Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

I own an AN1x since about 1 Year and the only synthesizing I did so
far was changing existing sounds, be they factory presets or
downloaded in internet.

I went and had a professional teach me the basics of FM theory
(which he kindly showed me on a Nord Modular). I think I have
understood the most important things.

I am particularly interested in developing different piano sounds
which implies creating "bing", "beng", and also "bong" sounds.

So far I have understood that you need (as a minimum):

- a carrier which is near to sine wave formed
- a modulator which is fix tuned to a number of octaves (or part of
octaves above the carrier, near to sine wave formed
- a narrow envelope for the modulator (fast attack, fast decay)
- a somewhat broader envelope for the carrier (fast attack, somewhat
fast decay)

If done properly you won't necessarily need much filtering. To
change the sound of the above algorithm you can vary the fixed
interval between carrier and modulator, or you can add a further
sine wave synchronized to the carrier by some interval.

This will generally provide you with a good "bong" sound, am I
right.

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Now to my simple question:

Can anybody be so nice and to explain me in simple words how I am to
understand the various settings of AN1x such as "master", "slave",
"both", "only fm", "fm source" etc. These don't seem to fit into
the things I described above. How do you set the envelope of the
modulator in an AN1x?

Even if I don't understand the AN1x-specific terms very well I still
seem to have created quite nice bong-sounds anyway. But to create
good pianos I want to know the whole truth.

By the way, the DX-Piano which is factory preset I find is a
beautifully sounding instrument which I can use a lot in my band, be
it for solo playing or accompanying a singer. But I still feel the
need of developing more of the same stuff - from marimba over
e-piano to bells of various kinds.