Sound design tutorial on a DIY Dirtywave M8 FM synthesizer

Here's me creating and explaining some patches on the FM synthesizer built into the Dirtywave M8 tracker. This is my DIY setup using a Raspberry PI 3B and a Teensy 4.1.

00:00 hello
00:25 Raspberry PI setup
02:50 detuned saw wave filter sweep patch
04:58 80s FM piano patch
07:35 choir pad
10:01 short demo
11:05 opinion, ideas
11:57 conclusion

Here's what I have in my setup at the moment. Want to have that, too? Please use the followings links and support me:

Some bands / artists I've been following for a long time are (among others) Massive Attack, Pink Floyd, Pet Shop Boys, Archive, A-Ha, Yes, Porcupine Tree, John Mellencamp, Jean-Michel Jarre, Metallica, Peter Gabriel and Perturbator. So my music will kind of sound like those (without ever reaching the greatness of those artists, of course). :-)

[afr]

The m8c application might work better on the RPI than running a full browser. I tried m8c on Arch together with a Teensy 4.1 and it works great.

[JulianToler]

Now I am having a great time with my headless M8 the mysteries of FM synthesis are less of a mystery! Very helpful - Thanks!

[BudLarsenjr]

You are so cool I have a directory/folder named after you! Thank you for all of the excellent M8 videos. I just had to get a Teensy 4.1.🤓

[mrclaytron]

Great video, Floyd. I am really loving the FM synth on the M8, and this video was very enlightening! I've never been great with FM, but I think the M8 somehow makes it quite approachable, and fast to experiment with - I hope you'll consider doing more videos on creating FM patches on the M8, this was very helpful! Cheers

[johngalvin]

Great project Floyd, but it's you and your videos that just get better all the time, respect.

[superkheric]

Awesome video. Definitely would like to see more sound design content related to the M8!

[audioartisan]

Love your FM choir pad, and the alg/freq combo you programmed to create it gave me some ideas. Thanks! Totally agree that fixed freq. and an envelope per op should be in a future update.

[sebastien]

Hello Floyd, Thank you very much for your little tuto on FM sound design on M8, it was really helpful.

[pearsonbrennan]

Super helpful and informative video. Cant wait to try this out but UPS is a week late delivering my Teensy 4.1. Supposed to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully i can put all these fm concepts to use by tomorrow evening. Keep up the great work! Thanks

[farticusmaximusOG]

Very neat, especially for the form factor! Thanks (as always) for great demonstrations!

[arcanics]

As usual, great vid. Nice editing with the floating circular Floyd btw!

[andreaskafer]

Gave my pi4 a go too. Sadly the webdisplay does not work well for me. It does not show up fully. So i went the way littlescale went and that works fine. Thx for the tutorial, cant wait to hold the original in my hands.

[avrilcadabra]

thanks Floyd, great examples. Especially the Chorus. You would have to use the LFO's for extra envelopes or make them in the tables.

[TT-itgg]

Very nice! Thanks for the video~
Just thinking about putting a Teensy 4.1 inside the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard, then you will have a Pi 400 M8!~
How's that?

[JoeJohnston-taskboy]

Thanks for sharing! It looks like the software for this tracker (derkyjadex) can be hosted directly on the raspberry pi (I haven't yet tried this). Once installed, the unit would need no external networking, which would should make this a fairly standalone device.

[MettapanaSoundAV]

This channel is great, thanks for sharing.
I have a bit of a random question, can I connect a Hyperpixel 4.0 Tft Capacitive touchscreen to a macbook pro m1 to use as an external display? I can't find much information on this. I could do without the touch. Thanks!

[dolvaran]

Cool sounds. Reminds me of the original Dune game soundtrack!

[CrusaderGeneral]

There should be alternative builders of m8, to DW.. maybe with a builtin rotary encoder and some dedicated buttons .. what do you think of yourself getting into that? I would buy!

[dubseed]

Hi great video...I was wondering if the touch screen x y pad capability works with the headless m8

[AV-fhrp]

If you have time Floyd would be cool to see a m8c tut on the Anbernic r351v I see some others suggesting. Love your videos.