A firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1 for electroacoustic experimentation, live ambient music and sound exploration

Features

Six tracks

Each with its own engine, sound, octave, level and pan.

Voices

Twelve voices shared by all tracks: each track takes as many as its notes need.

Four engines

FM, ANIMA, CALIGULA and RUSSOLO, chosen per track (described below).

Sound generation

HOME generates a new sound for the track from the engine's families of sounds.

Generative paths

Per track, new sounds can be biased towards ambient (darker, slower) or experimental (noisier, harder).

Macros

With EDIT on, the four knobs adjust four engine-specific parameters of the current sound.

Copy and paste

Holding a track's button copies its sound and loops; holding another's pastes them there.

Loopers

One per track, up to ten overdubs, each with its own length; each can be switched in and out. All the loops can be transposed together by steps of the scale.

Latching

Notes held when SHIFT is pressed keep sounding after the keys are released.

Filter, grains, crush

A resonant low/high-pass filter, a granulator and a bit-depth and sample-rate reducer on every track.

Reverb

A plate reverb (Dattorro) with a send from every track.

Scales

The white keys play a scale from any root.

Presets

64 per engine; a stored sound can be loaded on any track.

Sessions

64 slots holding every track, sound, loop, latched note and setting, the reverb included.

Low vision

Few words, very large type, high contrast, a colour per track.

Engines

FM

Six-operator frequency modulation in the style of the DX7, built on msfa (the core of Dexed): 32 algorithms, four-rate, four-level envelopes, operators on frequency ratios or fixed frequencies, operator feedback, an LFO and a pitch envelope. HOME generates a patch from one of twenty-two families, among them bells and gongs on inharmonic ratios, slowly beating drones, feedback noise, struck sounds with a falling pitch, sounds pulsed by the LFO, glissandi, formant vowels, odd-harmonic tones, ring-modulated bands, plucked strings, struck bars, and stranger ones: free ratios with a wandering pitch, sample-and-hold steps, bouncing pitch envelopes. Each patch is rendered once when it is generated and its level adjusted to a common loudness. Polyphonic, from the shared pool of voices.

Macros: BRIGHTNESS (modulation index), DETUNE or INHARMONIC (carriers and modulators detuned, or operators moved off their ratios), SATURATION (feedback and saturation, or a low-pass), MOTION (LFO depth and a tremolo).

ANIMA

A lo-fi engine: each voice is computed at half the sample rate (22.05 kHz, nothing above 11 kHz) and drawn out to the full rate by straight lines. A fixed-point port of the anima opcode from Vascular. A voice has two wavetable oscillators (24 single-cycle tables), an FM pair, a stack of up to four transposed copies, a grain generator, filtered noise, a resonant state-variable filter and a tremolo, followed by a sample-rate reducer, a waveshaper, a four-stage phaser, a second filter and a comb resonator tuned to the note. While a key is held, a simulated finger moves over a virtual surface; its position, pressure, speed and the time it has been down are routed to the voice's parameters through a modulation matrix. The key sets the pitch; the movement changes timbre, level and the resonator. Twenty-two kinds of design, among them plucked strings, reeds, organs, crushed pulses, drifting saws, grain clouds and whistling resonances; polyphonic, from the shared pool of voices.

Macros: TONE (all filter cutoffs, four octaves either way, and the FM's brightness), a macro for the main element of the design (GRAINS, NOISE, FM, FORMANT or DRIVE), RESONATOR (from dry to long ringing), MOTION (from a nearly still hand to a quick one with a tremolo).

CALIGULA

Modelled on the architecture of the SOMA LYRA-8, after Miguel Moreno's LIRA-8. Eight oscillators in four pairs, each variable from triangle to square. Each pair is frequency-modulated by its partner, by the other pair on its side, by a pair on the other side or by the engine's own output (total feedback). Two LFOs combined into one modulation source change the modulation depth and can gate pairs on and off. Two short modulated delay lines, a drive stage and the total feedback follow. One voice per track: the key sets the note the eight oscillators are tuned around, in intervals chosen when the sound is generated. While a key is held, a simulated hand touches the eight oscillators' sensors, at irregular times or in repeated patterns, and the engine adds short bursts and occasional rises of feedback and drive. Ten kinds of design.

Macros: WAVEFORM (triangle to square), MOD DEPTH (modulation depth), FEEDBACK or DELAY (total feedback and drive, or the delay), TOUCHES or GATE RATE (how often the hand touches, or the speed of the gating).

RUSSOLO

Noise, logic operations and generated buffers, after the techniques of Robert Heel's Noisferatu. It runs at a third of the sample rate in 10-bit values, then reduces bits and holds samples further. Seventeen kinds in four groups: noise (sample-and-hold noise, random clicks through a low-pass, noise gated by two triangles, clicks ringing on short pitched decays); oscillators combined by NOR, XOR or multiplication, squares modulating squares, and triangles at an inharmonic ratio redrawn on a clock; a generated buffer of noise, saw and silent chunks, read at the key's speed, with random jumps, a wandering window, or its address bits forced, flipped or held; and tones fired by chance on the key's harmonics, a random walk over a scale, and slowly beating chords. The key opens an envelope and sets the pitch or read speed. One voice per track.

Macros: two parameters specific to the kind (for example RATIO and DRIFT, or DENSITY and CLOCK), CRUSH (bit depth and sample hold) and RANDOMNESS (how much chance drives it; above the middle it also stutters).

Install

The installer runs in a desktop Chrome, Edge or Opera and talks to the FM-1 over USB MIDI. Nothing to download, nothing uploaded.

1. Connect the FM-1 with a USB data cable and switch it on.
2. Open the installer, read the warning and allow MIDI access.
3. Press Install and leave the FM-1 connected until it restarts into Tonitor.