[sdiy] FM Synth Designs

[Tim Parkhurst]

Yamaha owns the patent on FM synthesis (bought it from Stanford University
where it was originally developed by John Chowning), and they defend the
patent with a VERY heavy hand. At one point, they even tried to sue an
analog synth manufacturer (Moog, I believe) because the owner's manual for a
VCO module stated that the linear CV input on the VCO allowed FM synthesis.

If anyone tried to make a commercial FM synth, I'm sure Yamaha would be
happy to send a team of lawyers in their direction. Of course, a privately
built unit for personal use would be okay. Sounds like quite a bit of work
however.
 
Tim Servo

************************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: groovyshaman at snet.net [mailto:groovyshaman at snet.net] 
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2002 1:57 PM
To: synth-diy list
Subject: [sdiy] FM Synth Designs

I have a curious question:

Has anyone designed and built their own multi-op FM synth?  I'm curious
about how it would be designed.  How many operators does it have?  Are they
sine wave only?  How did you go about implementing the algorithms?  Is it
like a DX/TX-series, or is it different?  Are you happy with the results?

Cheers,
George



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