Is this how this is meant to sound?

I've been playing about with FM Mode this morning & I've set up a basic patch & when changing the shape of the modulator it doesn't behave as I'd thought it might. I've slowed Osc 1 right down to try & make the results a bit more predictable but in this instance what I thought would happen isn't happening so if you have the time please try setting this patch up & letting me know your results.

Start from Init Patch

Go to "Common" page in VC change transpose to -48
Back on "Osc" page set oscillator balance to +100%
Osc 2 Pulse
Semitone +48
Detune 0

FM Mode Wave

Osc 1 Sine (turn shape knob fully left as we'll be using the osc 1 sawtooth & pulse waves shortly)
Semitone -48

Now, play a C2 note & slowly turn FM Amount up - you should be hearing osc 2 being modulated by the sine of osc 1, osc 1 is going slow enough for you to be able to picture in your mind whats happening (I hope that makes sense). It sounds like the sine wave has a higher peak on one of 2 cycles but that's not a great problem. As you increase the FM Amount the pitch sweep gets more extreme.

With that little demonstration, I think that it shouldn't be too big a leap to be able to make a prediction of what we think would happen if we changed the shape of osc 1 to a sawtooth then a square (in previous experiments I've found that the Virus sawtooth has a bit of a rounded bottom, so that might catch you out but a square is a square right?)

As I turn the shape knob, I only get a change in the modulation when the knob reaches 12 o'clock, it sounds like it jumps to the round bottom sawtooth. When I turn the shape knob all the way to the right instead of hearing a square wave modulating osc 2 I can still hear the round bottom sawtooth.

With these settings in Wave mode when osc 1 is set to Sine it doesn't sound that disimilar to FM Mode Triangle, it's clearly different but not by much.
Change FM Mode to Pos Triangle & that sounds more sine like than when osc 1 is set to sine & FM Mode is set to Wave.

I thought when I started doing this that I would hear a gradual morph of the wave from sine to saw then from saw to square as I turned the shape knob, as we do if we are running a single oscillator & adjust the shape. I was very careful to make sure that I had selected Wave in FM Mode but it doesn't seem to follow the shape of the oscillator as I'd expected it to.

Am I doing something wrong?

Do you think the waves should morph or is it normal for there to be only two wave shapes for osc 1 in classic mode when being used as a modulator in FM Mode?

Zitat von flabberbob

I also wonder if you get the behavior I got when holding down 4 or more keys above C7 - it sounds like the modulation is not continuous.

I hadn't noticed that thread before, when I set your patch up I started to hear some "artifacts" with a single key press of C8, if I turned the FM Amount up then I could hear the morse transmission style sound from C7 & above. I didn't try it at the time but I might go back & test your settings with a higher sample rate to see if that gets rid of it. I was on 44.1kHz for the test.

I tested your settings with FM8 as well, the sound was a lot smoother with more sidebands being added as the modulation increased. I know some people might turn round & say I should just use FM8 if I've already got it installed but the reason I'm trying to use this on the Virus is to make use of the extra waveshapes we have, I'm already using them a lot for Ring Modulation but I've yet to make something useful with them using FM.

It's worth pointing out that when using the shape knob on classic oscillators during Ring Modulation the wave does morph through the shapes, that's why I thought it would be similar with FM in Wave mode.

PS. Just to be sure we're on the same keyboard set-up, for me C3 is middle C