Ableton Forum

I've just trid both algo and wave chooser with 2 LFO max devices... Nasty fun

cheers for the tip

thanks for this thread guys
falling in love with operator again, after many years of almost hardware only and recently getting back ITB... operator is definitively a treasure in my synth arsenal.
I still dream of an hardware version of it, even if i know it'd probably make no sense, expecially from a commercial point of view, but still.
Think about, an operator you can touch and feel. same layout. big display in the middle and all the knobs.

John Chowning on the origins of FM synthesis..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4g92vX1YF4

störgeräusche wrote:thanks for this thread guys
falling in love with operator again, after many years of almost hardware only and recently getting back ITB... operator is definitively a treasure in my synth arsenal.
I still dream of an hardware version of it, even if i know it'd probably make no sense, expecially from a commercial point of view, but still.
Think about, an operator you can touch and feel. same layout. big display in the middle and all the knobs.

As long as the knobs were a decent size

The Spread function sucks. It only can add digitally created symmetrical stereo image to the oscilators. Far from the warm analog sounding.

^

pencilrocket wrote:The Spread function sucks. It only can add digitally created symmetrical stereo image to the oscilators. Far from the warm analog sounding.

Feel the love...

You have a point. Although what's warm analog sounding about a Yamaha DX7?

+1 for operator! love it too. some tracks of mine are strictly operator only.
one more great thing for maxforlive owners is the operator advanced envelope! don`t know why nobody knows it. its pretty good as it gives you the possibility for multistage envelopes, curves (wherever you want).
at the moment this device is just for one operator and a second destination, but i`m workin on a patch for all envelopes inside operator

pencilrocket wrote:Far from the warm analog sounding.

Have you tried using Chorus, Dynamic Tube, Saturator and Reverb here? These can all contribute the "warmer" sound that you're looking for. Additionally, FM isn't your best bet for something that sounds like a hardware analog synth - you might try Analog for that.

One thing I really do wish it could do is set all it's envelopes in terms of beats instead of hz. Seems weird that you can do that for the envelope loop but not the envelope itself.

Ableton_David wrote:Have you tried using Chorus, Dynamic Tube, Saturator and Reverb here? These can all contribute the "warmer" sound that you're looking for. Additionally, FM isn't your best bet for something that sounds like a hardware analog synth - you might try Analog for that.

Thx. Yea I know chorus and distortion plugin work to create stereo image, and FM doesn't directly produce retro synth sound.

For the analog sounding I mean not-symmetrical stereo image. The Spread function creates almost same stereo image whatever paremeter set. The meaning of digital can be of course used positively. But this time it's a bad example of 'digital'. I don't get why Operator have imitated this bad example even if it is trying to replicate an old synth. It results we feel thinner sound than the other synths that do random stereo spreading. I think there are people that already recognized what I'm talking. Even for FM synth, it needs right amount of stereo randomness to create heavier growl, not to mention warm sounding. That's what I thought about the Spread funtion.

pencilrocket wrote: It results we feel thinner sound than the other synths that do random stereo spreading. I think there are people that already recognized what I'm talking. Even for FM synth, it needs right amount of stereo randomness to create heavier growl, not to mention warm sounding. That's what I thought about the Spread funtion.

You can use Autopan for more controlled stereo randomness.

Far from the warm analog sounding.

"Warm/Analog" isn't the goal of an FM synth, even though Operator is well capable of great VA sounds anyway.

Are you also mad that Analog can't do metallic, clangorous sounds?

Spread was never intended to sound 'warm'.
Spread uses two voices per note, one panned hard to the left and the other panned hard to the right.
It also detunes these two voices. But this is just the most obvious effect. The more exciting things happen when random is involved: The left and right channel will behave different then. Try a sample & hold LFO modulation, oscillators in free running mode etc. Suddenly everything gets very wide. That's the main intention of the function. Analog warmth was never a development goal for Operator. The spread function was inspired by the chorus of the Synclavier II ( later models with the stereo FM boards, where the voices could be panned )

Robert

monolake wrote:Spread was never intended to sound 'warm'.
Spread uses two voices per note, one panned hard to the left and the other panned hard to the right.
It also detunes these two voices. But this is just the most obvious effect. The more exciting things happen when random is involved: The left and right channel will behave different then. Try a sample & hold LFO modulation, oscillators in free running mode etc. Suddenly everything gets very wide. That's the main intention of the function. Analog warmth was never a development goal for Operator. The spread function was inspired by the chorus of the Synclavier II ( later models with the stereo FM boards, where the voices could be panned )

Robert

Thanks. So this makes 2 voices panned 100% left and right wherever the knob set. The main job of this knob is the changing the amount of detuning. I didn't know it's always 100% pannning. It clears some misgiving about the use of spread function.