Max For Live: Building a Polyphonic FM Synth

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This video shows you how you can use Max for Live to program your own Polyphonic FM Synthesizer
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[@cgabrielac]

The tutorial es EXTREMLEY awesome!!!!!! I'm more than greatful for this I learnt so much! (BTW: for future videos, de music behind although is nice it's a bit loud and sometimes makes difficult to listen to you, and after some minutes becomes anoying :-) please consider lowering a bit)

[@edmundo2358]

Agreed, great tutorial but the music is really annoying.

[@jonassloboda7198]

plus hearing a single the same tone for over a minute :-----) great video tho

[@0121doone]

Background music is so offputting

[@runner0075]

1 hour of elevator muzak ..

[@dalaigalama]

I had to interrupt the video several times because it drove me really nuts.

[@nivsarid6731]

@@dalaigalama 0

[@hoegge]

Ýes - great tutorial but drop the background noise - really annoying and interferes with the sound you should hear

[@matthewmitchell8461]

omg this is the best tutorial i've ever found

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Matthew Mitchell Thanks!

[@artemiybzhedugov7034]

First time ever when I dig the background music in a tutorial, strangely made the process very digestible and mesmerizing for me!

[@DmitryPuffin]

I was struggling to understand how poly object works, and you explained it perfectly here! What an awesome tutorial. Thank you!

[@wrayxphoto]

Wow even works in Ableton Live 11 thanks for posting this. It really helps you to understand how these are created and work. Cheers...

[@jswe100]

Hands down the best Max For Live tutorial I've come across. well done.

[@Hide_and_Tweak]

this is just what I needed to go back to programming sounds and music. I used Pure data, (which is almost identical to max msp) in university a few years ago but I eventually lost files and it stopped my work and the motivation went away every time I tried to go back to it. But this video helped me to relearn all the things I already knew. Once you understand how to use oscillators and apply modulations, there is so much possibilities. And then, every bit of knowledge you add on top of it, multiply the possibilities that were already huge with just a bit of knowledge.

[@davidilbury]

Thank you, Daniel!

[@estebie]

Thank you for actually breaking everything down!

[@ashleywessel780]

This is the best Max tutorial I have seen so far, have been working on learning this program for past few weeks. Thank you!

[@HenryCullenDaveTheDrummer]

GREAT tutorial, thanks for sharing, background noise was a bit of a pain, but it was OK, this is one of my first efforts in building something in M4L and I'm glad I found this tutorial. cheers!!!

[@ethanwimsett]

Love the OCD shortcuts! Ace tutorial, really appreciate you spending time to explain the why's at each step

[@w1wang]

This video is sooo helpful! Making an FM synth now for a film I'm scoring so thank you thank you thank you for making this!

[@KingHookJ]

Your tutorial was really great for learning as a beginner to using Max. I really like how you made mistakes and did not cut them out as it helped me gain an even better understanding of not only your way of thinking but also how everything worked and the reasons why the objects were not working.

[@minorday2049]

Fantastic tutorial. Thanks for that!

[@mattkaz9604]

Huge thanks - so many dubious poly~ tutorials on youtube, but this one makes sense.

[@Hide_and_Tweak]

wow sick tutorial thanx !

[@markjackson9120]

GREAT tutorial. Thank you so much. Please make more!!!!

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Mark Jackson working on it!

[@fromundertootherplanet1008]

Thanks for sharing a real good and complet tutorials about max for live, all the best to you

[@LookNumber9]

Beautifully done. Super informative with best practices built in. Thank you!

[@LowellHohstadt]

Beautifully done! Thanks for sharing.

[@jaeebz]

Amazing man. Loved this and your background music too. So clear and concise really helped me to understand some more advanced Max. THANKS! :)

[@treefighterwillams]

super informative and the synth sounds sick!

[@thefrequencyproject4802]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this amazing tutorial! A+++

[@vanomusic1]

What a great tutorial!! Thank you

[@koreanfriedchildren]

This is a great tutorial, would have been good if you turned down the background music though

[@Jurazgar1]

Thanks so much for this! Subscribed.

[@hooshi2530]

I love FM too

[@maciekczarnecki95]

Thanks a lot for this tutorial Daniel! Learnt a lot! :)

[@Unifono2012]

Great Tutorial! So clear and helpful

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Unifono2012 Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@franciscoraupp]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[@celsomachado247]

wow how good was that! thanks

[@Therm0ptic]

Thanks this helped a lot

[@eloielbonnoi1843]

Thank you very much. Very usefull!!

