Yamaha • FB-01
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. Basically this is a good source of typical FM-sounds at a low price. It is used by Hardfloor and Moog Cookbook.
Keyboard splitting is another nice thing. You can split it to maximum of 8 zones, freely defining size of each zone.
8 part multitimbrality may be a joke. Any sound needs at least polyphony of 2 if you want it to sound deep, so it's more like 4 part multi-timbre. On the other hand, for this price it's more than I expected.
Programing is a [beep] . Applications meant to help you, if you find any, must synchronize with synth to make any changes, whitch means no real time tweaking.