[machinesmith]

Hi All,

I'm glad (and sorta surprised) to see that the OPL still has an active following on the InterWebs.

I found this place because of an issue I'm facing
Heres my dilemna: I'd like to create as many `standard' instruments as I can using just a triangle wave. I understand that a vast ocean of soundscapes and effects are possible however I had a few limitations.

1 - I have to create the sounds using a tracker software (I'm using Impulse Tracker)

2 - Because I'm using a tracker I'm not allowed to add more `samples' however I'm allowed to create as many instruments as I can from the base triangle wave sample.

Now I've been able to create a couple of sounds (a wierd `synthscape' and a bassdrum) however my aim is trying to imitate real life instrument counterparts (emphasis on trying to imitate since I know how hard it is to recreate the Exact sound without sampling)

For example: I'd like to create a violin/viola sound(s) and I know that it may sound far from the actual thing but I'd still like to emulate the sound.

So far I've only been able to create a sound that sounds like Rhesus monkey after drinking a quart of unprocessed Rum.

This shows how inept I am with FM and synths in general - I turn to you `oh-mighty-FM-entities-from-that country-that-gave-us-Fasttracker' for guidance..Please HEPL (and thats pronounced `heppl')

[madbrain]

Impulse Tracker does not do FM synthesis. It's thus going to be pretty much impossible to turn that triangle wave into a violin because all you can do is add different triangle waves together (and control their volume, panning, and pitch - at low granularity). Maybe you could try additive synthesis instead, which will give you some more instruments (organ, xylophone, flute, similar pure sounds) but probably not violin. (unless you add together really massive number of triangle waves).

If you wanna have FM in a tracker (as opposed to samples taken from FM synths), you need a tracker that supports FM synthesis: an FM tracker, basically. Popular ones include adlib tracker 2 (opl3), TFM music maker (opn2), and a whole series of old adlib trackers including reality adlib tracker, adlib tracker (1), scream tracker 3 (which did have an FM mode that wasn't supported by later trackers), edlib, etc (opl2).

But yeah, Impulse Tracker is sample based, and is geared towards loading samples of whatever hardware you like, which might include samples from FM instruments.