I've always been inspired by FM synthesis and the kinds of sounds those synthesizers make. Something I didn't do nearly enough in the sound design course was work with FM synthesis, so part of my work will be making up for lost time.
And what embodies the heart of FM synthesis better than the Yamaha DX7? Even the best high-tech synthesizers and soft-synths can't quite match the character of sound as good ol'fashioned 6-operator FM synthesis. Seriously! There are any number of professional machines that do FM extremely well. My opinion is FM synthesizers (generally speaking) fall into two categories: Musical instruments (think DX EP) and SFX. I have all the respect in the world for both types of devices, but the scope of this project for the moment is in building instruments. And I gotta tell ya, nothing PERFORMS FM like the DX. Admittedly, some of the sounds can be really cheesy when you have the synth by itself. But I also use my DX when I'm gigging, and one patch I always come back to in a gig is a variation of a brass patch I use on certain songs. Say all you want about analog synths and how "fat" they sound, but that synth brass patch I tweaked from a preset has some POWER. My DX is the mkII, so the sounds are a little bit cleaner than the original, the UI handles better (button-presses), and the unison detuning is awesome in spite of the severe loss of polyphony.
But the top priority right now isn't the actual sound of the synthesizer itself. No, the most important thing is honing my craft using the software tools that I have. And next to the synthesizer hardware, nothing typifies FM synthesis more than the DX7 factory presets.
What, did you think I was actually going to be programming new sounds for the DX? Nooooooo!!!!! Anyone who's actually programmed a DX knows how difficult it is to program. It's a nearly impossible task UNLESS you think of its innards as analogous to subtractive synthesis components. The difference is in the subtlety of making changes to DX patches vs. the ease of moving knobs on an analog synth. You get a sense that changes to a DX patch are set in stone--a certain finality that must be horrifically uncomfortable to someone used to all the knobbies, something from the past that has come back in a big way on currently available synths and controllers.
No--the world doesn't need more DX7 patches. There are already enough out there beyond the factory presets. Now is not the time to become a dedicated DX programmer.
The point is--what?--to hone my craft using the software. So what does this mean?
Here's what I've been up to in the last few days: Part of the final sound design class project was to evaluate the work of other students and "re-orchestrate" according to our own individual sensibilities. One student in particular had relied on sampled instruments almost exclusively, which was fine except that these instruments could easily be recreated using software. One patch in particular was based on a--what? You guessed it!--a DX7 preset (actually a TX7, but same thing without the keyboard). So I used Thor to effectively recreate that sound. I got really close, too, and my response was basically a hybrid FM/subtractive patch using the best of both worlds.
That really inspired me.
So my first mini-project is to take the original DX7 presets as well as the factory program presets and performance presets of the mkII and recreate them using Thor. I might even do the same thing for Absynth, but the idea is to create a Refill. Attention to Absynth would be counterproductive at this time. Now, there are glaringly obvious DISadvantages to what I'm attempting to do with Thor. For example, it isn't possible to create feedback loops in Thor that function identically to the DX feedback loop. Consequently, you can't route the output from one oscillator to the FM/Pitch of another in the matrix and expect the same results as the DX. While algorithms on the DX remain fixed, at least you can use a variety of algorithms to get desirable routings to get an even greater variety of timbre. There is ONLY one algorithm in Thor, and matrix routings just don't work the same way as the different DX algorithms. But you can get ALMOST close!
Compromises have to be made. But I'm finding that in the middle of the compromises come artistic decisions that create genuinely new kinds of sounds. The results aren't as useful in the same way as DX presets, but they don't suck, either. And eventually all these can be tie together to make complex sounds that any synth user would be proud of.
It's all about potential, learning new things, and increasing one's own ability.
More updates to come...
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