Word for the Day Archive

FM Synthesis

The generation of complex signal waveforms in electronic music by Frequency Modulation of one or more sine wave signals by other sine waves (or other waveforms). FM synthesis as a method of generating complex musical waveforms was pioneered by John Chowning at Stanford University, and has shown that an extremely wide variety of waveforms may be made this way. The method also requires significantly less hardware than other similar methods, such as additive synthesis. One of the first commercial synthesizers to use FM synthesis was the Synclavier, produced by the now defunct New England Digital Corp. Easily the most famous FM synthesizer, however, is the Yamaha DX-7. This keyboard brought FM synthesis to the masses and is still renowned for its pure bell like tones and electric piano sounds.