Abstracf-Seymour Stein, in a 1964 paper entitled "Unified Analysis of Certain Coherent and Noncoherent Binary Communications Systems," unified the theory for analyzing the bit error probability (BEP) of generalized BPSK and FSK communication systems. This unified theory is powerful because the results are truly general, the expressions for the BEP are functions of well studied transcendental functions (Marcum's Q-function, etc.), and the analysis technique is ideal for digitally implemented demodulator analysis. This unified analysis requires that the demodulation phase reference signal and the matched filter output both be complex (bandpass) Gaussian random processes. Stein's method can be extended to the analysis of the BEP of QPSK, staggered QPSK, and MSK communication systems. The resultant noisy reference BEP waterfall curves are presented. The numerical advantages of this technique and some practical results are discussed. In a parallel manner the BEP for QAM communication systems can be analyzed. This technique is numerically more intensive but is used to generate noisy reference BEP waterfall curves for 16 QAM and 64 QAM modulations. Unfortunately, few carrier synchronizers produce a complex Gaussian reference signal, but pragmatically many reference signals can be accurately approximated by a complex Gaussian at moderate to high SNR A comparison between actual BEP performance and the approximate results are presented.