[@alouped]

at 3:12 when the gain meter matches up with the kick... nice

[@superjohnza]

Really great, thank you!!:)

[@jonathonmeyer2398]

I was able to follow along with everything except was not able to get polyphony working. I also added some things like a waveform selector and low pass filter which worked before for me but maybe I integrated incorrectly, I think I'm going to try and follow along exactly, see if that works, then try and add more features

[@jonathonmeyer2398]

Ahhhh found my mistake, after following along I then went back and added a square, saw, and triangle waveforms then routed that into a selector~ 4 with some radio buttons to pick the waveform of the carrier and modulator then added a LPF using lores~ at the end. Great video I watched it like 3 times and learned a ton!

[@raymundocastillo1002]

so awesome

[@freddy7171]

I followed all the steps, wasnt getting any sound

[@maselmusic1411]

Great tutorial, please do more!! One problem though: @target 0 isn't getting recognised by M4L..I looked it up but didn't really explain much of why am I not getting a target 0 (or target)

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Masel Music make sure your "target 0" is inside a message box, not a regular object box. Create a message box by first unlocking your patch, then pressing the "m" key on your computer's keyboard. Let me know if that resolves things.

[@maselmusic1411]

How stupid of me! Thanks a lot, looking forward for more tutorials!!

[@DanielRDehaan]

That's Max for you! Always some little detail that breaking everything.

[@Nnay3000]

@@DanielRDehaan Programming in a nutshell :)

[@jfhallst]

Great video, but all those quick steps to fix stuff left me a little cross-eyed since the objects on the video are so small. Any chance of providing the final patch?

[@Andre-gy5ml]

Nice tutorial man the best ive found! Are you thinking about making somke more? Would like to understand how to use the midiparse object to pitch bend for example

[@DanielRDehaan]

Thanks! Hopefully will have some more M4L tutorials on the way soon!

[@lazucahd8531]

my brightness knob doesnt work and I can't figure out why!?!?! :(

[@spedingout5642]

When i re-encapsulate the midi data around 26:20, my p object's cables cross unlike here in the video. Prior to this, everything is identical to the screen. What is happening? Thanks!

[@theorbization]

At around 6:20, having just made the midi loop, the two integers stay at 0, although print note works

[@MemphianSounds]

Is Max For Live the same as Max from Cycling 74?

[@ohdiggidyvision2952]

Is it possible to create a template to sound similar to a moog synth

[@visheshl]

Ok so I have a question unrelated to this tutorial, is it possible to create a midi device in m4l which takes a note on off from the midi clip, however it takes the pitch from the midi keyboard and then outputs the combined midi... basically a midi arpeggiator based on session view clip ? The clips provide the gate, the midi keyboard provides the note...can you try this out ? I can do this by mapping the keyboard range to a midi clip or a pitch control...but I was hoping to build a drag and drop device instead....

[@ZalánClaris]

great tutorial, but the background music is super distracting

[@rogeraslop]

Great tute, but the background music is distracting, or did you make it all in max

[@DanielRDehaan]

Completely agree. I thought I would try adding background music. All the sounds are from the synth built in this video, but it is super distracting. I've learned my lesson. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial otherwise!

[@mattharris6942]

Soooo close god damn! Got it all working but for some reason audio stops after like 3 bars????

[@nickshillito1170]

This is really really awesome, but I agree with everyone else, the background music needs to go 😂it really distracts from the sounds of the synth

[@crash936]

great tutorial, i coulnt get the poly working though, got all got till this p MIDI DATA moment, than didnt work, so i had to connect back to p FM synth, dont know why, still lots of fun,

[@DanielRDehaan]

Keep at it! It’s all about attention to detail. Rewind. Retry. Repeat. You’ll get it.

[@edmoor9366]

This was amazing! I am just having a little problem. As soon as I close the patch and try to play with my midi keyboard or drawing notes at all, it won't work. Any advice? Thanks!

[@ohdiggidyvision2952]

Or blue moon synth

[@danielkagan9245]

57:50 inlets didn't appear after creating a poly~ object with pather name? Any suggestions? Would be very grateful for the help.

[@andresgarcia9852]

why did nothing print into my max console like his around 6:05?

