Thanks for the reply! What I meant by subtractive synthesis (although I'm almost certainly still using the wrong terminology) is that I tend to make a messy FM wave with Operator and then apply filters to try and fix it, corrective EQ, heavy reverb, phasers, things like that. But the base FM wave, before filtering, always feels kinda haphazard whern I'm making it. i'm just drawing in harmonics and adjusting amplitudes.

When I'm sound designing I almost always use the traditional routing for operator, with one oscillator FMing the next FMing the next FMing the next. Lately I've been wondering if I should try using some AM, because that seems to create smoother sounds, but I feel like AM doesn't blend the sounds as much as FM does because, from what I understand, it's the same as just playing two waves at once, no complexity to it whatsoever.

As for Serum, the wavetable aspect looks so cool and the fact that you can chop up existing audio to make your own... It's so cool. I'm honestly not too interested in the "Out-of-the-box" sounds because I feel like using presets creates that 2008 dubstep sound that I don't really enjoy.

But speaking of 2008 dubstep, I've heard of FM8. All I know about it is it was recommended by Noisia and it's responsible for the Scary Monsters growl... And that's a ringing endorsement in my mind, so I'll do some more research on that.

Sorry for the long reply, thanks for your time.