Making Psy Trance with FM8 Part 3: Sequenced Lead

In this excellent video tutorial, Jonny walks us through the entire process of designing a lead synth and sequencing it with the flexible envelopes inside of FM8. This is such a fabulous synth to make Psy Trance music with, as it is capable of producing an incredibly wide range of sounds with minimal tweaking. And this makes programming unique and interesting sequences a very easy task. As with most sound design session in FM8, this one starts off in the FM Matrix where all the routing happens. All of the Operators A-F are used, as is Operator Z (the filter). With a selection of Sawtooth and Sine waveforms, a Formant waveform is also used to produce our lead synth. Some variations in pitch values creates some gentle phasing and extra width.

Next, the synth is set to run in Monophonic mode on the Master window and the total number of Unison Voices is increased to six. These voices are spread out via the Detune and Pan features. And some Analog and Digital Quality are added for extra character. This is the perfect time to go back and set up the Filter that almost all of the main operators are routed through. It’s envelope is set up to create a nice sweep effect each time a note is triggered. To save some time in the programming of the envelopes, the same pattern used in the sequenced bass tutorial is copied and pasted into this lead synth’s operator envelopes. Of course, some changes are made so it’s not exactly the same! The finishing touch to this sound is to use a Peak EQ unit to accent some of the mid-high frequencies and a PsychDelay unit to extend it a bit.

Cheers,
OhmLab