actually useful FM workflow, please share!
Super rad! I’ve played with FM synthesis in musical contexts but understanding it at a deeper level than just monkeying around has already unlocked more precise sounds. Thanks for posting