Lessons
Course Introduction
04:57 2The FM Concept
09:50 3Operator Fundamentals
10:16 4FM Pro Tips
11:14 5Classic Subtractive Techniques
08:15 6FM Monophonic Bass
11:32 7FM Polyphonic Leads
18:49 8Drum and Percussion Overview
11:26Lesson Info
FM Monophonic Bass
All right, Welcome back for lesson two of level two we're gonna be talking about now taking that subtracted patch that we made that was quite approachable and fun to make on a kind of reverse engineering it down into a FM patch and will notice the farm or interesting capabilities were empowered with. Now that we know what we know about course tuning and discreet envelopes and Siri's routing and the likes. So here's where we left off my subtracted jam here, going on and able to work that low pass filter and it's modulators to kind of open and close my mouth and send some words meta mullen additive. Turn this off, Turn this off and go to pure Siri's mode. Right now, I'm gonna take my first wave form, Kick it over to a sign Mills turning these off back to pure signed territory. This is really approachable tone, and I honestly recommend when you're laying down your first patches, stick with a sign if it just works and then go from there, don't worry too much about knowing every single para...
meter of the operator before you start having fun with it, you know? So as will probably demonstrate right now. So the previous video we made some classic subtracted kind of bass and lead sounds. Now we're gonna make it a similar sound. What we're gonna use just sine waves and no filter starting again By setting our fundamental pitch I'm gonna go down to a low sine wave I'm gonna make what's called like a mono phonic FM bass sound. So model phonic. If I click on the global section and I look in the far lower left of this detail panel, I've got voice count. You're familiar with synthesis at all. You probably know what prolific he means, but mono phonic means that I can't play two notes that wants. So if I play a chord, it's just gonna only trigger the most previous, most recently played note, and it's gonna truncate or interrupt the previously played note. For those of you are listening closely, you'll notice that in previous videos, I also had it in mono phonic mode, which is another kind of side pro tip. I highly recommend when you're working with an instrument that's capable of generating something so rich and complex playing chords is usually, um, it's gonna be cool that you wanna be creatively thoughtful about when you do that When you're learning how the synthesizer works and trying to make your first great patches one voice at a time, you're gonna get more than enough richness out of just one instance of the instrument. So having in mind was starting with a sine wave here in my classic techniques, I opened up another wave form that I also have set up to be a sign Turn it on and back off the volume and I put the tuning as it is now at 0.5, you'll notice how, if I haven't even tuning, it's pretty kind of It's almost overly complex right away. Something back this off. I'm actually gonna knock this down 2.5. I might even back it off when you start with Sign will listen. So even if you're playing higher in the register with like a lead, you go a really lot of wow go a long way and be a lot more interesting than if we're going Even constant tuning. Uh, so bright. So I like kicking that 1st 1 down and active and turning it down a little, and then the next step I usually like to evoke is I'll turn up the next wave for him. Also a sign also with full sustain. At least in the beginning of this guy, I'll use a brighter tuning sometimes three, sometimes five. I gravitate towards odd numbers, and on that note, especially when you get above seven, the even numbers like 8 10 12 and so on are going to be more dissonant sounding. That's another pro tip. Odd numbers like 79 11 13 and so on are going to be constant. When you're working at one through seven, they're all constant. So any of these numbers in here are going to be musically useful sounding. Uh, once you get up here and you get into odd numbers or even numbers above seven, it gets to be a little more clamorous and dissonance. Let's go ahead and give this thing may be a slow attack. Slowly decay a little Teoh. Now what I'm gonna do is that a little tiny bit of subtle D tuning just to give it some motion. You can see that desperado happening. What's even kick this over a pretty cool territories by suddenly detaining these guys No, we're in pure Siri's If I go up for the fourth oscillator is gonna be tricky to use this guy without having it sound, too, to playing arrests and with too much activity up top unless we get real sensitive. Um, I feel really compelled to throw a low pass filter around, but I highly recommend again. If you're sticking with sine waves and you want to put a low pass filter on it instead, just turn down your modulation depth. This is acting like a low pass filter. Sometimes for this fourth modulator, I like going way up into the stratosphere. That stuff up there, that's the 33rd overtone. Let's walk our way down closer to the fundamental waking the even number here. Number four sounds good here. It's noisy, right? So this is kind of a classic FM lead or bass sound. Um, plug in something with some velocity articulation, like a push or a traditional media controller keyboard, and you're able to get a lot of life out of this sound. Um, next thing I really like to do is speaking of that is exactly that, Um, I'm a big fan of being able to punch in my push controller. I'm gonna go and go to my media tab and just gotta push one connected today you live for you in and out, and that will be able to utilize the velocity sensitive pads and push a soft play hard. I got no effect. Now watch. I can either do it independently on each operator or globally in the global Section FM derived has my favorite functions here. So the overall FM amount now is being articulated by my velocity. Let's go ahead and give this patch even more attack. We go ahead and take this guy and give it more of a pluck, which will really accentuate that the last e sensitivity and turns up, you're not a lot of that sound, but if I slam it, I'm gonna get a lot more action. She second, it's a little more height. I didn't even give myself Morva. Lastly, sensitivity on the first modulator. Almost too much. Feel how right I was pushing those pads. They just they just jumped into crazy land. So you got to be really careful about how much velocity sensitivity you program into these guys. But a little bit does go along where? Looks like my velocity curve was turned up quite a bit on my push. So all right, so, um, those are some tips for making this kind of cool rally mono phonic FM basis and leads. Umm I generally, as I mentioned earlier, like to avoid velocity sensitivity to the carrier. That's another pro tip. Um, and that's because with the bass and lead instrument usually want that thing to be really cutting through the mix and sticking out and being really predominant in the tune. Usually you don't want a leader a base that's kind of like buried in the mix. You want it to be present fully present, and in fact, it the bleeds and based sounds. Those are the ones you most commonly slap a compress around when you're mixing the tune. Instead of doing that, I highly recommend going molecular into the instrument itself. If you don't have the last e sensitivity on the carrier, you're gonna get a fully compressed volume all the time, and you're only using velocity velocity sensitivity on the modulators that's gonna let you get a lot of expressive dynamic control without needing to slap a compressor on it later cause it's too quiet. So that's just a little side note there another pro tip from your friend James Patrick. And from your buds that slam academy. We push ourselves hard to dig deep, and we teach classes all the time and advanced sound design and, ah, all different types of electronic music production. And this operator gan being like the Swiss Army knife of synthesizers, as you probably learned already. Um, is this Ah, rial bread and butter device for any electronic music studio? So thanks again for digging into Level two up. Next, we're going making some more complex leads and bases, getting into polyphonic mode, playing some chords and experimenting with a few more advanced pro tips. Thanks for taking the operator glass toxin.
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
People complain about Abletons "uninspiring" synth presets, and Operators businesslike interface doesn't scream "fun". It is however, an insanely fun and powerful instrument once you get your head around it. This class is perfectly formulated to turn anyone into an FM super-ninja in no time. It starts with the basics - perfectly explained, and delves deeper at a nice pace. I've been using Operator for years but still picked up a few tips in the later lessons. Taking this class will empower you to stop worrying about having the latest, greatest third party VST. Operator is a beastly synth. I rarely use any other synth because of the sheer sonic capability, and tight integration with Live.