FOUR-OPERATOR FM SYNTH · A FORMANT THAT STANDS STILL
JELLIFREQ
An FM synth you can almost touch. Equal temperament is the wrong grid for FM — ratios are for sidebands.
The DX7 exposes the mechanism and asks you to solve it; JELLIFREQ exposes the spectrum. Eight curated algorithms, every operator ratio locked to a lattice of twenty-five simple rationals so the index that would have made a bell instead makes a reed, a brass, or a vowel. Then a pitch-synchronous grain stage gives FM the one thing it has structurally never had: a formant that can stand still in hertz while the note moves through it — the one thing every acoustic instrument does that FM never could. A resonant saturating ladder sits inside the feedback loop itself, not tacked onto the end, so FBK becomes a growl-and-instability axis a flat drive could never be.
- FORMANT mode pins the spectral envelope in hertz while the note transposes freely — measured 0.79x movement across two octaves against 3.68x for a plain synced grain
- Twelve built-in scales beyond 12-TET — Just, Pythagorean, Meantone, 19/22/24/31-EDO, Bohlen-Pierce, Harmonic, Slendro, Pelog — because the operators were already in just intonation and the keyboard wasn't
- One mod envelope with a selector for PITCH, FILT, INDEX or FMT, so a kick, a filter sweep, an index climb and a formant slide all share one set of controls
- A one-knob tube stage adding the even harmonics FM structurally cannot make on its own, plus five further SATURATION curves inside the same signal path
- A snapshot lane with SOUND and MORPH modes — MORPH plays a step as a deviation from the live panel, SOUND plays a step's exact patch, right for building a kit one sound at a time
- Ninety-nine factory presets across drums, bass, keys, pads, leads, bells, plucks and textures, every one pitched, none silent, none clipping, no duplicates
VST3
STANDALONE
WIN / MAC
