Request from Steinberg: FM VST3 Synth !

Virtual instruments Virtual Effects and Add-ons
#1

Hi,

I’m surprised that Steinberg/YAMAHA have not put their brains together, and developed the best sounding FM VST3 Synth on the planet.

Well… This would be great if Steinberg/YAMAHA engineers develop a great sounding, and very accurately modeled FM synth, based on the YAMAHA FM (DX/TX) hardware of the past, and maybe some new features to take FM syntesis to the next level.

imho. This would be a winner for Steinberg/YAMAHA. but so far it does not exist.

Any chances this will be developed in the near future ?

Many Thanks,
Muziksculp

#2

Have you ever tried Native Instruments FM-8? I ported my entire DX/TX-7 libraries to FM-8 and I can’t tell the difference between the FM-8 transcriptions and the actual DX-7II and TX7 I still have in my studio playing the same patches. It may be exactly what you are looking for…if pure DX/TX FM synthesis structures are what you’re after. And it’s now 64bit.

What FM-8 doesn’t do is permit samples to act as carriers or modulators like later Yamaha synths (SY/TG 77’s and 99’s) did.

Another company, Image Line makes a pretty decent FM synth called Toxic Biohazard. Can’t read old Yamaha patches but it does do FM synthesis pretty well. If you own NI’s Reaktor, there are a ton of free FM synthesizer builds available for it as well.

#3

agree with weasel, FM8 does a fine job as a FM instrument. I also use Sytrus from Image Line which also is FM based and really dig it’s sounds.

#4

Hi,

I have FM8, and it is a good FM synth, but… imho. it does NOT sound as good as the YAMAHA FM DX/TX Synths.

One of the areas FM8 seems to fall short is re-producing some of the more rich, bright plucky string sounds that the DX/TX Synths were able to produce, these sounds are similar to steel guitar plucking sounds, with a very rich timbre, I tried for days to program this type of sound, but no luck, FM8 couldn’t do it.

If you listen to Tangerine Dream’s (Optical Race) album, you will hear this sound a lot, it is the metallic/bright string sound they use, kind of similar to plucked steel acoustic guitar sound, in melodies, and some rhythmic/arp type phrases on this album. They used the TX802 and possibly DX7’s for this type of sounds on the album. If you can duplicate this sound with FM8, let me know. This sound was impossible to re-create via FM8, and non of the library sounds gets close to this sound.

I feel that Steinberg/YAMAHA can make a much better sounding, and more accurate FM synth that emulates the old YAMAHA FM synths. So… I see no reason why to not support this request. FM8 is ok, but lacks a lot of character, and presence when compared to the real YAMAHA HW FM synths, especially when trying to create rich, and complex metallic timbres similar to the one I mentioned.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

#5

I wouldn’t mind a dedicated FM VST3 synthesizer.

Having technologies like Note Expression with a synthesizer is simply awesome!

Anyways, count me in on this request.

+1

#6

One of the areas FM8 seems to fall short is re-producing some of the more rich, bright plucky string sounds that the DX/TX Synths were able to produce, these sounds are similar to steel guitar plucking sounds, with a very rich timbre, I tried for days to program this type of sound, but no luck, FM8 couldn’t do it.

Have you attempted to convert DX/TX7 or 802 sound banks into a format the FM8 can read? I did this with a carload of banks and have A/B’'d them to the original units and I have to tell you…they are spot on.

The problem is that NI made the conversion process as close to a nightmare as could be managed.

The latest version of FM8 can’t read DX/TX-7 (etc) sysex dumps generated from the original hardware. As a matter of fact, no version of FM-8 has ever been able to do that. But the old FM7 will. It gets worse. You have to use a sysex recorder like Sysex Librarian to get the dumps from the hardware into files the FM7 can read and save those out of FM7 in a preset file format that FM8 can read. And just to screw with you some more, the later versions of FM8 can’t read these. It’s a bug they never fixed. So you have to download an older version of FM8. Version 1.0.3 to be specific. This version will read the FM7 preset conversions. Once that’s done, the latest version of FM8 (v1.2.1 R1119) will see the converted libraries generated from the 1.0.3 version.

But…just so you can hear the conversions for yourself, I’ve stashed a few of the factory preset banks here:

http://78cf01617e3950417f0c-edf74d1b5a4206a253d3389ccc6c1dae.r38.cf1.rackcdn.com/FM7presets.zip

All you need to do is go to NI’s ftp site and download FM8 v1.0.3 and run that.

ftp://ftp.native-instruments.com/FM8/

Install the stand alone and make sure you don’t overwrite your newer version and its corresponding VST plugin. Move those somewhere safe first. Launch the v1.0.3 standalone (don’t do this from within Cubase) and under File, load the FM7 presets and see if they sound as good as the original. Dump the 1.0.3 VST plugin, put the newer one back and keep the older FM8 standalone in a folder separated from the newer one. The standalones can be run separately and don’t interfere with each other.

You can’t say I didn’t try.

#7

Back to topic.

I would love to see a new great sounding FM VST3 synth developed by YAMAHA/Steinberg !

Hopefully they are reading this forum/post. and will not ignore this request.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

#8

Well…

In addition to a New Steinberg/YAMAHA FM VST3 Synth.

I would like to see Halion Symphonic Orchestra 2 , Some new and exciting Sample Libraries for Halion 4, and possibly some new features added to Retrologue, and Padshop Pro.

Will any of this happen this year ?

My fingers are crossed, but not for too long :smiley: