KICK DRUM WORKSHOP: HIGH PASS FILTER

Ok – we’re almost done with this kick drum series! I didn’t realize quite how much there was to say on this topic… The high pass filter might seem like a counterintuitive element to incorporate into designing a kick drum sound, but it’s a very useful tool.  This is because a resonant high pass filter […]

KICK DRUM WORKSHOP: FM IT

For the last several tips, we’ve been focusing on the main body of the kick. Now we’ll take a closer look at the attack. So far, all we’ve discussed is using Operator as a four oscillator subtractive synth: There’s nothing wrong with this – working with simple layering can be a great way to develop […]

ABOUT ALGORITHMS

In this tip, we’re going to take a look at two of the FM algorithms offered by Operator, and discuss the way in which they work differently and how that affects the subsequent tweaking. I’m going to pick up where I left off in the previous tip, where oscillator A was generating the main body […]

ABOUT FM

Ok, one more Operator tip, then we’ll move on from all this algorithm alphabet soup. This is a simple experiment to do if you haven’t fully wrapped your head around FM synthesis. I didn’t really understand the basics of FM for a long time, and going through this process really helped me. Bear in mind […]