Ask Video Ableton Live 302 Exploring FM with Operator TUTORiAL

Ableton Live’s Operator is a very powerful FM (Frequency Modulation) synth with some interesting tricks up its sleeve. Explore this fantastic Live instrument with sound designer Rishabh Rajan, and get into FM synthesis the right way!

Popularized in the early ’80s with the Yamaha DX7, FM synthesis often has a reputation of being overly complex and difficult to understand (mostly because it was a pain to tweak parameters using a single data slider on such a small LCD screen!) Thankfully, Operator’s user interface makes FM much easier to grasp and program. In this course, Ableton Live expert Rishabh Rajan explains everything you need to know about FM and Live’s very flexible Operator device.

Rishabh starts the course with a solid overview of Operator’s interface, followed by a very clear explanation and demonstration of FM synthesis. Once you know all about modulators, carrier, and algorithms, you’re ready to dig deeper into this extremely versatile synth. You learn how to create your own waveforms by adjusting odd and even harmonics, you discover the interesting Feedback function, and you learn how Operator’s envelope offers more options than most synths. You’ll also learn about the Filter section, LFOs, and more… The course ends with a sound design example where you create an electric piano sound from scratch.

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