Is there such a thing as an “FM sampler”? I’m curious if there is such an instrument where you can have one sample modulate the frequency or phase of another sample. Modulating a sample with an oscillator/operator would also be interesting, but I’m mostly curious about “inter-sample” modulation.
Also, the same question for amplitude or ring modulation. Is there anything out there where we can have a sample modulate the amplitude of another?
I think something like this might exist, but my web searches aren’t coming back with any hits — maybe I need better keywords to search.
I know this can be done in software. For example, in Kilohearts Phase Plant you can cross-modulate samples.
This definitely exists in the modular world, where any sample player with pitch control could be modulated at audio rates with an audio source. It probably won’t sound great, but it’s possible. Otherwise I think software is probably your best bet.
Bitwig’s Grid could do this too. But I’m not aware of any hardware samplers that do this. We have a hard enough time asking for stereo samples and more than a couple of LFOs from some devices FFS, never mind this kind of bananas modulation
From what I could glean from the web, it sounds like the original Nord Wave did and the Nord Wave 2 did not. It’s 100% clear to me yet though. I’ll have to read the manual a bit more.
The nord wave 1 can’t fm a sample with another sample. It can use a sample as a modulator to fm the other oscillator but only one of the oscillators can be sample based.
I believe you can fm samples with samples with some of the gotharman products like the LD3.
Yes, the Assimil8or is for Eurorack. It is an awesome sampler. And it does phase modulation very well. It’s very high quality and flexible. Also, it’s made by the same guy who made the classic sp-1200. I had one for a while, but sold it when I needed some cash. I will buy one again when I can. You can even load waveforms, and use it as full on fm(phase-mod) synth. If you don’t use eurorack, you could always just get a small case for that module, so you can have sampler fm in your hardware setup. I was mostly using it with the Nerdseq sequener.
The Assimil8or is the best sampler there is but it definitely requires a euro setup due to not having MIDI. I pair it with an Oxi One and usually only use it for one voice at a time through the rest my system. But yeah, it’s essentially exactly what you want from the standpoint of pure modulation. Any channel can phase mod another including incoming audio.
Yeah, I don’t use Eurorack, but there are a handful of modules I would love to have in my setup. I imagine it can be difficult to keep a modular setup small though, because I imagine most of these more interesting modules benefit from having some other CV utilities around.
Squid salmple is also capable of FM on its samples (also eurorack) seems like the assimil8tor is the one to go for if you are after that specifically though. I suppose it might be asked what you are after with FMing samples. I would guess mostly curiosity? I feel like I occasionally will FM a sample but with an oscillator at a very shallow depth to just add some unusual texture. Most usable FM of meaningful depth between samples is probably going to happen on samples that are acting as oscillators.
As a side note most FM synths to my knowledge essentially use a single cycle waveform sample for basis of the FM.
