So a month or two ago I picked up what is perhaps not the most of exciting things but it was so cheap I couldn't really turn my nose at it... A paper weight to most, the Yamaha FB-01.

Some of you may remember my love for the DX-100 which is a nice compact 4 op FM Synth and I got the FB with the idea that it will be like a expander to my DX.

Now my TX-81Z you could program either from the front panel, via software editor OR using the DX-100. I sold the TX ages ago as I didn't like the sound as much compared to the 100 (too clean) and also it was wasting 1U space in my rack.

I thought re FB-01 Great, it's 8 part multi and half rack size so it can sit somewhere on a desktop or something oh and it's cheaper than the TX was.. You can't program it from it's front panel but you should be able to use the DX-100 to program it like the TX no? WROOONNGG
You can only use a software editor which for me sucks as I use a MPC as a sequencer and so to program it you need to un-plug and plug midi leads lame ness..

Any way boring stuff over, so how does it sound? Well still a lot better than the DX-100 (i.e. no way near as much aliasing and hiss) but surprisingly it's very good at drum sounds!
I've never really made drum sounds using FM synths but I really like it! So now instead of a synth I use it as a 8x part drum synth!
And for 25 quid, really... I can't moan! Even if you do have to use a computer for editing.

Here is a little example of what it sounds like;
http://soundcloud.com/martin_bell/slow-it-down

The claps are from a 808 and there is a small drum loop sampled from vinyl in the background but the rest is purely FB-01 with DX-100 doing the synth sound and Waldorf on bass

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