Screens

Norilsk on the FM-1's screen, as the firmware draws it: few words, very large type, high contrast, a colour for each generator — red, blue, green. Nothing else is drawn: no cables, no scopes.

The splash: the three stacks, their fumes and red reflection; NORILSK in stencil letters; BUILD 48

Power-on

The logo, as on this site: the stacks and their fumes, the lettering under them, the build at the foot.

The main view: smog at the top with the load and the battery; three rusty pipes, their effects on plates; three brick furnaces, generator 2 framed

The machine

The main view is a place. At the top, smog, drifting slowly, the audio's load at the left and the battery at the right. Under the ground, the three lanes as rusty pipes, each effect a section between bolted flanges, its name on a dark plate: XOR xor, MU mulaw, SPR spring, FLD fold, VOX vowel, STR string, TAP tape. At the foot, the three generators as brick furnaces, the fire in their colours.

Under each name a band in the colours of the generators feeding it; the plates the chosen generator feeds are filled with its colour; a section glows hotter as sound passes. A furnace burns brighter as its generator sounds. The chosen slot is framed in white.

A lane chosen

Its pipe framed in white. HOME draws it a new recipe; the first black key rewires it; SHIFT and the first black key throw its values (RAND PARAMS); its button held mutes it, and its pipe goes cold and grey. The white keys play nothing while an effect slot is chosen.

DISINTEGRATOR

KNOB 1 while playing: the chosen generator's DISINTEGRATOR, 0 to 100, over the whole screen for a moment, in the generator's colour. Its pulses gate, stutter, crush and throw that generator's sound about.

FX MIX

KNOB 2 while playing: how much of the chosen generator's lane is heard, 0 (DRY: each effect passes what reaches it) to 100 (WET: the effects alone). Each lane its own; 50 at power-on; kept in snapshots and sessions.

LANE 2 REWIRED on two lines over the top of the main view

Messages

What just happened, over the top of the screen for a moment: LANE 2 REWIRED, GEN 1 WIRE, OVERLOAD. One too wide for a line takes two; a line still too wide drops one size. No word runs off the screen.

Snapshots

SAVE: the session's sixteen snapshots, one to a white key. Stored ones glow, the one chosen is white, the one framed (PRESETS) outlined. A white key let go recalls, held stores the whole machine into it.

The morph

KNOB 1 on the SNAPSHOTS page: how long a recalled snapshot takes to flow into place, 0 to 30 seconds. Levels, pans, sends and values glide; sounds and effect chains cross over in turn.

Sessions

SHIFT + SAVE: the sixty-four session slots, four to a page, as Bigorna's. PRESETS moves through them; a saved session is white, an empty slot grey, the one loaded marked at its right. SAVE opens the one chosen.

A session's page

BACK; then what can be done with it: LOAD (NEW on an empty slot), SAVE, COPY, DELETE in red; then its settings. PRESETS moves through the rows, SAVE runs one, SHIFT + SAVE goes back. Saving over another session, copying over one and deleting ask first.

1 MOD A: from LFO 1 to BRIGHTNESS, amount +45, its movement now

Modulation

SEQ, a third time: the chosen slot's two LFOs and eight routes, A to H, each FROM a source TO a destination by an AMOUNT; NOW shows what it does at this moment.

DELAY: time 399 ms, feedback 50, damp 40, mix 50

The master

SEQ: the DELAY page, then the REVERB page — KNOB 1 to 4 each a row, the one turned shown black on white. KNOB 3 and KNOB 4 set each generator's sends to them.

GEN 1: MUTE FADE IN 4.5 S, MUTE FADE OUT 20 S, the second just turned

A generator's page

SHIFT and a generator's button: MUTE FADE IN on KNOB 1, MUTE FADE OUT on KNOB 2, OFF to 60 s. Holding the button to mute or unmute then fades the generator out or back in over that time. Its button to leave.

Clear

The black key beside SHIFT: a new session in place of the one loaded. NO first; PRESETS to YES, SAVE to answer. The session saved stays in the flash until you save over it.

Global setup

SHIFT held, SAVE held 0.8 s: the machine's settings, not a session's. MIDI and AUDIO; PRESETS moves, SAVE opens, SHIFT + SAVE goes back.

MIDI SEND: BACK, NOTES set ON in a white field, CC OFF

A setting

SAVE on a row: its value in a white field, PRESETS changes it, SAVE sets it; SHIFT + SAVE leaves it as it was. Names amber, values white.

USB audio

AUDIO > USB: STEREO, the master; or TRACKS, the three generators on three channels, each with its lane.

Presets

SHIFT held, ARP held 0.8 s: 64 slots for the generator being played, its colour on the band. Each preset named by its family and numbered within it. ARP loads, ARP held saves.

Overwrite

Saving over a full slot asks first, NO chosen. PRESETS to YES, ARP to answer.

FAMILY on a red band: CHIMNEY, CHOIR, CLOUD, CORONA chosen

Families

SHIFT held, PRESETS turned: the families in alphabetical order, four to a page. SHIFT + HOME draws a new sound of the one chosen. On an effect slot, the recipes.

The main view with generator 1 recording a loop (a white dot)

The looper

REC arms a loop on the chosen generator; the first note starts it, REC again ends it and it plays. A dot in the generator's furnace while it records.

The loops

PLAY held: the generator's loops on the white keys, each taken out or brought back; the 4th to 8th black keys, glowing, play them reversed, back and forth, at random, at half or double speed.

The scale

ARP: SELECT the root, ALGORITHM the scale (twenty-three of them). The white keys play its degrees from the root up.