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FirmwareM-VAVE FM-1

FMEL-1

AntonioAltea/fmel-1 · ★ 8

Mellotron-style firmware: tapes sampled from Bernie Kornowicz's 1973 M400S plus a SLOOP piano, mixable two at a time, with lo-fi tape effects.

Fork of Dinghy

README from GitHub, GPL-3.0

FMEL-1

The choir tape The LOFI page: the cassette

This is a personal project to create a few sounds I'm interested in for the M-VAVE FM-1 and SMK-37.

What is this?

This firmware, based on zvenson's dinghy, aims to reproduce Mellotron sounds and color them with some basic FX and lo-fi tape effects. It also lets you mix two different Mellotron sounds together.

Try it in your browser: the same code the keyboard runs, in a simulator (FM-1 or SMK-37). To install it, use the web installer (Chrome or Edge; FM-1 or SMK-37) or download the newest release.

It runs on the M-Vave FM-1 and the SMK-37 (Pro, Elite, MKE-P37). SMK-37 controls: SMK37.md.

Sounds

A FLUTE, B CHOIR, C CELLO, D VIBES, E SAX: Mellotron M400S tapes. F PIANO: a Steinway B.

New in 1.2

  • FLUTE: 1.0's again: its 12 tapes in IMA ADPCM, each key its own level, no low-pass. With LOFI and FX out, it plays as 1.0 to the sample. (1.1's had a whoosh at the start of its low notes.)
  • SAX: 8-bit PCM, now packed without loss: the same sound in 30 KB less.

New in 1.1

  • E SAX: Taijiguy's tenor sax tape. PIANO moves to F; saved settings follow it.
  • PIANO: VCSL's samples played clean (was SLOOP's LOFI KEYS).
  • SMK-37 support: 37 velocity keys, pads, faders, wheels, pedal.
  • SETUP > VELOCITY (SMK-37): how far the softest note drops. 0%: 0 dB. 50%: -20 dB. 100%: -40 dB.
  • Mod wheel (SMK-37, or MIDI CC 1): vibrato DEPTH, from the page's value to 100%, and its MIX to fully wet.
  • OCT- and OCT+ held 5 s: restart into USB rescue mode.
  • Tapes in block ADPCM (genkigenki's Erik37 format). Flute and sax in 8-bit PCM.
  • Installer and simulator: FM-1 / SMK-37 selector.
  • REC held 1 s clears the pattern (was SEL held, in step recording).
  • SEQ steps play at full level (SMK-37); playing over them does not change it.
  • AGE adds no hiss. HISS is the only hiss control.

Disclaimer

This is a hobby project, not an official M-VAVE thing. Install at your own risk. If something goes wrong, the installer's "If something goes wrong" section shows how to get back to the official firmware. Holding OCT- and OCT+ for 5 s restarts the keyboard into USB rescue mode.

The tapes

FMEL-1 plays real Mellotron tapes: the samples Bernie Kornowicz (Taijiguy) recorded from his 1973 Mellotron M400S, serial #500, with new tapes and frames, and shared on his site leisureland.us (via the Wayback Machine).

They are his work, not mine, and not under this repository's GPL licence. His terms, in his own words (KVR, 4 May 2021): "they are free to use, but cannot be used in any commercial, for profit software." FMEL-1 is free and not for profit, so it carries them: packed at 11025 Hz, a few seconds of each, as block ADPCM in genkigenki's Erik37 format (the flute as IMA ADPCM, the sax as packed 8-bit PCM) in firmware/gen/mel_tapes.h, and so inside every build (mel*.fwsc, the web version).

So: share FMEL-1 freely, but don't sell it, nor anything with these tapes in it. Thank you, Bernie.

The sixth sound, F PIANO, is not a Mellotron tape: it is four keys of a Steinway B from Versilian Studios' VCSL (public domain, CC0), as SLOOP cut them, played clean: an octave up from the keys, 1 s of each at 22050 Hz as 8-bit PCM (cleaner than the tapes' ADPCM), each key's own decay going on as it rings; about 88 KB.

To pack the tapes again (another selection, other lengths), fetch his originals (from his old site, via the Wayback Machine) and run the packer:

tools/get_tapes.sh                                  # into tapes/, which git ignores
tools/get_piano.sh                                  # the piano (SLOOP's), also into tapes/
tools/gen_tapes.py firmware/gen/mel_tapes.h

Credits

  • Drawings by my friend Javi
  • Dinghy by zvenson: the firmware FMEL-1 grew out of
  • genkigenki: the SMK-37 board layer (fm1-to-smk37), the first SMK-37 build of FMEL-1, the tapes' block ADPCM (Erik37)
  • Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments: the FM-1 platform underneath
  • SLOOP by isod89: its changes to that platform
  • FM-1-transporter by Leo Kuroshita: the rescue, if an update goes wrong
  • The Mellotron M400S tapes by Bernie Kornowicz (Taijiguy), from his site leisureland.us (via the Wayback Machine) (see above)
  • The browser version follows the emulators of X0X, Felucca and FoMni
  • The EQ: Felucca's SPEAKER EQ (FLAT, LOWCUT, BASS+), as it is there
  • The reverbs: HALL after Felucca's, PLATE Jon Dattorro's after FoMni's (Charles Vestal)
  • SELECT as the hand on the tape's reel: the idea is GHOULBOX's crank (jasonpersinger, ghoulbox-fm1-dungeon-synth)
  • Terminus by Dimitar Zhekov: the screen's font (SIL OFL 1.1)
  • JieLi AC79 SDK: the boot files a build is packaged with