The FB-01 is simply an inexpensive, 8 part multitimbral digital FM synth module. It's only a 4-operator synth which is less than, say a DX-7. This simply means its sounds are not quite as good. You will need an external MIDI system exclusive editor to edit the patches. This can be accomplished by a dedicated editor program like Unisyn, or by creating SysEx control messages within your sequencing program. The FB-01 has a lot of organ, piano, brass, bass, guitar, percussion, and lead sounds.

Extended information

If you are familiar with the Yamaha's DX-series synthesizers, you will quickly recognize the sound of this little machine - it is a basic 4-operator, 8-algorithm FM-synthesizer. Four operators are not enough for creating those really complex FM-sounds, unlike the Yamaha DX7 which uses six operators. But the FB-01 is still very useful for creating those otherwise hard-to-get bell or metallic sounds. Some punchy and powerful bass sounds can also be produced rather easily, as well as some really nice and soft organ patches. But do yourself a favor and forget about decent string or brass sounds - you're doomed to fail.

The main strength of this machine is that it can play eight different sounds at once. While multi-timbrality is not much of an accomplishment today, when the FB-01 was released in 1987 it was quite an extraordinary feature.

Unfortunately the voice assignment is not dynamic. This means that when you assign a MIDI channel to a certain sound, you also need to assign the maximum notes that the voice will play. So if one voice will play a five-note chord at one place in your composition, you will have to assign five voices to that channel, leaving only three voices to play the other channels. The FB-01 also only has one LFO for all voices, which means that all the different voices will share the same vibrato. This limits the usefulness of it in multi-timbral mode even more.

There is no internal effects processing, which is quite normal for a mid-eighties synthesizer. There are no filters either, which makes it pretty difficult to create dynamic sounds unless you're very clever at FM-programming.

The FB-01 was the lowest priced FM synth module ever made by Yamaha. The design of the FB-01 was later used for computer soundcards and today even the cheapest SoundBlaster card can create the same sounds as the FB-01. With this in mind, I really wouldn't pay more than like 50 dollars for an FB-01.

Technical specifications

Polyphony
8 Voices Oscillators
Digital 4-operator FM synthesizer Instruments
8 Part multi-timbral Filter
None Effects
None Keyboard
None Memory
240 presets
96 user Control
MIDI (8 parts) Date Produced - 1986 - 1987