Sound Design Tips & Synth Tutorials

FM synthesis can seem a very mysterious beast and via a series of tutorials we are going to help demystify this for you, so you can take full control over your FM synths and make all the sounds you desire. 

In this how-to tutorial, we are going to look at creating a four-note chord only using operator from Ableton. The huge advantage of using this technique over programming your chord in a midi clip or via a chord midi effect is that you get full control over each note. Meaning you can have say, a different waveform, envelope and volume (just to name a few) per note. 

So, if you would like to learn more about FM synthesis keep reading

In this blog post we are going to look at how to make a snare using Ableton’s simply scrumptious FM synth operator. The main advantage of building your own snare apposed to using a sample is you have full control over how the snare sounds. For example does the snare need more body or sizzle?. Does it need to be longer?. Can the pitch bend be deeper?. And that is just a small number of elements that you can change and through out the tutorial we will see the huge array of sound design possibilities that Ableton presents us when making a snare or in fact any drum sound.