[@freepartybreda1392]

my dials show only the minimum and the maximum and i followed everything

[@8VSD8]

I am stuck at 11:18. when I connect from cycle to live.gain i get nothing. Everything else is worjing properly. Am I missing something? I am getting midi data and everything else...

[@8VSD8]

I got it resolved. Thank you for an awesome tutorial. I have been putting max off for some time and this was the perfect tutorial to pull me in and motivate me to work within it. Thank you.

[@thehumanpractice2985]

I was wondering, how do you work with kslider and notein instead of midiin? how would you do it?

[@JKRNDA]

Thanks!! really good tutorial, just wanted to know why the dot at /127. it's a programming parameter?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Hi! In max you have to specify what data type you want each object to send and/or receive. The dot specifies that we want to get fractional results (e.g. 0.001, 0.25) without the dot we would only get whole number results (e.g. 0, 1, 5) النطح ‰ so, in this case we are transforming each note's velocity from a range of 0-127 to a value between 0 and 1. Without the dot we would only ever get 0 or 1 and nothing in between. Try removing the dot and playing some notes to see what I mean.

[@JKRNDA]

good, thanks men : )

[@DanielRDehaan]

+you're welcome! النطح ‰

[@alvaropedroponce]

is extremly awesome that's true, but I have a problem on my patch, and I've copied that at all; the sound produces me a click before and after i press the note on my keyboard. Thanks!

[@alvaropedroponce]

I've founded the solution, we must put on the "adsr~" the attribute: @legato 1

[@DanielRDehaan]

@legato will help, but it sounds like you are missing the “target 0” message with a [loadbang] object connected to it, and that you have not both triggered that “target 0” message to be sent to the [poly~] object or adjusted the values for your ADSR. The click is probably resulting from an ADSR envelope that has a 0 ms attack and/or a 0 ms release.

[@alvaropedroponce]

DRD_Tutorials Maybe, but i've comprove both, target 0 and adsr non-zero in any value. I dont know..., well, now works perfectly!

[@crash936]

just not sure in the beginning, why do we need to scale velocity to 0/1 ?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Because that is the range of values that [adsr~] is expecting. We could send it 0-127 but that would result in an absurdly loud synth.

[@thebuttonfreak]

I'm having an issue when the brightness is 0, I get clicks and the sin wave from the main oscillator is solent. I guess because I'm multiplying the signal by 0. Any suggestions on how to deal wi th it?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Sounds like something isn’t right somewhere. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend going back through object by object and making sure it is exactly as it should be. My first guess is that you are multiplying the carrier frequency and modulator signal rather than adding them.

[@thebuttonfreak]

ahhhh.... that sounds about right.

[@thebuttonfreak]

That worked, but now I'm having issues with the t object that directs the flow to the env's. I can't see what you wrote in there, is it t i i?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Yes, I think that’s correct.

[@thebuttonfreak]

Got it working thanks!

[@TheTauchsieder]

great video. i dont quite understand the idea of the brightness control.. it ´controls the ratio between the frequency and the amplitude of the modulating wave right? what exactly does that do?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Exactly. You've got it. The Brightness dial controls amplitude of the modulating oscillator in relationship to it's frequency which is related by a ratio to the carrier's frequency. Or, if we forget about all the ratio's, the Brightness simply controls how much the modulating oscillator actually modulates the frequency of the carrier oscillator.

[@TheTauchsieder]

is there a reason for connecting the modulation intensity to its frequency? to me it would seem more intuitive to just control the amplitude directly.. just wondering.

[@DanielRDehaan]

I’d say just experiment! See if you can hear a difference and decide for yourself how you want your instrument to sound/behave.

[@HeidiLoveUall]

Hi, I need to ask, what happens if you use a saw~ instead of a cycle? Should the Second osc you made there always be a cycle osc? Thank you !

[@DanielRDehaan]

+HeidiLoveUall No, it doesn't have to be a [cycle~]. It could be almost anything. Go crazy!

[@dirska2]

Very cool tutorial, but background noise is a real pain and unnecessary as hell.

[@joshgwilt155]

hey, great patch! have built it all fine up until i have to make it poly, where it doesn't seem to want to work for me :( is there any chance of sharing the patch so i can see where im going wrong please?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Sure, just post a link to a Dropbox/google drive etc. file and I’ll take a look.

[@joshgwilt155]

drive.google.com/open?id=1NSArLCql3hOfxYHBxnfPPQ0o7eNhBDfj thanks very much in advance!

