FM ZONE Review
Toybox Audio has released another synth: FM zone, a simple on the surface FM synthesizer with the Toybox modulation system and a wealth of depth hidden inside. FM Zone has a lovely “Neuomorphic” orange cream UI, it just looks absolutely unique soft. The main interface is simple, you have controls for shape, spectrum, timbre, filter, various settings for these controls. Each of the main controls has a built in curve mapped directly to the control to modulate it over time.
The controls on the front panel are meant to be intuitive and fun, if you just stick to this interface you can explore FM synthesis without ever having to think about ratios, routing matrixes, carriers or operators, you can just play with controls as you’re used to with other synths. As mentioned above, there are several controls for shaping the tone of your oscillator, there’s also a lower row of sub-controls that don’t receive modulation, and a couple of these even have context menus so there’s already quite a lot of depth on the surface.
There’s a sub oscillator that can be used for noise, additional FM, AM, chaos and more. The filter has many analog emulations, a cool “multi notch” phaser style filter, a comb, and other cool effects like chorus, wave folding, frequency shifting and a bit crusher. There’s also a master effect that can be set up top, this is mostly for delays/reverbs typical post processing effects. Lastly, on the surface at least, is a simple sampler, you can use this to load one shots, and it gets its own filter too, however with fewer filter options.
Back to the synth section, there is a “sound” selector, this lets you pick from hundreds of preset FM patches. These sounds are distinct from the main engine presets, as they are oscillator presets and do not affect any of the front panel controls (besides the algorithm dial). You can think of these as different wave shapes, waiting to be be edited from the front panel. Things get fun though when you click the pencil icon, and open up the sound editor, this reveals a four operator FM matrix with over 20 matrix algorithms. What’s even more exciting is that most of these algorithms actually contain unique operator types like supersaw, additive, a comb filter, and something called a “selector OP”. Even if you’re familiar with 4op fm synthesis, it’s worth taking a dive into this one, as each operator has a unique control or two.
If this is all a bit too much for you, there is no need to worry, as mentioned, there are hundreds of presets created for this sound editor already, so you can spend your time crafting presets in a manner more reminiscent of subtractive synthesis. Finally there is a “global” page, which is actually per preset, so not really “global”. Here is where you set things like poly count, certain modulation settings, filter tracking and the likes. I only bring it up because my biggest complaint is that polyphony is capped at 5 voices. This was fine for Buzz Zone and Thump One, as they were more focussed around kicks and bass/leads, but for this synth, I’d like to at least have a max poly count of 8. Otherwise, I think this was an amazing creation from Toybox, a different take on simple UI, but a deep synth engine under the hood for those willing to get their hands dirty.
You can pick up FM Zone from Toybox Audio’s website: https://www.toyboxaudio.com/products/fm-zone