IIRC the Vectorman soundtrack has a few tracks with a significant amount (100%?) of FM drums, and they're pretty decent. Also check out FM sound effects, Sonic 3 in particular has some good ones that with a bit of tweaking could become percussive sounds.
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killadelphia
Alissia Dragoon soundtrack has zero samples. Check that one out.
My release Trenchvent has no samples either - I can send you my bass drum patch if you like. That can definitely be turned into a tom sound. But yea - it's hard to get them punchy sounding like a DMG although it is definitely possible.
Last edited by animalstyle (Aug 18, 2014 11:06 pm)
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killadelphia
What I've been doing lately to try and study FM more is rip patches from great game soundtracks to try and see what is going on - It's possible to do with the emulator GensKmod
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Tokyo, Japan
I would just like to chip in and say trenchvent is amazing!
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Finland
If you want realistic, it might be tricky. But for synthetic/80's sounding, FM will deliver. It's really nice to be able to change the parameters on the fly with FM, pitch-adjusting, tone changes, etc.
I don't use samples either, so if you want to check out what I've done with YM2612, for example this track: Partners In Crime. Check the intro and especially the outro for some tom drum fills.
4op algorithms. I think the best algorithms for making tom/snare drums out of those are: 4, 5 & 7. If the sound gets clicky, change the Attack Rate of the carrier/output operator(s) to fix that. Some of the best FM drums can be found from Hitoshi Sakimoto, TechnoSoft & the game Madou Monogatari I. Study the patches, see if they sound good "as-is" and/or add pitchbends to spice them up.
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San Francisco
animalstyle wrote:
Alissia Dragoon
An amazing soundtrack and one of the best/underated games on the system.
Also.... It is my personal opinion that FM synthesis people depend too much on other peoples patches. Learning to actually use FM synthesis is not that hard with a little reading and experimenting. I can tell you from my experience with both trackers/synthesizers side that toms are totally possible and emulations of most sounds can be done with a bit of planning and thought. For toms or any kind of sounds you just got to break down what you hear in real life and apply that to the envelopes in FM world.
Tomy wrote:
If you want realistic, it might be tricky. But for synthetic/80's sounding, FM will deliver
the thing about synthesis is that it only is limited by the mentality of the user. you can avoid 80's sounding synthesis if you don't program for it. its as simple as that. today a lot of dubstep producers use FM because of it's agressive sound and how it distorts with effects. FM synthesis actually was well liked because it was better at emulating real sounds then traditional synths.
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Using the SSG envelope can open up a lot more opportunities for drum timbres. Hardly anyone used them.