[@DanielRDehaan]

Everything is looking great! Now you just need to keep going! Looks like you stopped at around 50 minutes in to the video.

[@deftonespg]

Hey man, quick question. My / 127. isn't working. When it's not connected I get the signal coming through Live, if I connect it I get nothing. I'm guessing it's because it's multiplying be zero? I've done exactly what you showed. What am I doing wrong?

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Pedro Neves can you send me a screenshot? danielrdehaan at gmail dotcom

[@OrliKosKy]

Hi there! did you manage to figure this out? I have the same issue :)

[@DanielRDehaan]

Max is all about the little details. If you can share some screenshots I can look everything over to see what the issues is. Otherwise, I’d recommend just going step-by-step, object by object through your patch and making sure that everything is exactly as it should be. All patch cables go to/from where they should. All spaces and decimal points are where they should be, etc.

[@DanielRDehaan]

Got your email! Thanks, replying here so others can follow along with your work too! Looks like you've done everything correctly so far, just keep going.

[@zooanzoo9519]

"target" doesn't exist for my version of Max...?

[@DanielRDehaan]

"target 0" is the message contained inside a message box. Not a regular max object.

[@zooanzoo9519]

I'm not sure what that means then... so if I can't create the message, the synth won't work? I completed every other step, I can play multiple sounds at once but they're soft hisses instead of any sort of coherent tone. I apologize if I sound absolutely naive.. it's because I am just learning Max for the first time, honestly have learned so much from this video alone. You're a very thorough "orator", I look for that in most tutorials but have trouble finding the amount of concise, detailed explanation you provide. thnx - ZOO

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Zooanzoo no worries and thanks for all the compliments! Max is a pretty steep learning curve. You can create a message box by; 1) Unlocking your patch 2) placing your cursor where you want to create a message box 3) press the "m" key. Then fill that grey message box with "target 0". Let me know if that makes sense and gets your synth working. Max is all about the little details.

[@zooanzoo9519]

"3) press the 'm' key"

[@DanielRDehaan]

+Zooanzoo good luck!

[@katamiaennoia]

Thank you for the very helpful tutorial! I am trying to make a microtonally tuned synth (using coll instead of mtof). I have recreated your patch, but I get an issue: it seems like the carrier data (attack etc.) apply only to the first voice of the synth, all the rest come out without this data so there are clicks/picks in the beginning and the end of each notes of the 2nd+ voices. Any ideas/help?

[@DanielRDehaan]

Sounds like you’re not proceeding your midi messages with “midinote.”

[@katamiaennoia]

@@DanielRDehaan Thank you for your reply Daniel. I'm passing midiin through midiparse and then prepend midinote before going to the poly. Inside the poly the data gets unpacked and one end goes to coll before sig, the other to t, to go to ENV GEN and MODULATOR. I don't get the issue because the data to ENV GEN follows the exact path of your patch. They meat again with the coll data at * before going out.

[@DanielRDehaan]

Ah, sorry misread you first question. Have you sent the message “target 0” into the first inlet of the poly~ object?

[@katamiaennoia]

@@DanielRDehaan Yes, loadbang/target, 0/poly~ (same inlet that prepend midinote goes in)

[@DanielRDehaan]

There should be no comma between “target” and “0”.

[@kypjak42]

7:22 18:02

[@seanperman2000]

HELP not getting any sound!!!!

[@seanperman2000]

update!!!!!! it started working when i saved it ;/

[@tripslip38]

@@seanperman2000 Haha thank you! Was pulling my hair out over that.

[@brettmarshalltweaksource]

This is an amazing tutorial and you are my new hero! I do have one small, nagging issue. My brightness dial looks greyed-out. The dial face is clearly lighter than the other 9 dials. It still works correctly, but it is a different color and I cannot figure out why. Any suggestions? drive.google.com/open?id=10_6X96Ji4Rv6pbJzYGQWumhqdVh9q1xx

[@DanielRDehaan]

Thank you! Glad you found it useful. In the dial's Inspector window you can edit all its colors to whatever you prefer.

[@yourlifemasterycoach]

I'm sure the message is great, but the background music is awful--not to mention totally distracting. Would've stayed otherwise.

[@ampersandrew]

This might be a great tutorial, I'll never know. I turned it off after less than 30 seconds. I won't listen to over an hour of that background noise you have going.

[@Herzfeld10]

dude you made the perfect tutorial, but you're making a tutorial for audiophile and put that aweful sound in the background :'( so hard to focus