FM8 opinions

Macrostructure · Post by **Macrostructure** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:01 pm

Thinking of getting this: like the sounds and the interface but have had such bad experiences with NI products in the past, in particular Intakt, that I am hesitating.

writing mostly electronica and weird shit

any useful feedback anyone?

Porkinson · Post by **Porkinson** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:19 pm

it's an awesome synth!

Precision · Post by **Precision** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:20 pm

I really like it

I haven't played around with it in-depth, but the sounds are excellent: big, evolving textures, really atmospheric. The step sequencer is pretty slick, and the 'easy' editing (with the morph feature) is pretty friendly.

Some of the effects, mainly the overdrive and the tube amp, add a bit of warmth also, which is nice.

As for programming from scratch....I haven't really tried it much, but when I did, I didn't find it intuitive at all (though that's prolly true of any FM synth I've tried....).

I don't have operator, so I can't compare - maybe try the FM8 demo and see what you reckon? I'm one of the rare people that has had very few problems with NI (I've got FM8, Massive, Kontakt, Battery, Reaktor and Absynth), so I can't really comment about stability, crashes, etc. - apart from saying that FM8 has been rock-solid for me so far (ancient Dell PC running XP SP2, Cubase Studio 4, Live 6.0.10).

Anyway, hope that's a bit of help

Cheers,

Precision.

blank · Post by **blank** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:39 pm

Fm8 is an awesome sounding synth, the capabilities surrounding the fm engine are pretty impressive.

I didn't try it as a pluggin in live, only standalone a couple of months ago.

I suggest you to take a look at the Ni forums to see if there is no particular bugs affecting your setup ( for example using live as a vst host). It's NI after all.

-B

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:50 pm

it's very good and works well for me so far.

blank · Post by **blank** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:04 pm

Glad for you, it's way not the same with absynth atm.

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:11 pm

blank wrote:Glad for you, it's way not the same with absynth atm.

?

The only issue I know of with the current version of Absynth and Live is the dropped first note, and Absynth's far from alone in that. Any plugin that has small internal buffers to offset CPU usage has the potential for that with Live depending on the system. From the u-he forum at KVR:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187867

ew

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:39 pm

ewistrand wrote: The only issue I know of with the current version of Absynth and Live is the dropped first note, and Absynth's far from alone in that.

I believe this has been resolved.

As for the original question; FM8 is awesome. Sounds great, superb effects and low cpu.

cabletone · Post by **cabletone** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:43 pm

The sounds are good but I find it hard to tweak, the parameters being spread out over many pages. One could put it in a rack and map macros to the controls i guess.

blank · Post by **blank** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:44 pm

ewistrand wrote:
blank wrote:Glad for you, it's way not the same with absynth atm.
?

The only issue I know of with the current version of Absynth and Live is the dropped first note, and Absynth's far from alone in that. Any plugin that has small internal buffers to offset CPU usage has the potential for that with Live depending on the system. From the u-he forum at KVR:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187867

ew

Thx for pointing me this, didn't know it was machine related.

I was also talking of the modulation matrix that is not working properly, with morph waves especially.

afaik

they are working on the problem.

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:59 pm

ewistrand wrote:
blank wrote:Glad for you, it's way not the same with absynth atm.
?

The only issue I know of with the current version of Absynth and Live is the dropped first note, and Absynth's far from alone in that. Any plugin that has small internal buffers to offset CPU usage has the potential for that with Live depending on the system. From the u-he forum at KVR:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187867

ew

Yep, beta 16 has addressed this:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=77588

check the bugfixes section.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:51 am

Check out Sytrus too. It's pretty amazing and stacks up well against FM8. If you wait till Christmas, I'm willing to bet you'll get Sytrus on sale for over half off.

corygilbert · Post by **corygilbert** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:28 pm

I love Fm8 and use it all the time, if you've never programed an fm synth before, it would behoove you to spend some time reading the manuel, as it's very rewarding to create your own sounds in it.
And I'd like to mention that Operator, although a different sounding beast altogether, is also a really great fm, and imo very intuitive to program, and the new high quality mode in L7 really takes it to a new level. I was kinda ignoring it after getting FM8 but they've sorta breathed new life into it with the new version of Live.
If you've never programmed a FM, try the Operator demo for a while and get your head around how fm works and then compare to fm8 and see which suites your needs, or both.
I haven't tried sytrus but it looks cool too.

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:48 pm

Tim - you should try out Massive also!

jahnlay · Post by **jahnlay** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:21 pm

I also love FM8, a truly great sounding synth.