Twisted Electrons MEGAfm

[target_destroyed]

btw akemies castle sounds like old 80s fm too.

That's because Akemie's uses Yamaha YMF262/OPL3 chips from ~1994, which while slightly newer, are not far off from the chips in MegaFM. For those that don't want that characteristic grunge, there are newer "cleaner" options like the aforementioned Digitone and in euro there's the Humble Audio Quad Operator.

[onthebandwagon]

Not sure what people are complaining about. The 80s sounded far better...

[solipsvs]

not complaining. the 80s FM/digital synths did not sound better at all but thats just like, my opinion man. newer higher resolution FM sounds leaps and bounds better.

[Prints]

So it’s not super obvious that the primary reason most people are interested in this particular FM synth is due to its utilization of a specific chip commonly known for its lo-fi qualities?

[solipsvs]

its cool. hope you like.

[Sir Ruff]

So it’s not super obvious that the primary reason most people are interested in this particular FM synth is due to its utilization of a specific chip commonly known for its lo-fi qualities?

Actually, no. I was mainly interested in it because of the interface. I received mine last night and I can confirm that it is super noisy. Definitely stronger than I was expecting.

My other hardware FM synth at the moment is the OSS Mostro. The controls are more limited, but it is a much cleaner sound and seems to go to some different distortion domains that really lend themselves to big/epic pad sounds, whereas I can see that it will probably be hard to get those kind of sounds out of the megaFM, which seems much better suited to gnarly bass and classic noisy scronk sounds.

Bottom line: there’s room for both :-)

[kreiff]

I received mine last night

Noise aside, Glad to hear these are arriving without issue to the States! How long did it take from notice to arrival, Ruff?

[Sir Ruff]

I received mine last night

Noise aside, Glad to hear these are arriving without issue to the States! How long did it take from notice to arrival, Ruff?

super fast... like 3 days?!

[kreiff]

I received mine last night

Noise aside, Glad to hear these are arriving without issue to the States! How long did it take from notice to arrival, Ruff?

super fast... like 3 days?!

Whoa! That is fast!! Very cool.

[The Junglechrist]

Actually, no. I was mainly interested in it because of the interface. I received mine last night and I can confirm that it is super noisy. Definitely stronger than I was expecting.

My other hardware FM synth at the moment is the OSS Mostro.

First time I hear about this one, love the demos I could hear !

[Annwn]

Actually, no. I was mainly interested in it because of the interface. I received mine last night and I can confirm that it is super noisy. Definitely stronger than I was expecting.

Interesting. I've been in the same boat and was enamoured by the interface, with the grunge being an added bonus. Hearing the latest demos, the noise sounds pretty obtuse. It'd be great if he could find some other less gnarly FM chips to use for a different revision. FB01 chip with a proper interface would be a dream.

[rjungemann]

I don't know if the FB-01 is necessarily less "grungy". The FB-01 has a filter on the output, which reduces noise but also can make it sound a bit "muffled". There are instructions for removing a capacitor which will reduce noise, but then you're getting close to the territory of the other Yamaha FM chips from the era.

My FB-01 definitely has a particular character to it. Funnily enough, I got it to make some video game soundtrack music and thought I could get close to the Sega Genesis with it (I think I did... subsequently I went deeper down the FM synthesis rabbit hole). I love the FB-01 and its unusual way of allocating voice parts, but it's certainly not for everyone. A modern take would be cool.

[slumberjack]

I have a MPE controller and want a desktop box to play with it. Unfortunately the OSS Mostro doesn't support this but the MEGAfm would. I'm logging myself into the thread...

[Technologear?]

.. megaFM, which seems much better suited to gnarly bass and classic noisy scronk sounds.

That sounds exactly what I'd want from it.
I'm keen on your thoughts once you've had some more time with it Ruff

[solipsvs]

im curious for an example of the type of bass you mean... can you give an example or a musical style that this bass shows up in?

[Sir Ruff]

im curious for an example of the type of bass you mean... can you give an example or a musical style that this bass shows up in?

current dubstep/UKG/jungle... where there is a lot of distorted sine fundamental plus harmonic/inharmonic overtones.

[solipsvs]

i was hoping you would say that.

[Voltcontrol]

It's not commonplace in Techno but I love using it right there.

[Voltcontrol]

I don't know if the FB-01 is necessarily less "grungy". The FB-01 has a filter on the output, which reduces noise but also can make it sound a bit "muffled". There are instructions for removing a capacitor which will reduce noise, but then you're getting close to the territory of the other Yamaha FM chips from the era.

My FB-01 definitely has a particular character to it. Funnily enough, I got it to make some video game soundtrack music and thought I could get close to the Sega Genesis with it (I think I did... subsequently I went deeper down the FM synthesis rabbit hole). I love the FB-01 and its unusual way of allocating voice parts, but it's certainly not for everyone. A modern take would be cool.

FB01 was many-parts multitimbral iirc? There's a decent iOS programmer for it I believe, that combination might make it cool to try out. But the (I assume) high cost of a playable hardware interface for those internals would push me towards the Digitone..

[rjungemann]

@Voltcontrol Yeah! In fact, in the instruction manual they show how to set it up for a hexaphonic guitar, where each string gets its own voice.

Basically, you set up a bunch of instrument patches, and then you set up a configuration patch, where you can allocate 8 instruments across 8 channels, with 0-8 voices per each (with a limit of 8 total of course, so you could do 8 channels of 1 voice each, or 1 channel of 8 voices, or 4 channels of 2 voices each, or...)

It's not bad to communicate with over sysex, but to generate or parse sysex dumps, you have to calculate a running checksum (not as scary as it sounds), and there's some bitwise math needed to extract bit flags in a couple places. All of that is pretty much avoided if you just modulate single parameters at a time, or if you use an editor.

Here's a track I made with the FB-01, recorded from the outputs. I think it's got some character, imo. Of course I was going for a style, and didn't push its sound very far...

[yoggyone]

[yoggyone]

[bbvideo] [/bbvideo]

[Pugilistas]

Twisted Electrons has crappy midi implementation, apparently across all their hardware. Too many developers these days don't seem to understand that midi is a COMMUNICATION protocol, and just assign CCs willy nilly. Far too many standard CCs (Volume, Pan, Expression, etc) assigned for idiosyncratic use. Probably due to DAW-centricism. I'll pass on MegaFM and search for some other equipment to scratch my fm itch....

[kreiff]

[bbvideo] [/bbvideo]

First patch in this vid is killer. Looking forward to downloading as a pre-set. Thanks for sharing yoggyone!

[pmboos]

I really loved the first patch and the one about 2:35 as well.