FM synthesis is fascinating and extremely flexible but it’s notoriously difficult to master. If you are interested I’d recommend learning basic subtractive synthesis first since they have some concepts in common.
Oh, I'm alright with subtractive/additive synths ... I have a Novation. FM puzzles me to no end. I can handle 2 oscillators but 4 or 8 seems maddening.
I'm not sure if I need to approach it by trial and error, or there are a few tricks to program it!
If you take apart some more complex patches you can see they’re sort of composites of simpler patches. But then there are also some patches that are just very complex.
I think ML and GANs might be interesting to apply to FM patch design.
Indeed, one of the most prolific of all synthesists has even established himself as a leader on this particular topic - using ML techniques to create FM patches. And, it is simply bloody awesome:
