A firmware for the M-VAVE SMK-37 Pro for electroacoustic experimentation, live ambient music and sound exploration

Also for the M-VAVE FM-1 Tonitor for the FM-1 has its own site, installer and manual →

Tonitor turns the SMK-37 Pro into a self-contained six-track instrument: eight synthesis engines, loopers, sequencers, and three modes in which the other tracks play along with the one you play. It shares its sound engines with Tonitor for the M-VAVE FM-1; the panel, the manual and the builds are its own.

Features

Six tracks

On the first six pads of the top row, each in its colour, each with its own engine, sound, octave, level, pan and effects. They start as FM, ANIMA, CALIGULA, HIVE, DRUID and BAYAREA.

Every key plays

The 37 keys follow the chosen scale and root without gaps, black keys included; CHROMATIC plays the keyboard as printed. Each new session starts on a random scale and root; hold SCALE to draw another.

Eight engines

FM, ANIMA, CALIGULA, RUSSOLO, DRUID, BAYAREA, HIVE and OBRADOR, chosen per track (described below).

Sound generation

HOME draws a new sound for the track from the engine's families. Pads 7 and 8 bias the next sounds towards the AMBIENT or the EXPERIMENTAL path.

Eight macros

With MACRO on, the eight knobs turn eight parameters of the current sound, each engine its own.

REACT, SHADOW, ARP

The tracks you choose play along with the one you play. REACT improvises from a memory of your playing, in your scale and rhythm. SHADOW follows you at a distance, now and then backwards or moved along the scale. ARP breaks your chords into arpeggios at related speeds and follows your chord changes.

Loopers

Per track, with overdubs; played forwards, in reverse, back and forth or in random order, at half, normal or double speed, with STUTTER and CLIMB, all set on the bottom row of pads.

Gesture loops

Eight per track: your hands on the knobs and faders recorded and played back round and round, each at its own length, drifting against the notes so a sweep never lands in the same place twice.

BALLSY

A physics sequencer per track: balls bounce in a box, and each wall hit plays a note of the scale.

BRICKLAYER

A step sequencer per track, built a note at a time, with the loops' direction and speed.

Chords and latches

Eight chord shapes on the bottom pads. SHIFT and a key keep it sounding; SHIFT tapped twice lets every latch go.

Envelope

FADER BANK opens the sound's attack, decay, sustain and release.

Effects

On every track a filter that sweeps smoothly like an analog one, a granulator, a crush and a distortion, with sends to a master delay and a plate reverb.

Faders

Fader 1 morphs by hand from one snapshot to the next; fader 2 is SPACE, a throw of reverb and delay over the whole mix; fader 3 a master filter, low-pass down, high-pass up; fader 4 the master level.

Wheels

Pitch bend on the chosen track; the mod wheel adds vibrato and opens the sound's main tone control.

Snapshots

Sixteen a session, one on each pad: the whole machine at a moment, recalled at once, morphed into over up to 30 seconds, or by hand with fader 1.

Presets and sessions

Sounds stored per engine, named by family; sessions hold every track, sound, loop, latched note, setting and snapshot.

MIDI and audio

MIDI over USB in and out, MIDI OUT on the TRS jack, and USB audio: the master in stereo, or the six tracks on six channels to record them apart.

Accessible

Few words, very large type, high contrast, a colour per track on the screen and the pads.

Engines

What each engine costs the processor, and how much you can stack: engine costs.

FM

Six-operator FM, DX7 style. Patches are drawn from 25 families, among them bells, drones, noise, impacts, plucks, mallets and families learned from a large collection of DX7 patches.

Macros: BRIGHTNESS, DETUNE, SATURATION, MOTION, ATTACK, RELEASE, LFO RATE, VELOCITY.

ANIMA

A lo-fi synthesizer: wavetables, FM, grains, noise, filters and a resonator, all moved by a simulated hand while a key is held. Twenty-two kinds.

Macros: TONE, a macro for the design's main element, RESONATOR, MOTION, ATTACK, RELEASE, GRAIN SIZE, PHASER.

CALIGULA

Eight cross-modulating oscillators with feedback, delays and a simulated hand on the sensors. One organism per track; ten kinds.

Macros: WAVEFORM, MOD DEPTH, FEEDBACK, TOUCHES, ATTACK, RELEASE, SPREAD, DELAY TIME.

RUSSOLO

Noise, logic and broken buffers, crushed and sample-held. One voice per track; seventeen kinds.

Macros: two per kind, CRUSH, RANDOMNESS, ATTACK, RELEASE, CHORD, HOLD.

DRUID

Strings and resonant bodies: a string, sympathetic strings and a modal resonator, plucked, struck, bowed or rattled. Ten kinds.

Macros: STRUCTURE, BRIGHTNESS, DAMPING, POSITION, EXCITATION, BOW, DUST, MUTE.

BAYAREA

A West Coast voice: a morphing oscillator, through-zero FM, a wavefolder and a low-pass gate. Six kinds.

Macros: SHAPE, FOLDS, FM, DECAY, ATTACK, FM RATIO, SPRING, DRIVE.

HIVE

A swarm of oscillators per voice: detuned, stacked or on inharmonic partials, through a moving filter. Twelve kinds, from leads and pads to non-melodic textures.

Macros: DETUNE, MOVEMENT, MIX, CUTOFF, RESONANCE, FILTER ENV, RING, SHIMMER.

OBRADOR

An analog polysynth after the Oberheim SEM and the two-voice Oberheims: two oscillators and a second voice card, the SEM's filter morphing from low-pass through notch to high-pass, analog envelopes, a delayed LFO and each card's own drift. Ten kinds, from strings and brass to sync leads and metallic tones.

Macros: CUTOFF, MORPH, RESONANCE, DETUNE, FILTER ENV, LFO, DRIVE, VINTAGE.

Install

The installer runs in a desktop Chrome, Edge or Opera and talks to the SMK-37 Pro over USB MIDI. Nothing to download, nothing uploaded.

1. Back up the keyboard's flash first (how): parts of it are unique to each unit.
2. Connect the SMK-37 Pro with a USB data cable and switch it on.
3. Open the installer, read the warning and allow MIDI access.
4. Press Install and leave the keyboard connected until it restarts into Tonitor.