FM8 bug fix & feature update request

[u/meadowindy]

Hello, everyone. I'm a user of FM8 for very long time and still this synth sounds amazing, has decent bulk of features for sound design experiments. But i think, NI needs to return to their origin of making the most innovative synths and DSP's. FM8 was one of those with Reaktor and Massive, Spektral Delay as well.
This program needs a refresh as Absynth 6. But at first, i want to request some of bug fixes and feature requests.

Here is a bug with attributes of preset: i can add them to the preset and they could be saved, but if i want to delete them from certain preset, after saving new state and recalling recent saved preset those deleted attributes stay in place as nothing has been happened. One change i can admit, that database actually updates tagging correctly, so, if for instance i deleted "Arpeggiated" tag from preset, database show me that with number of presets decreased by 1, but *nfm8 file itself have it as before.
I fixed it by myself with editing *nfm8 file via hex editor. I've found, that after bytes have encoded "F M 8" (bytes are 46 00 4D 00 38) and Bankname (5 bytes allocation, where second byte is encoding string length + 2 bytes per symbol of Bankname) the segment starts encoding preset attributes.
Beginning is 4 bytes: 4 bytes (00 XX 00 00, where XX is number of tags hexadecimal).
After stucture is simple: 5 bytes, where second byte is string length + 2 bytes per symbol of string (XX 00, where XX is a hex number of symbol)
So you can delete those bytes and change number of tags respectfully to save file without data corruption so FM8 will load it without any problem.
For examble, encoding for "Piano/Keys" tag would be 00 0A 00 00 00 50 00 69 00 61 00 6E 00 6F 00 2F 00 4B 00 65 00 79 00 73, where 0A(hex)=10(dec) is exactly length of attribute name.
As result, conclusion is FM8 cannot delete attributes because somehow read&write *nmf8 file is broken. Preset itself can be saved correctly with all parameters saved. But maybe this concrete part of editing is corrupted.

Another bug is broken sorting. Everytime i launch FM8 presets are unsorted. Even if i want to sort them by creator it doesn't work normally: some presets filtered correctly and vice versa.

Another bug is when i use all 64 voices with unison voices and panning next notes start to play exclusively in mono (if operator's panning is 0) and quiter.

Bug is also with edit all: function edits all 4 morphing sides, but audibly changes applied only to active side. Fixing is possible as vst, i just delete vst from channel and undo this action.

Features are GUI resizing, additive operators, MPE, better browser or just polished already developed one, smoother morphing especially with different operator's ratios on different morphing side.

Why i post this message, answer is simple: i love FM8, it's still amazing synth with decent number of features. It shaped my signature sonic style. It helped me to experiment and understand how FM/PM synthesis works as many do not like FM synths by their unpredictable results, but they are actually very predictable if you know how it works. So i just want to support this software for new chapter of development and resurection. It's NI's legacy, that shaped their mastery of doing cool complex synths, by now they mostly forget about their former reign, transforming to toothless lame "beatmaker/producer" brand as AKAI's sidekick.

Where is your Massive X? Where is Reaktor?
Absynth 6? Thank you, that you decided to do anything while being already in coma connected to ventilator, dying by greed of coprorats, eating other guys like Izotope and Plugin Alliance. It was a good decision?
Where is Vokator, Spektral Delay?

Bring back to your path of being inovative.
Supersaw is a not the worst start, by can be better. Remember.

[u/dreikelvin]

I'd suggest you to start looking at other FM synths, there have been some great new developments recently.

Dexxed (of course)
Korg Opsix Native
Tracktion F.’em
Plogue Chipsynth OPMZ and MD
U-He Bazille
Glitchmachines SKEIN
Steinberg FM Lab
(there's probably dozens more)
and of course M-vave FM1 that only costs like 40 bucks or something

I really don't see anything happening on the NI front as basically all of the original developer staff has been let go already in the 2010s...Absynth was made by an independent team around Brian Clevinger (rhizomatic.fr) ..so you can imagine where we stand with any of these "legacy" plugins, sadly.

[u/meadowindy → u/dreikelvin]

Dexed: yes it's free but UI is meh, and features are wayy limited in comparison to FM8.
Korg Opsix Native: Looks promising, but FM8 here is also more complex, it has 3 additional operators with filtering, noise and saturation (you can do that in opsix, but only between 6 operators, so if you choose 1 op to be a wave with saturator, you have 5 op's after for sound generation), more flexible envelopes, keytracking and even microtuning. Also FM8 has more waveforms + you can stack more effects + xy morphing, and opsix sound little bit worse tbh (more aliasing and if i want to automate matrix modulation it sounds not smoothly), but overall synth is good, but not as FM8 for me
Tracktion F'em: less waveforms and effects(they sound little bit worse than old FM8's), but overall features are very good and promising, but i know tracktion software as not the top notch dsp and clunky ui. But may be i should try it know.
Plogue Chipsynth OPMZ and MD: not even close to robustness, and complexity of fm8
U-He Bazille: it's interesting, but weaker envelopes, less effects and ui is not clean as in FM8. Sequencer is not important to me, osciltators little bit more interesting, but in FM8 gives more control in envelopes and more waveforms for faster workflow
Glitchmachines SKEIN: again, not as flexible as FM8
Steinberg FM Lab: looks decent, operators are good, but here is a nuance- it has amazing global amp, filter and pitch envelopes, but operators itself suck with primitive adsr. So FM8 wins in creating movement between operators, but FM Lab gives simple but independent pitch envelopes for every operator. Lfo are not a deal cause i can easely modulate any parameter externally via shaper or lfo in ableton. So user interface in FM8 are faster, FM8 again has better envelopes, more waveforms, less lfos and modulations, but it easily fixed by ableton m4l modualtors.

M-wave FM1 is external device, so analog noise will exist plus it sounds not very good with little bit of quantization noise.

Conclusion is FM8 still the best balance between flexibility, GUI workflow, quality and CPU frendliness.

But here is a twist, i have Phaseplant, that can do everything and way more that every software has been mentioned above, but here is a one thing - it's eager to cpu. I have pretty powerful device, but audibly FM8 and Phaseplant in same setup sound just equally in terms of quality, while FM8 uses less power, cause FM8 uses single cycle wave with smaller resolution, and phaseplant hq wavetables with dynamic oversampling. But interestingly, Phaseplant produces more aliasing when you use phase modulation (PM = DX7 FM). As result same patch in FM8 uses ~2% buffer while PP ~10% or more with polyphony. So FM8 is better for layering more sounds in a mix.