6 replies to this topic

[Dr. Fwonktologist]

What is the best way to learn how to use operator?

Start toying with the first oscillator, then applying the LFOs and other oscillators?

Doing tutorials?

Touching as many knobs as possible?

[AnthonyEhsani]

Dr. Fwonktologist welcome

Well I was in the same boat for a while, and I asked the same questions, and no-one would reply with much info to give. So I decided it was going to be a journey to take alone.

What I did was go through some presets I liked, and toyed with them, until I was happy with a sound. After a while I faintly knew what knobs did what. But I want to learn what each knob does, and learn it well.

I'm still in the process of learning everything, through tutorials and searching, and also asking questions in this forum. Ive already learned a couple of things in 1 day from this forum.

If you need help finding tutorials, let me know, I have a database of info which I will put up shortly in the articles and tutorials section.

[Cheyne]

Tutorials are your friend mate ,  they've helped me with many things ...

Check out this article on operator aswell --> http://www.ableton.c...es/tips/2005_03

[Luka]

just limit yourself to not making killer patches but making some usable patches

from what ive found with the instrument, operator is good for percussive sounds, pads, and textures. so just try and make some of these.

percussive have less decay, little sustain and almost no release.
pads have long sustain and release
textures use anything and you just use just experiment with your operators, and extend the releases a long way.

there is a little section with boxes stacked on top of each other, or in weird combos. this is how each one of the sounds coming out of operator is layered on top of the other sounds.
> if a operator's box sits next to another operators box it will just send the sounds out together (additive)
> if the operators box sits ontop of another it multiplies the sounds together in a ring modulation fassion.

i would reccommend trying one of these settings and just play around with your operators until you can predict what is going on, and then go to another layering option.

remember you can modify each of the adsr of each operators and this means you can make certain sounds more promiant.

i found with fm it was basically becomming familiar with how things work and then it became a lot easier to build patches that worked in my tracks.

if you want to know what all the different sounds are for each operator check the manual, it gives a pretty comprehensive desciption thats easy to understand.

hope that helps

[lightsabers]

Quote

Check out this article on operator aswell --> http://www.ableton.c...es/tips/2005_03

Sweet, i actually missed that one and i thought i read them all.
Thanks.

[Cheyne]

No worries

[blank]

Operator is, as you prolly already know, an advanced fm synth. In fact, i use the term advanced here  cause there is other waveform than a simple sine wave and there is a multi filter at the end of the chain.

The secret in fm is fine tuning of the oscillator to get some movement, little pitch variant in the modulator can lead to really good and interesting movement. In fact, I think the best way to learn operator is by forgetting all the waveforms and the filter for an hour and go back to the fm roots by using only the sine wave.

It's also once mounted in rack a really solid drumsynth.

For basic fm patches using 4 osc check old tutorials about the yamaha tx81z, a old and basic fm synth.