FM SYNTHS in under 4 minutes

What the F is FM Synthesis? To demonstrate this I'm gonna start with the most basic sound of all the sine wave, which looks like this and sounds like this. The frequency of a wave, how fast it oscillates affects the pitch we perceive and the amplitude, the size of the wave determines the volume. So let's check out A bigger faster sine wave This one is gonna sound higher and louder. Frequency modulation comes into play when you use one wave to modulate another wave so, let's take another sine wave but a really slow one so slow in fact that it's imperceptible to human ears let me just grab another patch cable... So now we're gonna hear this wave modulating this wave. So what's happening to this wave is it's very minutely speeding up and slowing down according to the speed, or the frequency and the strength, or the amplitude of this wave so listen again with that in mind so let's make this more extreme let's make our modulating waveform the same frequency but higher in amplitude That sounds crazy! Let's make it way higher in frequency as well. What if we modulated the wave that's doing the modulating? Let's use an even slower wave so slow that you can only see this part of it that's going from high to low, and let's see what that sounds like. So now our sine wave has a vibrato that is slowing down over time because of this modulation. Now these two waves on their own are so slow that you can't hear them but we can also use audible waves to modulate other audible waves and that's where FM synthesis gets really crazy. Let's grab a wave that is the same frequency as our sine but a different shape. This is a sawtooth waveform, and it sounds like this but if we use it to also modulate our original sine now our whole sound sounds like this. Which is a crazy laser-beam sound effect that in the grand scheme of things didn't take a whole lot to create. We could keep on adding modulators, we could make a wave modulate itself it can get very complex but I hope this helps you understand what FM synthesis is all about and how powerful it can be. Each of these oscillators that are producing these waves in FM synthesis are also sometimes called operators. It's just a different word that gets used sometimes. This particular arrangement of operators, so not the waves themselves but just this layout of how many operators there are and which ones are modulating which that is called an algorithm. A modulator is what you'd call an operator that is doing the modulating whereas a carrier is what you'd call the operator that is being modulated Lastly ratio refers to the relationship between the frequencies of the waves involved What synthesists have found is that there are certain mathematical ratios that generally lead to more pleasing results So for instance modulating a wave with another wave that is the same frequency or twice as fast Sounds great, If we get to far away from frequency pairings that can be expressed as relatively simple mathematical ratios it starts to sound real messy. Hey it's Andrew Huang! Hopefully this video was helpful for you it's actually a segment I created for my last synth review which you should check out if you haven't already but a lot of people were commenting that this should just be its own stand-alone video 'cause it would be helpful for people who are searching for info on FM synths or maybe a good thing that you could share with your friends if they need to understand what FM synths are 'cause that happens all the time I hope you don't mind the repeat content if you're a loyal viewer but if you're not [I] hope you'll subscrible I do weird music stuff Allll day longgg.... ok bye!

Channel: ANDREW HUANG

Views: 334,357

Keywords: andrew, huang, andrew huang, music, musician, producer, song, canadian, canada, toronto, ontario, fm synth, fm, frequency, modulation, modulator, carrier, frequency modulation, fm synthesis, synth, synthesis, AndrewHuang, Andrew Huang, producing music, rapping, rapping fast, fast rap, 4 producers, how to, how to make music, music producer, op 1, making music, ableton, how to write a song, teenage engineering, making music on your phone, song in an hour, making a song, 300 words, rap, sing

Id: vvBl3YUBUyY

Length: 3min 55sec (235 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/birdsnap]

Understanding FM is the easy part. The hard part, and the part that makes it much more complicated than subtractive in my opinion, is knowing when to do what to create a target sound.

[u/idearst]

Andrew Huang is one of the best production resources on Youtube.

I cannot recommend his content enough! He rocks!

[u/[deleted]]

Solid explanation

[u/Saucereqsmet]

Let me just use my patch cable made of a bit of string!

[u/knocklessmonster]

Sine*Sine=WARBLGARBLARGL

Or FM in 2 seconds.

[u/skeddles]

Are there any fm vsts that are as easy as this video makes it seem?

[u/jayterratrixx]

I love Andrew's video's. He's an amazing music producer. Example.

[u/squiggleCloud]

FM just has so many possibilities; it takes practice and some degree of finesse to dial in exactly what you want if you're after a particular sound. That's why my synthesis process tends to end up being "hmm what would this do... OH! Alright let's save that one for later heheh"...and then I promptly get lost in messing around with sounds before remembering that I'm trying to make an actual song. XD I'm far from an FM expert.

Props to Andrew though, he never stops with the quality content. This description of FM is super clear and gives a great jumping off point on things to experiment with and explore.

[u/500Rads]

Fish modulation synthesis