At Bad Mister. They really do not sound like gunshots to those of us addicted to cars and bikes.

I'm addicted to motorcycles and backfires are definitely in the same family with gunshots, IMO.
Yeah, not identical, but similar -- the volumes involved, the speed of the gases are different, but apart from that it's the same thing.
So if you can find an explanation on how to do gunshots in FM, that should get you pretty close 😉

The goal is to produce a backfire sound with no other context that would be recognizable by other enthusiasts who are suitably trained to recognize the sound?

And you want to produce this sound not by sampling, but by synthesis using FM-X?

Is that an accurate summary?

The goal is to produce a backfire sound with no other context that would be recognizable by other enthusiasts who are suitably trained to recognize the sound?

And you want to produce this sound not by sampling, but by synthesis using FM-X?

Is that an accurate summary?

Not quite. Once I have a vague handle on how to give it the characteristics of a car/bike's backfire, I'd extensively caricature it, such that folks like Dragos couldn't fail to identify it as being from a car or bike, particularly those with more distinctive sounds.

Yes, with FM- ideally. I suspect FM's ability to rapidly control the tonality/timbre of noise will make it ideal, as well as to express the ringing sounds it can make in the manner that there's signifiant resonance coming off the titanium canisters of better exhausts when they're "rung like a bell" by the backfires.