Oscilloscope

[Hades]

plus you can layer up so many parameters, or the presets have so many parameters, it's really difficult to pick them apart.
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I bought a K5000r in the first year or two when I was just starting to program my own patches.
If you go fullblown 6-part additive it's possible to have 1500+ parameters for just a single patch on that synth.
But luckily the interface gives you the possibility of combining the most important ones to make your life just a tiny bit easier...
Still, that made my eyes go wide open as to how deep one can get lost into synthesis if one wants to...

when you factor in keyboard scaling and velocity (or whatever else i'm missing), it's just too easy to get lost.
< me, programming, minding my own business... ... ... "the fuck was that? how come it doesn't do that again?" then spending hours chasing it.

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key scaling (or key-tracking) and velocity are really as simple as stamping on little kittens.

keyboard scaling = you can have the note of your keyboard as a modulation source to modulate something else.
In pretty much 90% of the times this is only used to have the cutoff (and or resonance, but usually just cutoff) of the filter open more on the higher notes and less on the lower notes.
That's all it is : the pitch of the note (= which note you play on the keyboard) determines how much the filter is opened or closed.
I remember from the days I was using Massive a lot that it has more extensive options for key-tracking. You could for example almost completely draw in your own key-tracking lines. So you could have say C1 to C3 do the normal key-tracking, then have D3 to C4 do inverted key-tracking, and then have D4 to... do normal key-tracking again if you wanted to.
Let's just say that you usually don't need that unless you want something really exotic (and you play a lot of different notes around the keyboard).
But on almost every decently programmed sound you will have keytracking modulate your filter. Approx. 90% of the times this will be positive modulation, 10% of the times this might be negative modulation.

velocity = using velocity as a modulation source.
Again the most common use for this would be to route it towards cutoff, so (if used in positive modulation) the louder notes would make the filter cutoff more open, and the softer notes would make the filter cutoff more closed.
I'm not sure if you play keys or not, but even if you don't I would always recommend you to use this one as a modulation source (not matter where you route it to). Even if you draw in notes with your mouse, one of the first things you should do to bring more life into your sequence/clip is to change the velocity of your notes, so why not use the just drawn in velocity as an extra source to bring small changes into your sounds ?

The thing is to remember all your options, and to use enough modulation sources, but to use them moderately,
if you go fullblown with all you can think of you'll end up with totally unuseable sounds. But if you use a lot of modulators and dial in just a tiny amount, you'll end up with a sound that never gets boring.

Also, so what if you don't grasp all of FM ? Just use the synth (whichever synth it is), experiment and have fun.
When I first had my K5000r I only had vague notions of how additive synthesis worked, and it didn't stop me from using it and having fun and being blown away by the sounds it could produce.
It's the same for FM, granular, wavetable,... whatever more exotic type of synthesis you're using.
Don't be afraid, just dive in and have fun.

[Hades]

For basses/leads there is amazing z3ta (probably the best synth vst plugin in the world).

that's quite a bold statement to make.
there are so many superb softsynths out there.
I can understand you personally really like z3ta (I liked it too when I first used it like 8 years ago), but as planar says : it's showing it's age nowadays.

Reaktor is very decent.

Reaktor is more than decent, it's a superb powerhorse that can make you get lost for years if you take the time to properly master it.
I have only used a few synths/sequencers/samplers in there over the years, and I still plan to take out more time to get to know more of it, but the thing is, you can't even call Reaktor a "synth", it's more of a platform where tons and tons and tons of synths/sequencers/samplers/FX are being made for.
Some are free, and a lot of those are quite amazing, and others you gotta pay for.

[krypt]

yeah, i'm never 100% serious and always express my own opinnion with a bit of humor. reaktor is amazing, that's for sure - writing it's decent could be provocative, yup
and calling z3ta "the best vst in the world" is also teasing, but it's definitely my favourite vst along with massive - you can feel the age if you use it straight, but there are ways around it. z3ta can sound still amazing, on the level of reaktor or whatever - you won't tell the difference. [https://soundcloud.com/krpt/krypt-3-bil ... s-from-now - only massive and zeta used here. doesn't sound like them, right?]
anyway, i think that this topic is great guide to fm synthesis. i need to try this aalto during the weekend.

[Planar]

There's a free version of Aalto if you search around the forum, Krypt. It only has one voice, but it's very useful. I only bought the full version due to it going on sale a while back, otherwise I would have been happy with the free version.

Plus, every proper subsekter has to own Aalto...