Developing SimpleFM

The gen~ book that Graham Wakefield and I wrote together contains an entire chapter exploring FM that I am particularly proud of and which you may find instructive. Of course, I don't know whether or not you're familiar with the gen~ environment or whether you're a Max or a Max for Live user (that matters because you need a crossgrade license to edit gen~ in Max for Live), but I did want to mention it. There's stuff in there that I sure wasn't familiar with when we started!

Hello,

OK, great, thank you. Yes, I'm a MAX user, but hadn't started to look at Gen~. Wasn't sure how approachable it was. Guess now's a good time to try.

Thanks

One thing that seems to have been a problem for some users was the impression that most of the people using gen~ were writing command-line code in a codebox operator, together with getting used to thinking of processing one sample at a time. No one actually said any of that, but I've heard again about those two issues from people skittish about using gen~. Graham and I wrote the book that we did with those ideas in mind, eschewing having to write code except when it's necessary, and trying really hard to help you adjust to working at the sample level.

OK. Well if I don't understand it I'll be in touch about a refund. Thanks for the tip, though.

Hi Gregory, thanks for sharing your vast knowledge in this book. I want to up my game in FM and I'd love to have all the flexibility of Max/Gen. Do you think I can get it to sound as good as, say, a Digitone? My previous experiences with x.FM, simpleFM etc. were a bit disappointing, sound-wise, so I always end up returning to other FM synths (mostly NI FM8) and sequencing it from within Max despite all limitations. So I hesitate a bit before going through a new learning process. Also, I don't know about other people, but I'd love to LISTEN to practical examples of these FM implementations you mention, even if it is a simple youtube video or short online live session. Is that possible? Thanks!