I was listening to the pad sound in @djsashaofficial new track Phaxon, and started thinking how to make #fmsynthesis sound like a filter resonance sweep, without using a filter.
The result was not what I expected, but I turned out this pad with one Operator and the beat with another Operator. Two tracks. Just a reverb on the pad, EQ on the drums.
#Ableton #abletonoperator
They say a good way to learn #fmsynthesis is to try mimick real instruments. So I tried to create a shakuhachi-like flute sound. First dry, then with Verbsuite reverb faded in.
#Ableton #abletonoperator
I'm intrigued about creating PWM modulated sounds with FM, because it's something FM synths normally can't do.
Two ops in this sound, a regular sine wave carrier, and a saw wave modulator at the same frequency. The saw wave is modulated by a looped pitch envelope, which shifts the pitch down a TINY amount every 50ms, effectively changing the phase of the saw wave a little.
So why looped pitch env, not LFO? The Operator LFO oscillates evenly between the + and - polarity, so it would cancel the phase shift when going from + back to -. With a looped pitch env I can create an "LFO" that only slows down the saw wave a bit on every cycle, but never speeds it back up.
No FX here, just the Operator.
#Ableton #abletonoperator #fmsynthesis
Operator 5: Attempt at a modulating eerie sound that would work with pads and sound like waves at the same time.
You can hear first the sound without the noise op, then with the noise on, then with a vibrato effect added after Operator, and last with the pad sound.
Operator → Ableton Chorus-Ensemble effect for vibrato → Slate VCC Channel → Arturia Rev Spring-636 (→ master channel FX).
#Ableton #abletonoperator #sounddesign
Operator 4: Here I tried to replicate an Air Pad patch from the excellent ChipSynth MD plugin. Still not quite sure why it has that perceived soft noisy top-end, because there is no noise. 🤷♂️ Carefully selected waveform and level I guess + chorus for added sheen.
Operator → NI Choral → Deelay → subtle overdrive with Slate VCC Channel, acts more like a compressor really.
Manley EQ etc on the master channel (see previous posts if you're interested :).
#ableton #abletonoperator #sounddesign
Operator sound 3: A beat made with a single Operator. No FM here though, it's just three partials and the filter, combining sync looped amp envelopes with a synced LFO. You can hear the separate partials at the end of the clip.
Operator → character and dynamics with VCC, FG-36A, The Monster, AirEQ Earth, and Transient Shaper in Slate Virtual Mix Rack → Slate Verbsuite for room ambience → Ableton's Re-Enveloper for refining transients further → Slate Virtual Tape Machine for glue.
#Ableton #abletonoperator #sounddesign
Operator sound 2: I tried to make a vocal pad, a soft pad that sounds like it's going through a vowel filter. Here's the pad, with the first Operator sound fading in at the end.
Operator → Slate Virtual Mix Rack with VCC Channel for character and FG-A EQ → short slapback delay with Baby Comeback → Slate Virtual Tape Machine.
#sounddesign #ableton #abletonoperator
Hi friends and/or followers! I've been using IG for posting random abstract photos about once every three years, but for now I'm going to try using this account for another purpose: posting about audio production experiments, my progress and excitement when learning new stuff.
If this is something you are absolutely not interested in, you might want to unfollow me.
Or, you could stay with a curious mind to read a bit about a foreign topic, and to listen to potentially interesting sounds. 😌
When I restarted my music production hobby after a ≈15 year hiatus, I decided to stick to Ableton Live and avoid buying plugins.
Obviously that promise did not keep for long. And with a lot of plugins, my music making became preset browsing, which in turn got boring, and I never really learned to use the plugins.
So, I thought as an experiment I'll try to make short music pieces with all sounds generated with just one soft synth + effects.
And why start with something easy, when you can start with FM synthesis?
Subtractive synthesis is pretty easy to understand and you can imagine what kind of sound you're going to get when tweaking the knobs.
But FM synthesis always felt random to me. I could never imagine in my head how to create a certain sound with FM.
So, I'm starting with Ableton Operator to change that. 🤓 Here's the first sound I made for this experiment. Sounds gamelan-ish to me.
The audio path is: Operator → Slate Virtual Channel for grit → Slate Verbsuite → Deelay → easy Arturia VCA-65 compressor to bring in the reverb and delay a bit more → Wavesfactory Spectre as a highly saturating EQ → Slate Virtual Tape Machine for glue.
On the master buss I have UAD Manley EQ → Slate Mix Rack with Revival, Virtual Mixbuss and Custom Opto → iZotope Ozone vintage limiter and maximizer.
